Meet Colleen Froehlich | Licensed Professional Counselor & Art Therapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Colleen Froehlich and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Colleen, what’s something about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
Since I am both an art therapist and a counselor, two things come to mind for me. The first is that in art therapy, you don’t have to be a talented artist to use art therapeutically. The act of creating has a healing element for many people. Art gives us language that is not limited by words, and it evokes the use of our bodies and our abstract thinking. So often the emotional experiences we hold, including the traumatic ones, are stored in the exact same ways: in our physical bodies and the abstract parts of our brains. Art’s ability to access and get us in touch with these very components is what makes it so powerful. I often explain it to people like this: using art therapy is like writing a story in the way that your handwriting is much less important than what it is you have to say. Similarly, I think how your art looks when you’re in therapy is less important than what your art expresses.

The other things that comes to mind for me is that I’m not sure how many people realize that therapists need therapy, too. I feel that more than any other time, people are going to therapy and normalizing getting help. While this excites me, I also wonder about therapists being put on pedestals as having all of their clients’ answers. Therapists have their own defenses, unhealthy patterns, awkward ways of relating, trauma, and life questions that feel unanswerable, at times. Knowing all about self-care doesn’t necessarily stop us from binge watch Netflix way too long like everyone else. We need help and struggle with mental health issues including anxiety and depression just like anyone else. In fact, I think the best therapists are the ones who are willing to lean into their humanity and take on the role of the client. The more therapists work on our own issues, the less they bring our own burdens into their work. For me, attending my own therapy has increased my empathy, clarified my boundaries, and humbled me in my role as a therapist. One of the biggest things I’ve learned in my own therapy is that there are some places of growth and healing I can only experience through relationship. Relationship transforms us, and even the best therapist out there needs to experience being seen and known by another person. Some graduate schools are making personal therapy mandatory for mental health students, which I see as a wise decision. After all, why would I ask clients to go to places I’m not willing to go myself?

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
The reason for the name of my practice is that “abiding” is a word that I feel encapsulates compassionate presence. The heart of my practice is to help adults cultivate compassionate presence towards their pain in order to live more wholeheartedly.  Compassionate presence means something more than mere niceties or comforting validation, but rather radical and courageous movement towards that which we impulsively move against or away from in ourselves and others. Specifically, I’m talking about the parts of us that feel unlovable, abandoned, or “too much.” When we can deeply befriend these parts of ourselves, we naturally live more wholeheartedly and foster a loving force which ripples out to others and the world around us.

So much of the mission of my business is a result from my own life experiences. When I look back at some of my biggest moments of challenge in my career before I opened my counseling business, I see that they often revolved around the fear that I was inadequate. My fear told me a story that I shouldn’t take risks to pursue what I wanted because I would discover that I wasn’t worthy of my ambitions. Ironically, I often tell my clients, “your feelings are valid, but they aren’t always true.” It is important for me to see in hindsight that the story I was telling myself was, in fact, a story, and my biggest moments of success happened when I got curious about my own narratives. I did this by expressing my fears to people that cared about me, applying for jobs I actually wanted, and giving myself permission to try things that I didn’t know if I would succeed in.

It’s also humbling to know that growing in confidence and maturity happens through active participation, which often means stepping into risk and uncertainty. While I have grown in confidence, that’s not to say I’ve “arrived,” in my confidence. The skills I’m discussing are life-long practices, not perfectly permanently acquired in one moment. I certainly still have moments of fear and self-doubt, even as a licensed professional and business owner. Will my business continue to succeed? Will I do something with my business that matters? I still grapple with questions like these. Living out my own business mission means that these fears and questions alive in me are an opportunity for me to cultivate compassionate presence by asking, “What does this fear want me to know? What does it need? How can I lovingly be with it?” There is little else in life that ignites me more than seeing how presence like the type I am describing naturally unlocks a wholehearted type of living.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I keep a literal list of things I love to do in Colorado Springs, so I had to talk myself down from going way overboard on this question. I’m clearly enthusiastic about having fun here!

For me, the deeper into the mountains I go, the deeper my soul can breathe.  Some of my favorite mountain spots are Twin Lakes and, more locally, Palmer Park is minutes away and gives a great view of the city and Pike’s Peak.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would love to recognize my husband, Logan, for being the most fun, energetic, and enthusiastic person I know, which sometimes, to my amazement, means being even more excited about my dreams than I am.  He is an amazing father and a compassionate nurse, often walking his patients through the hardest and last moments of their lives.

Website: Www.abidetherapies.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleen-froehlich-98bb5a4b

Other: https://ifs-institute.com/practitioners/all/66423 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/colleen-froehlich-colorado-springs-co/936220