Family visits make you sweat buckets.

You see the event on the calendar and your stomach drops into your feet. At home with your partner and your kids, you can be yourself, but at birthdays, holidays, or cookouts with extended family, you paste on a fake smile and strap on your psychic armor to withstand the incoming passive-aggressive minefield. You hate it, but it’s FAMILY. The thought of losing family connections makes you absolutely sick to your stomach, but so does the idea of playing perpetual peacemaker and juggling everyone’s baggage just so you can eat some turkey and mashed potatoes in peace.

There’s an elephant in the room and it’s making you feel crazy.

You’ve always tippy toed around the family minefields. You know about the ongoing unspoken 15-year grudge that Aunt Marge has against you because of some little perceived slight. You’re aware of the creepy ways cousin Teddy crosses the line. You see every little frustrating dynamic, but you keep your mouth shut because you know if you speak up, you’ll be told you’re blowing things up for no reason. So, you zip your lip and suffer in silence.

But some part of you knows it doesn’t have to be this way.

You don’t want any more important events with your loved ones ruined by drama. You want to stop trying to fix something that you didn’t even break and lean into the “easy” relationships that let you be your authentic self. You know you need to learn to stop giving such a damn, because you’re running pretty low on damns to give.

Online Trauma and Anxiety Counselor in Naperville for People Pleasers and Peacemakers

My name is Jenna, and I am a trauma and anxiety counselor in Naperville, here to help the peacekeeping, people-pleasing women of the world empower themselves to stop walking on eggshells and to learn what life is like when you can trust in yourself and focus on the people and things that fill your cup instead of draining it dry. 

With therapy, you can learn skills to calm an anxious gut and racing mind. You'll learn ways to not let people’s crappiness get under your skin, so that you can honestly say, “Wow, I don’t care. See you next Christmas.”  My clients say they appreciate knowing I’ll never treat anything they say as silly or overblown, but also that I won’t stop at “oh poor baby” and will call them out kindly on their b.s. and tell it like it is. Discussing things so openly is often a relief compared to feeling like you have to tippy toe around every subject.

Let me help you retire your peacekeeper role.

If you are looking for a counselor in Naperville to help you learn how to unapologetically and confidently hand people back their baggage so that you can feel okay to be your authentic self, get rid of that pit in your stomach, and get back to the important things in your life, click the button below to go to my contact page and request a FREE 15-minute consultation to see if therapy with me might be a good fit! If I am not the right person, I’ll do my best to give resources to help get you to the right person. I’d love to help however I can.