Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole O’Hare.
Nicole, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I think this is a great question about how I got started and how I became a therapist and where I am currently in my private practice. I always wanted to be in the mental health field and when I initially graduated from high school, that was my plan was to get my bachelor’s in psychology. I continued on that path for a few years until I had my son, which changed things for me in regards to being a full-time student. My son was About 18 months old when I decided I needed to go back to school and pursue my bachelor’s degree. I took a few classes at the community college to figure out if I wanted to continue on the path of getting my bachelor’s in psychology. I actually switched my major to nursing and quickly found out that path was not for me, and this lead me back to original path of psychology. I graduated with my BA in psychology in 2012, and I knew that I wanted to continue with getting my MA in counseling.
One month after graduating with my BA, I started my graduate program at Grand Canyon University. It was pretty challenging being a full-time graduate student, a mother, working full-time and making time for my significant other. I was managing so many roles every day, and it was such a long journey with so many ups and downs along the way. I really just kept telling myself that I needed to push forward and to keep moving forward. During the first year of graduate school, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and this made things even more challenging. I was exhausted. Mentally, physically and emotionally, I was struggling. It was really hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was determined to finish what I started, but I was really questioning if it was worth it. I was missing out on a lot of time with family and there were so many sacrifices being made in many areas of my life. It was about midway through my program that I realized I wanted to finish my program even if that meant that it would take me years to do it. And, it did-It took my eleven years to be exact. graduated with my MA degree in 10/15, which happened to be the same day as my wedding!
The planning of that is actually pretty laughable because much of my life has a theme of not going as planned, and I have now learned to embrace the hell out of it. It took a few years to get the point of becoming independently licensed, which is a whole other journey in and of itself. I worked in a few private practice group settings, and I knew that when I got to the point of being independently licensed, which is the point that a therapist no longer needs to be supervised, I would open up my on private practice. When I say that it has been bold, sweat and tears to get to this point, I really mean it. It was literally an uphill battle for my family and myself to get to the point of having my own private practice, where I get build a culture that I want and not what someone else wants. All the struggles and battles that I fought to get here over the past eleven years helped me create a vision for my practice; it helped me see that mental health needs to be affordable, accessible, and inclusive.
As a Latina, mental health was not something I grew up talking about or something that my family supported. We did not talk about the things that we struggled with and it was seen as being weak when we showed emotions or asked for help. This right here is why I am back on this path! You can call it Divine Intervention, or as I like to say, the Universe guided me along the way and lead me back to the path that was meant for me. Where I am today is right where I am meant to be. Every challenge was setting me up to get this point of where I am today. I started my private practice the day that it was announced it was a Global Pandemic-fitting, I suppose! Once again, the plan never goes as planned. I quickly had to pivot my plans, shift things around and moved my practice to Telehealth, all within the matter of a few weeks. It was a huge challenge with so many unknowns, Mostly, I was nervous about my health, my family and what this meant as a new business owner. It was pretty touch and go there for a while. Fast forward seven months, and I am at full capacity and hiring in the next month or so. I had to let go of what I thought things were going to look like and just embrace the hell out of this journey! What a wild ride it has been over the past eleven years!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, not at all. I am not even sure what a smooth road looks like. There were so many challenges and obstacles along the journey that it almost seems unreal-Like did this really happen? Yes, it really did happen and it was really hard to get to this point in my life and in my career. Nothing about this journey has been easy. And honestly, because of that, I have learned what it means to have grit, resiliency, determination, and most importantly patience. I think one of the biggest challenges for me has been having to manage my physical health through all of this.
There are too many struggles to name, and I could be here all day, but what I have come to find out is that each struggle was a test for me. Each struggle that didn’t go the way that I wanted it to, was a way for me to learn from it, grown from it, adapt, and move forward in a different direction. I was once told that I can chose to take the path with least resistance if I want. I was like, what does that even mean? It was through the struggles, challenges, and even disappointments that I found out what that meant to me. Of course, I am still working on that and shifting my mindset to see the struggles as opportunities to grow and learn more about myself.
Please tell us about A Beautiful Soul Holistic Counseling.
A Beautiful Soul Holistic Counseling-My practice is like my baby! I really light up when I talk about it and the direction that my practice is going. I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor and I specialize in a few scopes. I am a Certified Mental Health Integrative Medicine Provider. I am a Certified Professional in Integrative Medicine and Nutrition for Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Professional. I am Level-3 trained as a Gottman couples therapist. And, I specialize in working with individuals that have been impacted by generational trauma. I have recently began proving services to individuals of mixed status families and folks that have been impacted by immigration status issues. I utilize a more holistic and integrative approach to healing. This means a various approaches to healing the Mind, Body, and Soul.
I am an electric therapist, so each client will have an individualized treatment plan that is tailored to their needs based off of their history. I think what sets us apart from other practices, is that I really emphasize and Holistic approach to healing. It really is about being in alignment with the whole body-the idea that the body is whole and healing. In order to facilitate experiences that help clients experience and “move” their feelings, it means that as the clinician I need to not only be able to move my own feelings, but to understand how to do this without losing our therapeutic balance. Essentially, maintaining appropriate boundaries is necessary in order to balance attuning to my clients while simultaneously attuning to myself.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is subjective, right? If I had to really define this sort of arbitrary meaning, I would say that success is always changing. It means that there is growing, adapting, evolving, and learning that continues to happen along the journey and success continues along the way. I have never really prescribed to the idea that If I get here, then I will be successful. Although, that is pretty much how I was raised. My father is an immigrant, and he grew up with absolutely nothing, pretty poor and from a very impoverished area in Ecuador, so I was raised to believe that success meant money, nice cars, and huge homes. I don’t fault my dad for this belief system, this is what he knows his success to be, but I in no way believe this to be my definition of success. I am really breaking so many generational traumas that have been passed down to me, but it ends with me. So, when I am thinking about what success feels like, what it looks like, I can really say that if I am counting to grow and evolve, learn and adapt, then perhaps that is what success can be defined as.
Contact Info:
- Address: A Beautiful Soul Holistic Counseling
1820 E Ray Rd Suite #A-109
Chandler, AZ 85225 - Website: www.beautifulsoulcounseling.com
- Phone: 6023236209
- Email: nicole@beautifulsoulcounseling.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/beautiful_soul_counseling
- Facebook: Facebook.com/nicoleoharelpc
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