Mixed Nuts
by
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Transitions
Dr. Mary Speed
Forward
I’ve been a therapist, teacher most of my life and a practicing clinician 15 years. I distinguish between the two because the years before schooling and licensure, people told me their stories and seemed better for doing so. I’m not sure how all that happens, the duet of one talking and one listening. The natural ebb and not so natural tide of spiritual connectedness that transpire in therapy are something other to me.
Like music, the instants of someone beginning a vocal solo and someone accompanying on the piano knowing exactly the moment to begin the accompaniment. The mystery of the vocal chords vibrating and the fingers hitting the piano keys at exactly the correct times, is precise.
My years of being the active listener, sometimes challenging voice to clients have brought stories to me. People whom I respect and value for the sacredness of their trust.
The stories that follow are real, for respect of confidence, no person, except myself and family will be recognizable. Excerpts are from students and clients who are the inspiration behind the column that I write for in Sophisticated Woman. All clients are unique, yet all have the same desire, that is they want something, more often, someone to change. This book is about transitions and notions about how to successfully get through them.
About the Author
I was born in a town of a few thousand people, one of the 500 babies, Nurse Doucet, the midwife, birthed and one of the 42 graduates in my class from high school.
On chilly winter days, my friends and I would gather inside one of our warm, cozy houses and talk. From our province of Newfoundland, The Rock, we scattered to other parts of the world, some fishing, some teaching, and others, me, deciding to make a living trying to help others figure it all out. After 17 years of schooling post high school, seemed I was ready. Fifteen years more, and what I know is that people want to escape sameness, and change affects us all.
Introduction
Change is uncomfortable. When I was a child and had some invisible ache, pain or hurt my mom would say, “This is not a worry; this is a growing pain.”
I think she was exactly right. We can’t grow into our adult selves without discomfort; growing up requires stretching of internal and external extremities.
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About the Book
For author Dr. Mary Speed, life consists of the duet of one talking and one listening—and she’s doing the listening. It’s her life’s mission to work with clients to discover and explore the injurious parts and move toward healing. It’s about transitions and notions and how to get through them.
In Mixed Nuts, Speed shares a wide range of personal stories culled from working sixteen years as a therapist. From addiction to anxiety, compulsion, depression, obsession, panic, marital counseling, and more, she tells of conditions experienced by an array of people who needed someone to listen and help them solve their issues. Speed shows how she’s helped clients deal with the transition to retirement, to understanding a parent dating again, and how to be a better parent.
Inspiring and educational, Mixed Nuts provides a realistic hope that it is possible to embrace uncertainty and to move through each day with confidence and resolve, looking forward to the next.
About the Author
I was born in a town of a few thousand people, one of the five hundred babies Nurse Doucet, the midwife, birthed and one of forty-two graduates in my high school class. During frigid winters, my friends and I would gather inside one of our warm, cozy houses or The Blue Star Restaurant and talk. From our province of Newfoundland, “The Rock,” we scattered, some fishing, some teaching, and others, like me, trying to help others figure it all out. Mixed Nuts is an enthusiastic presentation of what I have learned.