We recently had the chance to connect with Grayson Wallen and have shared our conversation below.
Grayson, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What is a normal day like for you right now?
On days that I am doing therapy, I start my day with movement at around 5am and then have breakfast, get ready for work/commute and start my first session by about 8:30a/9:00a. I typically have a full schedule and wrap up sessions by about 5p and head home for dinner, reconnection time with my family and end with a show or Mario Kart before bed. I try to be asleep by 10p.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am the owner of my private practice, Grayson Wallen Professional Counseling which offers therapy services for relationships where one or both partners are adult survivors of childhood abuse. I also co-operate a relationship project called Third Try Fertility which focused on helping relationships debrief and connect during the mutual effects of fertility struggles.
My practice is unique in that I provide Gottman Method Couples therapy, marathon services and education content for people looking to make their relationship stronger by managing their conflicts better. I believe therapy should be alleviate problems while being efficient and simple to understand.
I was drawn to the Gottman Method because I wanted to see people connect with one another at the deepest levels of life as opposed to bickering, hurting one another and avoiding one another. I learned about The Gottman Institute and their research in graduate school, tried on the exercises in my own marriage and saw immediate improvement which prompted me to get further training and eventual certification.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I would say that people are bonded together for a variety of reasons. Most are healthy and others are repeating past patterns that can eventually lead to relationship breakdown. Specifically I have seen people be drawn to one another because the dates were fun, sex was mind-blowing and the relative stress was low. As transitions of life, which are inevitable, increases the stress of the relationship satisfaction drops. Specifically the transition of parenthood can drop satisfaction significantly for the first year. Other transitions of life like: moving, job changes, unemployment, injuries/disabilities, trauma, etc also are crucial for relationships since it can facilitate the breakdown or bonding.
How a relationship metabolizes these changes and life circumstances are where we look for relationship health or deterioration in clinical settings. When there’s breakdown in transition points, we can follow the trail of dissatsfaction that for some leads to the 3 A’s: Abuse, Affair(s) or Addiction(s).
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
I have seen this clinically and personally, but I believe that healing trauma is the purpose of life. I think that the mind, body and relationships breakdown over time, which is use. Similar to a car, it can be repaired but some repairs are more costly, intense and limiting past the time taken to heal. With this said, there is a human drive to heal, repair and recover from the most difficult aspects of life. We see this naturally when people come to therapy, or sometimes the three A’s produce this in their relationship.
Everything is fixable in life, I think it depends largely on what people wish to fix and what they are unwilling to. Being overwhelmed is a workable situation, as well as being hopeless- both of which have a conflict between the inner state and the desired outcome. In other words, overwhelmed and hopeless are both contrasting to a desire to be different otherwise, overwhelmed and hopeless would just be acceptance and peace.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
Quality. I am a buy once/cry once person in life, and it translates to my therapy practice as well. My training, education background and depth of knowledge comes from leading experts and people who have high levels of success in healthcare and have seen many people get better from life’s traumas.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What light inside you have you been dimming?
I like this question since it is something I am working through personally right now. I am attracted to skateboarding culture and grew up skating daily and on the weekends, but lost it in the shuffle of work, graduate school. But skating is coming back for me, and I recently got a new set up and have been shaking the rust off.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.graysonwallen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gwprocounseling/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graysonwallen/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GWProCounseling
- Other: https://vimeo.com/user227161603
Third Try Fertility: www.ThirdTryFertility.com
Insta: @ThirdTryFertility (https://www.instagram.com/thirdtryfertility)
Image Credits
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