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Black And White Flowers

Rooted EnCourage

Helping women find healing and hope

About Section

Life can be difficult and full of uncertainty. Maybe anxiety has become exhausting. Maybe you’re carrying pain from something that's happened, or grieving something that never did. Maybe you feel stuck in patterns you understand intellectually but haven’t been able to change. Or maybe you’re facing a transition and no longer feel certain about who you are or what comes next.

 

Many of the women I work with are accustomed to being strong, responsible, and capable. From the outside, they may appear to be holding everything together. Inside, however, they feel overwhelmed, disconnected, or worn down by thoughts and emotions they can’t seem to quiet.

 

You may have spent years trying to push through, pray harder, think your way out of it, or care for everyone else while setting your own needs aside. The ways you learned to cope may have helped you survive difficult seasons—but they may no longer be helping you live with the freedom, connection, and confidence you desire.

Reaching out for therapy is a meaningful act of courage. You don’t have to have the right words, understand exactly what is happening, or know where to begin. You only need a willingness to take the next step. My goal is to offer a space where you can exhale, where you don’t have to perform, minimize what you’re experiencing, or have everything figured out.

 

Together, we’ll slow down and become curious about your story: what you’ve experienced, what you’ve come to believe, and the patterns your mind and body developed to protect you. We’ll work to understand what is keeping you stuck while building the insight, skills, and sense of safety needed for meaningful change.

 

Our work may include learning to respond differently to anxious or consuming thoughts, processing painful experiences through EMDR, making room for grief, strengthening emotional regulation, or finding clarity during an important life transition.

 

Faith-based therapy is an approach that thoughtfully incorporates a client’s spiritual beliefs, values, and faith tradition into the counseling process when they desire it. As a Christian, I draw from my personal Christian beliefs in my own life and approach to therapy. If faith is meaningful to you, we can explore how it relates to your experiences, questions, values, and healing while making space for honest struggle without relying on easy answers or spiritualizing your pain.

 

Healing doesn’t mean becoming someone entirely different. Often, it means becoming more deeply connected to who you already are: grounded in what is true, compassionate toward what you have carried, and courageous enough to move forward with clarity, calm, and confidence.

Michelle Highfield

​Therapy for women in
Athens/Watkinsville, GA

Hi, I'm Michelle! I’m so glad you’re here.

I help women find clarity and relief from anxious thoughts, comfort and healing through seasons of grief, and greater confidence, connection, and joy in their relationships with themselves, others, and the Lord!
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