Welcome

Hello and welcome! My name is Heather A Champion, I'm a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in private practice in Lake Worth, FL. This site has been created as a portal between myself and my clients and an opportunity for prospective clients to learn more about me. I invite you to take a look around the site, learn a little about me and what I do. Should you have any questions please feel free to contact me at heather.champion@gmail.com.

ABOUT ME: For many years I struggled with my identity, doing what others told me would make me happy and living life for them. I had an overwhelming sense of sadness that drove me to behave erratically. I was very impulsive and had trouble finding my way.

Then, something happened, I started to do what made me feel good about me. This was a huge change in my life and part of that was leaving a successful career in the business world to pursue a new master's degree in Mental Health Counseling.

The major change I found during that process came from my yoga practice, I was regularly taking a class taught by a friend named Linda. It was a midday class and filled with a variety of people with variety of skill and ability levels. Linda took us through a series of steps in her class and led us into various versions of the same postures. She would dance around the room and help each of us into the version that was right for our individual bodies. I remember looking around the room and seeing a cacophony of postures, nobody doing quite the same thing, and Linda exclaiming "what a beautiful room, everyone doing their perfect version of this pose." Observing the same thing class after class caused me begin seeing things differently. Linda taught us to not do what was on the poster, but to do what was right for us, and how to notice the difference.

Linda, along with my other teachers and friends both in the yoga world and in my Master's program at Adelphi University, created the foundation for what I attempt to instill in my clients. Self acceptance. For years I walked around with a hole where my hears was supposed to be, but Linda helped me begin to fill it up. Now I attempt to pass that along to others.

As a therapist I utilize a variety of techniques to help clients increase their insight into how they got to my office and what they need to do to stop coming to my office. I find a lot of people struggle with disappointment, sadness, and fear, that prevents them from seeing the world as it is. Our emotions tend to create filters so we can only see what confirms our emotions. So, if I'm sad all I can see is things that make me sad. Even happy things I see with a sad filter, altering what could make me happy. In therapy I try to help my clients observe that they are sad and come up with ways to work with feeling sad such that they learn to observe the things that will make them happy.

I believe that with the right amount of nurturing, acceptance, and boundaries we can all change to be better versions of ourselves.