Too much and not enough
Many of us grow up knowing that something isn’t right. In our child brain we believe it’s us. I’ve seen so many bodies holding the pain of being too queer, too big, too sensitive, too loud, too angry, too dark, too quiet. Of not being enough, not fitting, not measuring up.
Let pain and suffering be a part of life, not an obstacle to it
It makes sense that so many therapies today try to fix suffering. It’s the reason most people come to therapy in the first place. I tried several different methods before settling into my present medley of somatic, spiritual, EMDR, and parts therapies. I settled here because it’s a place where I, along with my clients, can be with suffering. By being with it, rather than fighting or denying it, we set it free.
It may not be our problem, but it is our responsibility
We didn’t create this world, but it’s the one we have. It’s our responsibility, and our opportunity, to carve out the space to expand. Whether you do it with therapy or some other way, the journey starts with you.
If you’d like to learn more, schedule a free 15 minute consultation.
Nino M. Winterbottom, LMHC/LPC
I’m a mental health counselor licensed in New York and Oregon. My career as a therapist was a long time coming. In my previous work with students and people living with cancers, I kept accidentally providing (untrained) counseling. It was clearly time to get the degree. My career as a spiritually-informed therapist is shocking to us all. I come from the opposite of a “woo woo” family and spent my early life ragefully opposed to organized religion, an attitude I am fully capable of channeling to this day.
My spirituality today is ever-evolving. I’ve been on and off the Buddhist path for several years. I’ve seen some things not of this world. Much of my motivation to pursue spiritually-informed counseling comes from the complicated and sometimes tortured relationship of my immediate family to my Christian, Jewish, and nature-worshiping European and Ashkenazi ancestors. Whether our work is explicitly spiritual or entirely secular, the interconnected, intuitive knowledge of all living things is my primary guiding principle.
I received my Masters of Arts in mental health counseling and spiritual integration from Fordham University. I was trained in somatic and attachment-focused EMDR by the EMDRIA-certified Personal Transformation Institute. I have completed trainings in DBT, ACT, IFS, and couples counseling. I include some DBT skills training in my work where appropriate but, as with religion, I have an ambivalent relationship to cognitive behavior therapies (ie. DBT, CBT).
I have learned about engaged Buddhism from Dr. Pilar Jennings, Lama Rod Owens, Rev. Kosen Greg Snyder, the Buddhist Action Coalition, and encounters with green tara herself. Other guides in compassion, suffering, and resistance include writers and artists such as EM Forster, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, Ursula K. LeGuin, Hayao Miyazaki, and Ernst Bloch. Clients’ own personal interests and nerdoms are welcome and encouraged in our sessions.
Worldknot Psychotherapy LLC 