Meet Taylor Eisenach | Marriage and Family Therapist

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

Hi Taylor, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk is hard because it requires perseverance over fear. Risk is vulnerable and comes face to face with rejection. I fully believe in the theory of loss aversion, I can easily focus on what I’ll lose over what I’ll gain when it comes to risk. Even as I talk about risk, my body starts to ping with anxiety. However, the proudest moments of my life are when I risked the most. Sure, I’ve been daring with adventures. My business was also a risk, I started it in the heart of the pandemic after all. But I think the biggest risks that I’ve taken stem from moments where I showed up authentically, vulnerably, emotionally true to what I believed. I risk when I set a boundary with my family and ‘rock the boat’ of our equilibrium. I risk when I tell people what I need even though my brain is screaming at me that I’m being a burden. I risk when I love without reciprocity, wait without fruition, or keep going towards a path that I feel fully called down, though no one else seems to understand. I risk seeming crazy, pathetic, sensitive, too much, not enough. But I look back on those moments where I’ve shown up terrified but fully me or spoke the most fragile parts of who I am just to be turned away and feel proud. I’d do it again. Because beautiful things happen when you show up as yourself.

So risk has led me to the hardest moments of my life. But those moments have strengthened and refined me. Most of all, those moments have deepened my empathy towards clients in a way I never knew was possible. Perhaps earlier in my career I was a touch quick to reframe, encourage, fix, look on the bright side, when people were struggling with hard emotions like fear or heartbreak. Now I sit even quieter, letting their story wash over me and remind me of similar emotions down my own road and I understand a little deeper. I’m a better therapist for it.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I own a psychotherapy private practice in south Fort Collins, CO. I started this business at the very end of 2020 and now have a full caseload with wonderful clients who challenge me. I am a Christian so I do a lot of Christian counseling, though anyone is welcome in my office for the type of counseling that best suites them. My other specialties include trauma, women’s issues, adolescents, and couples.

I would say my favorite part about my practice is the creativity that I get to bring to counseling. I truly believe that improving yourself is a full lifestyle change, which can be tricky to implement if only 45 minutes are dedicated to mental health. The typical answer for continual growth is to give clients homework, but has anyone ever wanted to do homework?? So I’ve worked really hard at making self-growth be creative and feel more like self-care. I’ve developed a counseling art journal that is a combination of artful expression and therapeutic prompts. Instead of giving bland worksheets with counseling interventions, I have aesthetically pleasing pages that can help provide relaxation alongside insight.

When I think about whether starting my practice was difficult, I’d be lying if I said my connections in the community didn’t help. When starting my practice, I had an established presence in Fort Collins, at least enough to build my practice rather quickly. But business practices, marketing, advertising, taxes, and all of the managerial work is never easy for someone with a degree in Psychology. I’ve learned that asking questions and utilizing outside resources is incredibly helpful In a DIY world, I was tempted to treat my business completely DIY, but I think that it was helpful for me to focus on what I was good at and resource with what I wasn’t good at. Mindset is also a huge factor in success. If I started a session with a brand new client thinking I’d do a bad job so they wouldn’t come back, chances are they wouldn’t come back. It’s easy to focus on the things that aren’t going well and assign self-blame, yet focusing on the positive is what will propel you forward.

The two words that I focused on for my brand were “known” and “loved.” These words come from my experience as a therapist but also my experience with my personal faith. There are so many different skills therapists are taught in graduate school to identify, assess, case manage, intervene but after all of that time (and money, ha) I have really seen that my clients just want to be known, yet instead feel misunderstood or forgotten. They want to be loved, yet feel ashamed and lonely. Love has the power to heal anxiety, depression, marital discord, anger, trauma, mood disorders, all of it. But we can’t feel truly loved without feeling known. This is something I have noticed in countless clients and within myself as I have developed in personal growth and faith. So while I do use tools to identify, assess, intervene, etc, my focus will always be on helping my clients feel known and loved by themselves and the people around them.I constantly joke that if we all knew how to know and love one another well, I’d be out of a job. I’d be making smoothies on a beach in Costa Rica. I’m all for it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love Fort Collins so this is easy!

We’re starting the day off right with coffee and breakfast. Now, I’m bougie so I get coffee at a different spot than breakfast.
For coffee, we’re going with LIMA. The Old Town or Midtown one are the perfect aesthetic and they have a coffee flight so you can taste all the seasonal flavors.
Breakfast has to be at the La Creperie for their crepes and fantastic almond croissants. The Silver Grill in Old Town is also an icon with cinnamon rolls the size of my face.
I love how close Fort Collins is to Rocky Mountain National Park so my next stop would definitely be a hike. Get there early because if you’re going up there, you have to park at Bear Lake and at least hike to Loch lake. I am notorious for dragging my friends on long hikes without giving them any time to acclimate to the elevation. Whoops!
In the summer, paddle boarding on Horsetooth lake is so relaxing, especially if you’re bringing snacks. But watch out for rattlesnakes near the trails. Last summer we had a rattlesnake swim across the lake past someone’s paddle board. I personally haven’t been on the lake since.
I went to school right next to Disneyland, so I love taking people to Old Town and telling them that Walt Disney fashioned Disney after our little town. My fave food spots include Choice City for burgers, Blue Agave for nachos, and Beau Joes for pizza. Don’t come to Colorado if you’re not going to try Beau Joes, that’s the rule. If you want to get cocktails then The Social is where to go and you feel extremely fancy, you’ll maybe even hold up your pinkie while sipping. Or is that just me.

Fort Collins has amazing bike trails so I’m always cruising through those on a nice day and would absolutely bike to ice cream. My favorite place is Churn for their salted Oreo flavor. It’s the best hands down.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My dad and mom are business owners and I have seen them both dedicate their lives to their business in order to provide for their family. My father taught my brother and I work ethic, faith, and dedication. My mother taught me sacrificial love, humility, and how to be a good listener. My parents names are David and Jodie Eisenach and they’ve successfully owned a business my whole life. We don’t even want to begin to ponder where I’d be without them today.

Website: knowncounselingco.com