Sort of...
Losing the name and rebranding is actually a big step forward for me.
When I started Covenant 7 years ago, I was at a certain place in my personal and professional journey. As you can imagine, starting a practice can be a daunting thing. In the 60 hours of master’s level training we need to even get up to the basics of being a therapist, approximately zero is spent on actually building and running a business.
There was also the whole pandemic thing … you know, when I wrote all my clients and said, “hey we’re going to bunker down for 3 weeks, and this will probably pass by us just like Y2K did, and we’ll just have a good chuckle about it.” (in case you were wondering, therapists can – in fact – be wrong).
So in 7 years, I went from a teletherapy practice, to brick-and-mortar, back to teletherapy. And while it has some amazing advantages, there are some bigger challenges with certain age groups and demographics. Thus the “family” aspect has changed.
In the same way, I chose “Wellness” to reflect that I wanted a practice based on healing, not wounding. I wanted to be proactive for growth. In retrospect, that was kind of a dumb choice, because most people looking for counselors actually look for really subtle keywords ... like "counselor." In the words of the great poets of old, “Why you gotta make things so complicated?”
And lastly “Covenant” was chosen to reflect a faith-based practice that I wanted to incorporate, but not in such an overt way to dissuade those who move away from such pursuits. Through time and working with so many of you, I have found that a large portion of my clients want either counseling that incorporates their faith and understands it, or counseling that understands the wounds that the church has given (religious / spiritual trauma). The word “covenant” hasn’t incorporated that as well as I would like.
In the midst of all of this, I have done some coaching under the brand “Misfit Refuge” and have found that it really resonates with the people I seek – neurodivergent, spiritual, geeky “misfits” who don’t want to be changed, but would rather learn how to utilize their strengths and nature to start a new chapter of their story.
Thus after about 6 months of deliberation, I opted to make the rebranding change to “Misfit Refuge Counseling.” You’ll notice our new website tries to embrace more of the “weirdo” aspect.
Now all that being said, if you don’t resonate or identify with any of this, and still enjoy working with me – you’re still more than welcome. The Refuge should be a safe place for everyone to come and heal. And yes, that includes you.
Have I overcommunicated enough? Good. It’s what I do. We ND’s love our stories, and I’m no exception. If you’re still hanging in here, give yourself a big pat on the back ... and question what else you could have been doing with this time 😉