Today we’d like to introduce you to Takiesha Watson.
Hi Takiesha, I’m so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, how can you bring our readers up to speed on your story? How did you get to where you are today?
I started as a teacher. Some people think that counseling and teaching are separate. However, they are closely intertwined. I had an innate ability to connect with the students. The leader of my campus recognized this ability when students from other classes came to my class during my teaching time to calm down or talk. She voluntold me to apply for a scholarship from the district where they paid for my counseling degree. While getting my school counseling degree, the head of my degree program changed all of my alternate classes to qualify me to get my professional license to counsel. She recognized something in me, also. However, I was determined to be a counselor within the school system because I knew some children and teens did not have economic access to counseling. During my career as a counselor, I struggled with having to do administrative tasks that took me away from students who needed social-emotional intervention. At this time, I started working on my license to practice privately. After 18 months of internship, I officially hung my shingle and began to see clients outside of school. I immediately took to counseling and developed so many inquiries that I didn’t have enough time outside of the school day to see clients. During this time, I centered my outside work on working with women. In my second year of working online as a counselor, my husband passed away suddenly from COVID-19. I found it hard being a single parent and working two jobs. I decided to start my own business officially, which has been a rewarding decision.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, has it been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t wonder if it has been entirely smooth. I realized that working with women in my private practice was my favorite counseling work. Leaving the school system left me with a yearning to work with kids. However, I quickly realized that because I was solely virtual, this didn’t work as well for kids as it did for adults. Therefore, I made my niche working with women who struggle with anxiety and depression. The other challenge was jumping straight into business with very little business knowledge. The biggest challenge was being hit with grief. Being constantly busy had been a way for me to avoid grieving. With the extra time I had while running my business, I realized I still had emotional work to do. It was a good realization because it helped me create processes and tools that help other women cope by staying busy.
We’ve been impressed with Capturing Thoughts Counseling, but for folks who might need to be more familiar, what can you share about what you do and what sets you apart?
I am a licensed Professional Counselor. I specialize in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). As a society, we struggle with our thought lives. However, we don’t apply the difficulties that we are having in our lives to our thoughts. We deal with the results of our thoughts, like sad feelings, being dissatisfied, or angry all the time. It is a never-ending cycle; it would be like a person having a sickness and only treating the symptoms instead of finding the root of the symptoms. I rely strongly on my faith, and the first part of 2 Corinthians 10:5 helped me so much when I was struggling with my husband’s death. This is where the name of my business came from. I realized that in our CBT work, we partner with our clients to capture the thoughts that have not been serving them and create tools to help them make the necessary changes. After reading my website, I have had so many clients tell me that they knew I would be their perfect counselor because so many people struggle with this. They often don’t talk about it because our society tells people to put their heads down and keep pushing. If the pandemic did one thing, it would show people that this isn’t how to cope. So many of my clients come in thinking they cannot overcome because they have tried so many things before. Still, because of the special system I created within my understanding of CBT and experience working with clients, they have had so much success.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
This is the hardest thing. Although I cover the entire state of Texas and Florida, I live in a rural area. Therefore, I had to think outside the box when talking to other professionals. One thing that helped me tremendously was talking with other small business owners. So many helpful ways to solve problems came from pursuing those opportunities. There are few networking opportunities where I live, so I have had to be creative and look for opportunities to network in other communities. Moreover, I am teaming up with other counselors to create more networking opportunities so that we have a network of people we know to refer clients to when they are not a good fit for our practices.
Pricing:
- 170/hr
- Take Aetna, United, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Contact Info:
- Website: www.capturing-thoughts.com
- Facebook: Capturing Thoughts Counseling
