Deborah Lancaster, LMFT

05/16/2025

Thursday Therapy Thoughts: Taking care of yourself surrounding therapy is critical. Schedule yourself as wisely and gently as you can.
For more ways you can get the most bang for your buck in therapy, visit: https://deborahlancastercounseling.com/5-ways-to-get-the-most-bang-for-your-buck-in-therapy/

05/08/2025

“Limits”.
It isn’t a word we like. In fact, most of us only tend to find it tolerable when combined with the words: “pushing…”, “beyond…” or “no…”.
We like to deny their very existence, claiming they only exist in our minds - a figment of our imagination or a lack of willpower.
Inspirational quotes by the thousands will tell you that glory, healing, and success are there, right on the other side, just waiting for you to push yourself a little further. Just keep believing it’s possible.
Now, as a Christian, I am a big fan of faith - believing in something that may seem foolish to others. And I think there is a time and a place for this type of belief - stubborn, unshakable, persistent.
BU
I would argue that to deny our limits, to persist in pretending they don’t exist, is to deny our humanity and to end up denying ourselves an opportunity for the freedom that comes from reaching the end of ourselves and learning that it’s ok.
What if there is great beauty in acknowledging, accepting and maybe even celebrating our limits. What if we changed the narrative to say something like:
You are wildly capable of way more than you than you can imagine…
BUT
It’s also ok to be human, to hit your wall, to have had enough, to be tired or burned out.
Scripture is full of examples of God choosing and using the exceptionally limited of the world to accomplish his purposes. He tells us that it is in our weaknesses that his strength is shown.
So, what if, instead of despising or denying our limits, we came to believe that our limits are God-given, ordained, and intentional. That, maybe our neediness, our weakness, our limitations, might be the places where we experience the gift of surrender, find deep connection, and receive wild freedom.

03/05/2025

When your relationship feels really hard and you’re overwhelmed, no one wants to wait weeks or months to get things back on track with your partner.

A 3-day couples intensive is an extremely quick and effective way to turn a corner in your relationship. You get months of therapy in just 3 days.

Marriage is hard. An intensive is an investment.

But investing in your marriage is a gift that you give yourself, your kids, your families and even your community. What’s more important than making things work, or even thrive, at home?

03/04/2025

“It’s always darkest just before the dawn.”

Because just before the dawn, we are so very weary of the night. Hope begins to fail. Endurance begins to falter. The darkness seems to have won.

In those moments, we cannot see that day is coming.
But it is.
It is coming.

The night will not endure.
In the light of the rising sun, shadows will flee.
Darkness will be undone.

As a therapist, it is often my privilege to hold hope for those who cannot yet hold it for themselves. And if I’m being honest, it’s one of my favorite things I get to do. Because holding hope for another is exciting! It feels like you’re privy to a coming surprise that you know your friend will love and be thrilled about, if only they knew it was coming. It’s exciting because I believe it. With every fiber of my being. And I love being able to believe it for you too. And soon, we will believe it, together.

02/26/2025

https://deborahlancastercounseling.com/5-ways-to-get-the-most-bang-for-your-buck-in-therapy/
Therapy is an investment - new blog on how to get the most out of it!

02/14/2025

Just a few Valentines tips from your friendly, neighborhood marriage therapist on how to increase romance in your relationship, today!
https://deborahlancastercounseling.com/turn-up-the-romance-5-quick-tips-to-bring-the-spark-back/

02/12/2025

A little more about what the process looks like for a weekend Couples Intensive. Go to my website for more information or to book an intake phone call! https://deborahlancastercounseling.com/intensive-therapy/

01/22/2025

Read this somewhere (no author to credit) and thought it was compelling. What do you think? How would you define success?

01/20/2025

Communication is hard!! Assumptions make it harder.

01/03/2025

As 2024 draws to a close and 2025 takes its first breaths, I’m feeling very reflective. As many of us do, I love new beginnings…the shiny excitement of a birth, a fresh opportunity, full of possibilities. That’s the fun part, right? Goals, vision casting, looking forward.
But this year, I’m finding myself drawn towards the stillness of reflection, on what has been and on what is. As 2024 breathed its last, so did two precious women who I admired greatly and held dear. One whose life felt entirely too brief, and one who concluded her story with the fullness of many decades behind her. And as I consider the ways these women have held me, influenced me, empowered me, loved me and shaped my story, I cannot help but be tremendously grateful. And a bit regretful. I wish I could tell them, one more time, just how much they meant. To make sure they knew how deeply they mattered. That their examples of strength have shaped the woman I want to be: one gentle, patiently loving, gracious and wise beyond her years; one hard-working, diligent, servant-hearted, and humble with tenacity and grit that awed me. If I’d had that last chat with them, one of them, in her deeply compassionate way, would have held space for me waxing emotive with my words of gratitude, gently receiving and reciprocating in her generous way. And the other, a woman from an era of unspoken affection, uncomfortable with displays of sentimentality, would have chuckled and brushed it off, moving on to ask me if I needed something to eat, because her love was showed best in action.
A bit regretful, yes. But overarchingly grateful. To have known them. To have learned from them. And to have loved them.
So as I reflect on what has been, I’m also finding great joy in what is. In these early days of 2025, I am so grateful to get to celebrate and honor these two women’s lives. To learn from them on what it is to live well, and to enter into the new year celebrating the women they were and the gifts they’ve given me. To enter 2025 with an opportunity to truly consider, to pause, breathing deeply and allowing grief and gratitude to distill the chaos of distractions into the simplicity of the truly important.

11/28/2024

11/21/2024

Today was a good day. A tiring day, but a good one. Sitting with clients in the spaces they bring into the room: war-torn and discouraged by marriage, angry and somewhat desperate over life’s frustrations, grieving and weary, intentional and invested. I ping-pong all over the gamut of emotions throughout the day, working to align and attune to each client in the room; a task which is especially tricky when the client is a couple working from very disparate experiences.

How do I help them feel seen, heard, and understood, while coaxing them gently towards reframing, practicing empathy, compassion (towards self or others), curiosity, and acceptance? In truth, sometimes, I do it much better than others. There are moments, of deep attunement, where the words come at just the right time. But there are many other moments that miss the mark. Moments where I throw out a gentle conjecture, only to have the client give me a puzzled look and attempt to let me down easily, “No…that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s more like…” Or moments where the question I posit is met with dead air.

So we pivot, and adjust until we find the right fit; the phrase that, when posed to them, is met with shoulders relaxing and eyes softening. A sigh of recognition, of being seen and understood. Those are the moments.

This work is an exhausting one, a challenging one and often very humbling. As a therapist, I have to ensure that I do what I need to do so that I can authentically enter into the deep with my clients. And while some days, I do it better than others, when we enter into those sacred places of understanding and growth together, it is magical. Lifegiving. And totally worth it.