Languishing in adulthood therapy
Reconnecting with Meaning and Vitality When You Feel Stuck
Languishing in adulthood therapy addresses the distinct sense of stuck-ness that settles in when you feel you are no longer who you were, but have not yet become who you are meant to be. This state isn't necessarily a crisis, but it is far from thriving; it is a liminal space where you may feel disconnected from your purpose or overwhelmed by inner conflict. If you are an emotionally curious, creative soul in your 20s, 30s, or 40s searching for something deeper than traditional talk therapy, this approach offers a compassionate path to explore the "why" behind your behaviors and integrate your shadow parts.
I provide online languishing in adulthood therapy for adults throughout Sonoma County, the North Bay Area, Seattle, Washington State, and New York State who are navigating the complex space between depression and flourishing. My practice offers a deshaming, personalized environment where we can use tools like Internal Family Systems (IFS) and depth-oriented psychotherapy to help you engage with your inner parts and move toward a more authentic, integrated self
What Is Languishing in Adulthood?
Languishing is the space between depression and flourishing—a sense of being "stuck" or simply going through the motions. As you step and settle into adulthood, you may notice feelings of emptiness, dullness, stagnation, or disconnection from yourself, others, your community, or your career. You might feel unmotivated or uncertain about your direction, even when everything seems "fine" on the surface.
For artists, intuitives, and sensitive individuals, this feeling can be particularly disorienting. You're used to experiencing the world in rich textures and vibrant hues. When that capacity dims, when the sensitivity that felt like a gift becomes overwhelmingly static, the confusion can be profound. You're functioning and meeting your responsibilities, but you're not truly thriving or feeling connected to the vitality you once knew.
The Unique Challenge of Adult Life Transitions
Adult life transitions carry a weight that earlier passages don't prepare us for. Unlike structured transitions of youth, adult transitions often lack clear markers or communal recognition. These might include:
Moving to a new city or relocating within California or Washington, leaving a long-term relationship or questioning your partnership, confronting the reality that your 30s or 40s look nothing like you imagined, recognizing that who you've been doesn't align with who you're becoming, or finally acknowledging parts of yourself you've kept hidden—your queerness, your creativity, your need for depth.
What makes these transitions particularly challenging is that they often happen internally before they manifest externally. The gap between your external circumstances and internal reality creates a specific kind of loneliness that traditional therapy approaches sometimes miss.
My Integrative Approach to Languishing in Adulthood Therapy
I work with adults who are already on a healing path and seeking deeper, more integrative tools to support their growth. In our individual therapy work together, we'll explore your experiences of languishing, understand the stories and expectations that have shaped your idea of adulthood, and gently reconnect you with what brings meaning and vitality to your life.
Our work may include cultivating small practices to move toward flourishing, inviting curiosity and playfulness into your adult narrative, and building a deeper sense of connection to yourself, your values, and the world around you. I blend Internal Family Systems (IFS), depth-oriented psychotherapy, expressive arts therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to create a therapeutic experience that honors creativity, emotional complexity, and inner truth.
Internal Family Systems: Understanding Your Inner Landscape
IFS recognizes that we're not just one unified self, but a collection of different parts, each with its own perspective and protective strategies. When you're languishing, it's often because your parts are in conflict—the part that wants growth is being held back by the part that fears the unknown. The creative part needs expression while the productive part insists on measurable outcomes.
I help you get curious about these parts rather than trying to override them. Through dialogue and exploration, we discover what each part is trying to protect you from, what it needs to relax its role, and how your parts can work together rather than at cross-purposes. This is where genuine integration happens.
Depth Work: Exploring the Why Behind Your Experience
I recognize that surface-level changes often don't address the root of your stuck-ness. Sometimes we need to go deeper—to explore unconscious patterns, unspoken family narratives, and cultural conditioning that shapes how you move through the world.
When you're languishing, there's usually something beneath the surface waiting to be acknowledged. Perhaps it's grief for the life you thought you'd have. Perhaps it's rage turned inward. Perhaps it's a longing for something you can't quite name—a truer expression of self, a life that honors all your dimensions.
For emotionally curious individuals seeking to understand the "why" behind their behavior, this depth-oriented approach offers the substantive exploration that feels satisfying and leads to authentic transformation.
Creative Expression as a Therapeutic Tool
For creative individuals, the creative process itself becomes therapeutic—a way to access and integrate parts of yourself that words alone can't reach. I incorporate expressive arts therapy into our work, inviting you to engage with your inner world through writing, drawing, or other forms of creative expression that feel natural to you.
Between sessions, I provide parts therapy prompts to help you reflect on, journal about, or creatively engage with the parts we're exploring together. This ongoing dialogue helps the work extend beyond our sessions and integrate into your daily life.
Somatic and Values-Based Approaches
Life transitions live in your body—the anxiety as tight shoulders, the depression as heaviness in your chest. I incorporate Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) to help your nervous system regulate and release stored tension, providing practical tools for working with overwhelm.
Through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we identify your values and explore how to take committed action aligned with those values—even in the presence of discomfort. This psychological flexibility allows you to move forward while still feeling uncertain, to create a life aligned with what matters most.
What Working Together Looks Like
We begin with a consultation to explore what brings you to therapy, what you've already tried, and whether this approach feels right for where you are. You'll get a felt sense of what our sessions feel like, and we'll decide together if we want to work together.
If we proceed, I conduct an intake assessment over the first three appointments, exploring different aspects of your story—family, cultural, social, medical, and mental health history. After the intake, we identify three to five goals to guide our work together.
When possible, I work with clients weekly at a scheduled recurring time. This consistency provides a reliable anchor as you navigate uncertain territory. Between sessions, I encourage you to stay in relationship with the work through reflection, journaling, and creative engagement with the material that's surfacing.
Please note that I don't offer emergency crisis services. The work we do together is deep and transformative, unfolding at a pace that honors your system's capacity.
Who This Approach Serves
My practice is designed for emotionally curious and creative individuals who are already familiar with therapy and inner work. You're seeking depth, poetic language, and tools to integrate different parts of yourself into a harmonious whole. You're drawn to shadow work, parts work, and self-expression as forms of healing.
You're not looking for quick fixes or surface-level symptom management. You want to understand the "why" behind your behavior and create meaningful, lasting change that honors your creativity, sensitivity, and emotional complexity.
Specialties and Issues I Address
I specialize in languishing in adulthood therapy, helping clients navigate the space between depression and flourishing when they feel stuck, disconnected, or uncertain about their direction. Within this specialty, I work with life transitions and the complex feelings that arise when you're no longer who you were but haven't yet become who you're meant to be. I also address anxiety, trauma, and depression as they show up during these transitional periods.
Beginning Your Journey
If this approach resonates with you—if you recognize yourself in the experience of languishing, if you're drawn to integrative depth work that honors creativity and complexity—I invite you to reach out.
I provide online therapy sessions for adults and young adults throughout Sonoma County, the North Bay Area of California, Seattle, Washington State, and New York State. Contact me through www.creatinganintegratedself.com to schedule a consultation where we can discuss whether we're a good fit and address any questions about scheduling and pricing.
Your languishing might be the beginning of your becoming. You don't have to navigate this transition alone. Together, we can explore what's waiting to emerge in the in-between space, integrating all parts of you into a life that feels authentic, expansive, and truly yours.
Location:
Sonoma County, CA
Seattle, WA
New York
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Languishing is often described as a sense of "stagnation" or feeling "blah," where you aren't necessarily experiencing a mental illness, but you aren't flourishing either. In my practice, I view languishing as an invitation to look deeper at the parts of you that may feel quiet, uninspired, or disconnected from your creative truth.
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If you feel like you are moving through life on autopilot, lacking a "why" behind your behaviors, or feeling a persistent sense of emptiness despite things being "fine," you may benefit from this work. I help emotionally curious individuals explore these subtle inner conflicts to rediscover a sense of sacred purpose.
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Common signs include a lack of motivation, feeling "stuck" in life transitions, and a diminished sense of joy or creativity. You might feel like a sensitive soul who has lost touch with your intuitive spark, making daily adulthood feel like an overwhelming weight rather than an expansive journey.
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Often, languishing stems from internal family systems that are out of balance, where certain "parts" of you—perhaps the creative or intuitive ones—have been sidelined to keep up with the demands of adulthood. My approach uses depth work to uncover these roots and integrate these parts into a harmonious whole.
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IFS allows us to have a compassionate, deshaming dialogue with the different parts of you that feel stagnant or protective. By making contact with these parts, we can understand the "why" behind your stagnation and gently lead your system back toward a state of flow and self-expression.
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We might use a combination of depth-oriented prompts and expressive arts therapy to visualize what your "stagnation" looks like. I might provide you with specific parts therapy prompts for journaling between sessions to help you maintain a continuous conversation with your inner world.
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Unlike traditional talk therapy that may focus solely on symptom reduction, I offer a poetic and integrative space that blends IFS, Tapping (EFT), and depth work. This is a personalized path designed for those who want to integrate their emotional complexity rather than just "fixing" a problem.
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We start with a consultation to see if we have a "felt sense" of connection, followed by a three-appointment intake where we explore your family, cultural, and mental health history. From there, we will identify 3 to 5 specific goals to guide our weekly journey toward your healing.
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Yes, my ideal clients are creative, intuitive, and sensitive souls—often artists or those in their 20s to 40s—who crave a deeper, more mystical approach to healing. I honor your emotional complexity and offer a space that feels both authentic and expansive.
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Since I provide online sessions only, you can reach out directly to me to discuss pricing and scheduling for an initial consultation. Together, we can determine if my personalized, depth-oriented approach is the right fit for your continued healing path.
Creating an Integrated Self is a solo therapy practice designed for emotionally curious and creative individuals, specifically artists and sensitive souls in their 20s to 40s, who are seeking to understand the underlying reasons for their behaviors through parts work and shadow work. Operating exclusively online for clients in Sonoma County, Seattle, and New York, the practice specializes in treating anxiety, trauma, depression, and life transitions through an integrative blend of modalities that includes Internal Family Systems (IFS), Depth-Oriented Psychotherapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. The website reflects a compassionate, deshaming approach that prioritizes personalized care over one-size-fits-all narratives, offering deep, transformative tools for clients who may already have prior therapy experience but seek greater integration.