Spirituality

Therapy that honors, cultivates and leverages your spirituality for healing.

“All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.”

— Richard Rohr 

 Psychological health both facilitates and determines our capacity for connection.

And we are all wired for connection – we need it to live and thrive. Your spirituality is just another arena in which you connect and relate – both with other humans and with Spirit. So it stands to reason that your spiritual health could be a very important part of your psychotherapy process. I invite you to discuss with me if that’s important to you.

My clients determine to what extent spirituality is a part of their therapy. I welcome clients from any life-affirming spiritual tradition or worldview, as well as those with no spiritual practice at all. I have particular knowledge of Christian theology because of my extensive history practicing within various Christian traditions during my spiritual development. I have also practiced yoga since 2008 and meditation for even longer. I am well versed in the Enneagram and I love the power it has to facilitate insight and spiritual growth. Mindfulness practice and principles infuse all of my work.

a row of books, mostly shades of ethereal white and blue covering topics of spirituality, connection to our spirit, mindsight, loving what is, Christianity, yoga, wisdom, enneagram, self-compassion, awakened heart and soul, grace and forgiveness

    • Including spiritual images and concepts into healing techniques.

    • Exploring why you feel “stuck” spiritually and getting you unstuck.

    • Discussing how to apply principles and values from your spiritual tradition to relationships, work, money, parenting, and life decisions.

    • Providing ideas for how to use your yoga practice to reinforce lessons you are learning in therapy.

    • Distinguishing between different methods of meditation and which might be best suited to you.

    • Addressing difficulty with forgiveness.

    • Admitting and working through anger at God for painful events that have happened.

    • Teaching you how to access sustaining grace during hard times.

    • Coaching on the practice of self-compassion and why it’s so important.

    • Exploring your current spiritual disciplines and practices and how they do or don’t facilitate spiritual connection.

    • Deciding how to interact with children who are making life choices that are inconsistent with your spiritual values.

    • Making sense of why bad things happen despite your trust in God.

    • Sorting through long-held unquestioned beliefs that may not make sense to you anymore.

    • Clarifying identity issues if you were raised in the faith but no longer believe.

    • Integrating shifts in worldview as theology matures.

    • Solving the problem of shame with the gospel.

    • Understanding mental illness from a Biblical perspective.

    • Exploring why growth and change seem so elusive despite belief in the transformative power of God’s grace.

    • Healing from hurt induced by scandals and abuses by Church leaders.

Ellen Ronka, Psychotherapist, has her arms stretched out wide, head back smiling at the sky. She's rejoicing in life and connecting with her spirit through mother nature, mountains and wilderness in the background. She is full of hope and happiness

“Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a practice that becomes a spiritual muscle memory. It’s a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be.”

— Krista Tippett, OnBeing.org