Wise Heart Families

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United States
Fayetteville, AR
Wise Heart Families

Grow Closer, Stronger, Wiser through Emotionally Focused Therapy.

ICEEFT Certified Therapist & Supervisor offering counseling for couples, families & individuals, and EFT consultation & supervision for therapists.

09/17/2025

Great fun & deep learning were had at the first ever, in-person Focus Lab! Loved sharing the experience with this crew of amazing EFT therapists!

05/27/2025

🪷 Thank you for sharing this lovely quote. 🪷

04/25/2024

The world has lost a champion for love with the passing of Sue Johnson on April 24, 2024. She will be sorely missed, though her legacy lives on in every life touched by EFT. My heart is heavy with grief and also full with gratitude for all that her work has made possible in my own life. Sue's ground breaking work gave birth to a global community of EFT clinicians; may we all find strength and comfort in one another as we come together to mourn her passing.

12/12/2023

Excited to share this IN PERSON one day workshop for therapists I'll be leading in January! If you're curious about polyvagal theory and you use Emotionally Focused Therapy in your practice, this is the workshop for you! I hope to see you there 💜

08/16/2022

Not Alone, Sophie Araque-Liu's winning Google Doodle, offers powerful, poignant wisdom for all of us, both in her lovely drawing and her personal comments: "I care for myself by accepting others' care for me. Often, I struggle to shoulder a burden on my own, and forget that I have so many people, like my mom, who care about me and want to help me. Opening up and letting others support me not only relieves my stress -- it also lets me tackle things I could never do on my own." 💜
Sophie is in high school. She submitted her drawing as part of Google's annual contest.

11/16/2021

The heart is heavy after loss...the ache of knowing you'll never again see that smiling face, those twinkling eyes beaming back at you. Somehow the difficult moments fade and the cherished ones stand out. It is effort to recall the pain...and sad to relive the good...there are no more opportunities to do...anything.

Yet Life goes on, as if nothing has changed - when nothing is the same. Each moment brings another opportunity to remember anew what you've lost...and be reminded again how precious is love, how irreplaceable...and how final death.

Grief shows up to help us keep our heart alive when the part belonging to someone else is suddenly gone. Sometimes our heart does die - figuratively or literally. Anyone who holds a part of our heart takes a piece of us with them to the grave; Grief steps in to help us seal off the tear so the whole of us doesn't follow.

Grief understands we won't like what must be experienced in order to keep on living. She also understands there's no other way. I kind of imagine her as an ancient and steadfast being, infused with lovingkindness, regretful - and yet not - of the pain and suffering we experience, looking at us with patient, sad eyes, seeking to impart her wisdom.

Sometimes, though, we are slow learners...and not at all interested in setting out the welcome mat for her.

07/11/2021

Our nervous system activates defense mode for a reason - to get us OUT of danger (or keep us alive while waiting for the danger to pass). When we are chronically exposed to danger, though, without the ability to escape or overcome it, and especially if we've been/felt alone in facing that danger, then the nervous system stays chronically in defense mode and can lose the ability to register the absence of danger - i.e. to identify "safe" or "safe enough." We're left with a body sense of feeling chronically under threat - and our responses to life and relationships cannot help but be influenced by that nervous system state of not feeling safe.
Some therapies, such as DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) help us learn skills for recognizing and managing our behavior when we're feeling threatened. These skills are valuable and can be immensely helpful - bringing much needed relief from feeling out of control of our own actions.
Other modes of therapy, including Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), and Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), facilitate a process that allows the nervous system to learn (either anew or perhaps for the first time) how to identify, feel and trust your current experience of safety - thus opening up a whole new set of possibilities for responding to life and relationships from a place of feeling "safe" (or "safe enough.") [Of course, in order for our nervous system to begin to learn this new reality, we first need to be out of actual danger - i.e. no longer a dependent child trapped in a home with less-than-safe-enough caregivers (trying to cover a lot of possibilities with that one phrase); or no longer being abused by a partner, etc.]

05/15/2021

What are the ways you feel a sense of belonging and connection in your life? Who matters to you? When was the last time you let them know? Humans are wired to connect - and connection is a two-way street. Research shows that humans do best when we nurture strong bonds with ~4-5 other humans throughout our lives.
What do you do well? What do you enjoy doing? This can be anything - not just something you might do for a living, or something you're "the best" at. It is easy to overlook our own competence, yet feeling competent and growing in skillfulness are important aspects of wellness & feeling good about ourselves.
In what ways, little or big, do you experience autonomy - making choices for yourself- in your life? If you're a parent or educator, how do you nurture this experience for your children? All of us, even children who still need adults to watch over them and keep them safe, need to feel a sense of autonomy and self-control. Choices might be what we eat, how we dress, or how we spend our time. Nurturing the capacity to choose, and to choose well based on our own internal compass, is an important inner resource we all need.

05/01/2021

I love this metaphor. Sometimes we get to choose which winds we sail through; sometimes we don’t. If you’ve ever been on a sailboat, of any size really, you know it’s fairly futile to fight the wind - but that doesn’t mean we’re at its mercy. Sailing is all about learning how to harness the power of the wind - by working with it rather than against it.

When the winds of life toss you about, adjust your sails - & call on a few crewmates for help, too. You will survive this storm; eventually the tempest will pass and you, and your boat, will sail under sunny skies again.

04/27/2021

Acceptance is the first step to change. Whether we've faced a traumatic experience, struggled with addiction, lost a loved one, a job, a relationship, a home...in order to move in the direction we want, we can only ever start from where we are.

Sometimes accepting / being where we are right now is the hardest part. We want SO badly for things to be different, for this misfortune never to have occurred, it can seem frightening to think of "accepting" it.

Yet acceptance is NOT resignation. Acceptance feels different in the body. Deep, genuine acceptance brings a kind of relief and ultimately, increased vitality. Resignation, on the other hand, is deadening.

Like so much else in life, acceptance is easier among friends. Who can you help today by offering your non-judgmental acceptance?

Address

Fayetteville, AR
72701–72704

Website

http://www.wiseheartfamilies.com/

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