One Year of Morning Bird Therapy: Reflections on my First Year Owning a Therapy Practice

Hi all! Long time no blog post. I wanted to take some time to reflect since this week officially marks ONE YEAR since I took the leap and launched my private therapy practice, Morning Bird Therapy. I truly can’t believe it’s already been a full year! It seems like just yesterday I was frantically googling, “what to do if you start a business and it fails” and pondering how I was going to make this all work.

I want to start with gratitude. First, for my clients. To everyone who has entrusted me with your stories, your struggles, and your growth — thank you. Your courage, vulnerability, and commitment to healing are a constant source of inspiration. Therapy is HARD and I am so humbled by the work you put in. I swear you teach me more than I teach you.

Second, I want to thank all my wise, compassionate, and beyond knowledgeable colleagues, mentors, and supervisors. Your support is absolutely invaluable to me. My heart overflows when I know one of you has referred a client to me and trusted my expertise. Being a therapist can be tough, especially during times like these, but your encouragement and consultation is a true guiding light.

I also have to shout out my friends and family who constantly check in with me and ask how my practice is going, even though I rarely offer up much detail. If you know me you’ve definitely heard me say one or all of the following generic responses: A. “It’s a lot of work!” B. “So far so good!” or C. “I hate doing taxes!” This is not because I don’t want to talk, but mainly because I don’t know how to weave my feelings about my work into casual, day-to-day conversation. It’s painful and joyful, mundane and fascinating, heavy and liberating, all at the same time.

Still, it means the world to have people checking in on me, curious to hear about my career. I’m endlessly grateful for my loved ones who cook me a hot meal after a long day of clients, offer me encouragement when I feel burnt out, or just give me a fun respite from the weight of it all.

This journey has been hard at times. I’ve made mistakes, battled burn out, managed impostor syndrome, filed business documents and taxes, and spent approximately 12,673,859 hours fighting with insurance networks over the phone. But when I see my clients learn and make meaningful change, it’s all worth it. This job allows me a powerful privilege—to be a witness to other people’s lives. To walk alongside somebody through hardship and sorrow, but also through joy and love and fulfillment. To stand by people through marriages, divorces, graduations, grief and loss, children, recovery, relapses, job changes, friendship changes, and all the twists and turns of life… it’s an honor I can’t really put into words.

I started my practice because I wanted to create a space where people could truly feel seen, heard, and empowered. In particular, I wanted to provide compassionate, informed care for people who can’t seem to figure out body image issues or disordered eating. And I really wanted to make in-person treatment more accessible. But I’ll be honest, I also started my private practice because I believe that I deserve to be paid well for my work.

Here is what my life looked like before I opened my own practice: I commuted for hours and hours, worked up to 10 hours a day putting my heart into my work, holding the emotional weight of all my clients (in addition to my own emotional weight), writing chart notes late into the night, and then waking up early to do it all again… only to get the world’s most disappointing paycheck once a month. I also worked a second (and sometimes third) job for most of my career up until now. It was demoralizing, to say the least, to come face-to-face with all the systemic barriers keeping me underpaid.

Did you know that mental health counseling is the lowest paid profession that requires a Master’s degree? I am so not okay with that, which is a large reason that I decided to go off on my own, and it was the best financial decision I’ve ever made.

Over the last year, I’ve become really passionate about supporting other therapists in this work, whether it is through consultation, supervision, or providing guidance on how to start and scale a successful private practice. You deserve to feel energized by your work, rather than depleted, and I want to help you get there.

Going into my second year at Morning Bird, I plan to offer clinical supervision and 1:1 consultations with therapists, interns, individuals who are considering becoming a therapist, and people who are ready to start their own practice. Please reach out if this is something you are interested in learning more about.

Thank you all, again, for supporting me in this rich experience of running my own private practice. Here’s to another year of growth and connection!