M. Harnish

Counseling & Spiritual Direction

Mind Body Spirit

About Me

Everyone is hurting in some way. We aren't always the people we want to be. But more than that, sometimes we have had others hurt us in ways that have made it hard for us to live and move in the world in healthy ways. I know. I am human too. For my entire adult life, I have been working in fields of counseling, ministry, education, and formation. I care about doing the hard work that will help us to cause less unnecessary pain to others in the world, while dealing with our own pains so we can live more freely in our own skin, and move closer to becoming the beings we truly are.

"Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."

Philo of Alexander

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Areas of Specialty

Childhood Trauma

Many of us struggle to overcome injuries from years ago. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, trauma from accidents or natural disasters, the realities of war.

What happens to us stays with us and becomes a part of us. The trauma can work to destroy who we naturally are.

Naming these pains,

understanding how the triggers are working, and what is going on in our bodies can help us move toward greater freedoms, and deeper levels of healing.

Couples/Family

Living with ourselves is hard enough, but living with and interacting with others in healthy ways can be really challenging. Even with those we love.

Sometimes especially with those we love.

Sometimes we need someone outside of our unit or system, to help us name where we want to be, where we are, and how we can work towards communicating and living with others in the healthy ways we desire.

Religious Injury

We are, all of us, physical, intellectual, and spiritual beings.

A person's faith may be personal, but in many religions it is also communal and institutional.

And with the institution comes hierarchies. Hierarchies bring sometimes dangerous dynamics of power.

And so it begins. Abuses of power in the name of "God" (defined in a variety of ways).

We are spiritual beings. Our spirituality is a gift that can connect us to all other living things, and give us deeper insight to who we could be.

Issues instigated by

life in a Patriarchy

Living in a patriarchy, where the male is dominant, and male/female roles are distinctly defined creates a reality for most women that can feel if not BE oppressive.

How do we speak our own needs without being selfish?

Seeking a greater awareness of how these dynamics affect our daily lives can help us see ways to live and move more healthfully in our own space, and with those in our lives who don't understand how their privilege hurts others.

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual Direction is a way for us to companion with another as we seek to sort out who we are in the core centers of our beings.

It is a way to find accountability, guidance, direction. It is looking in a mirror to see ourselves in a new light, and to see into ourselves.

Greater awareness allows us to be more fully ourselves.

"The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of [one's] life to get behind the facade of conventional gestures and attitudes, which [they] present to the world, and to bring out [their ]spiritual inner freedom, and [their] inmost truth."

Thomas Merton

We are body, heart, mind and spirit. All of us. As we tend to the healing of one part of us, we find it connected to all other parts. Often we focus on just one of these areas. Spiritual Direction allows us to tend to healing and formation in a wholistic way.