Coral is visually seen as a unique hue of pink and orange shade of color. As a jewel, it is vibrant, yet elegant; bold, yet welcoming. The gemstone, dates back to ancient Egypt and was a symbol of wisdom and happiness; reducing stress, fear, anxiety, depression, panic, and traumatic memories. As a color, coral symbolizes acceptance, warmth, positivity, and individuality. The color is known to seek to uplift others with its comfort, yet organic and natural essence. Because of these aspects, ‘Coral’ was combined with ‘Heart’ to exemplify and characterize how much compassion, insight, truth, and warmth our therapists have at Coral Heart Counseling.
At Coral Heart Counseling, we work from the heart, providing a relational approach that is filled with acceptance and warmth of others. We manifest positivity into our clients, believing in them becoming their best selves. However, we recognize that our clients already have those characteristics deep within them; and we work alongside them to help bring out those strengths. Just like the gemstone and color Coral, we seek to create a positive impact and new experience for our clients so that they can have a reduction in their symptoms and stressors. These stressors may include daily worries that are carried around; the feeling of sadness and loneliness, imposter syndrome in school or the workplace, physical and emotional injuries, and traumatic experiences to name a few.
In our work with clients, we also seek to provide a challenging, yet gentle atmosphere; boldness derived from Coral. It is the Coral’s nature to encourage others to notice the reality and see its color. By doing so, we assist those who might be experiencing deep depression and anxiety to get out of their minds and into their lives. Using CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), an effective evidence-based therapeutic practice, we guide clients out of thought distortions that might lead to symptoms of anxiety or depression. We help to outline other parts of their realities that they may not have already noticed. Usually, that will include assisting clients in noticing the neutral and positive parts of life, as opposed to the unfortunate part of life that they’ve already been aware of.
Nevertheless, our therapists challenge in a way that still enables others to choose what is best for themselves, despite what popular belief says. This is because our mission supports and uplifts historically marginalized, Black, Brown, and Diverse people. While problematic patterns can be verbally recognized to clients, it wouldn’t make sense for us to force individuals and communities to make decisions that others or ourselves may make when those communities we support have historically been controlled and harmed by systemic racism, sexism, otherism, ageism, etc. We would rather plant seeds of encouragement, insight, and different perspectives to allow individuals to choose what will work for them, than put pressure on someone to shift in that moment. We know that pressure and change that is inorganic does not last long, especially if the individual did not feel as though they had a choice in shifting.
A large portion of our work included in looking at and dissecting reality is not discounting or minimizing the reality, no matter how unfortunate. We recognize that for many, there is no explaining away or rationalizing that they went through a tough childhood or experienced traumatic and life altering moments in their life. We know that individuals are pushed out of or prevented from positions of opportunity, or told to stay in their lane. We see that many are made to feel and be less than because of their race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, or other diverse characteristics. Sometimes, recognizing the unfortunate realities can assist others in coming up with strategies to overcome various unfortunate events that have happened. We work alongside our clients to develop these strategies and tools to use in real life.
Just like the gemstone, Coral, which encompasses historic insight, we work with clients to notice past occurrences and carefully analyze them. This, of course, is dependent on a client’s goals in therapy or when receiving services. Working on past experiences might include uncovering and working through past emotional injuries through the use of EFIT (Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy) or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). The goal would not be to re-ignite the past, but to reprocess the felt experiences of the past so that the current moments in a person’s life makes sense to them. The overall goal would be to shift future choices and felt experiences because of the recognition of the past. Through these techniques, as well as other techniques that take a look into the past, such as Psychodynamic Therapy that we also use with clients, people are left with more understanding about their lives, more questions answered, and more motivation to overcome whatever might challenge them in the future.
At Coral Heart Counseling, we hope that our clientele are seen, heard, understood, and made to feel as unique as the color and gemstone Coral. We hope that compassion is a felt experience by our clients, along with our gentle encouragement to make different choices. We hope that the beauty of diversity and inclusion is recognized by those whom we encounter and work with through the services we provide when counseling, consulting, clinically supervising, or leading workshops. We know that with the use of heart-centered work, we are able to provide others with the opportunity to experience and use their own hearts in different ways that they or others might not have seen as possible before.