Welcome to the gokc blog
Welcome, good morning, how do you do? This is our initial blog post - yay! I hope to add some value to your day, as well as to provide opportunity to stay focused about the things that matter to me. And just maybe we’ll be lucky enough for those topics to matter to you too. This post will cover three things:
Introduce ourselves to you - gokc is a leading mental health private practice in KC
Provide a roadmap for the gokc blog in 2024
Encourage you to keep going no matter what!
gokc is a mental health private practice in Kansas City, Missouri. We support folks from all over the KC area both in Missouri and Kansas. We are currently located in Brookside and Hyde Park neighborhoods. Please roam around the site to get to know who we are & what we offer. My name is Aaron & I opened up gokc in 2020 with hopes of growing into a larger practice to support the tremendous mental health needs of our neighbors throughout KC. I’m certain someone on our team will resonate with you or a loved one looking to start therapy. Asking for help can be a wildly difficult thing to do & we admire anyone who takes the courage to pursue improving their lives - Keep Going!
We currently have 6 clinicians helping our communities throughout KC. Each of us may contribute here along the way, although I (Aaron) expect to be the primary author. I’ll just start out with my hope that you will find value, humor & recognition throughout our posts. I believe in the power of connection. Sometimes we do this in such terribly toxic ways - especially online. Do NOT read the comments! Actually, I don’t know that I’ll even turn comments on! Regardless, my life has shown me that my ability to connect with myself, nature, others & my spiritual side are often a work in progress. Sometimes I’ve barely felt connected to the people and beliefs I value most. My hope is that you will discover something helpful in our blog when you’re in a good place or down in the darkness. And that you’ll find something so acutely relatable that you will feel seen and heard. And not so alone. You aren’t - no matter what.
While I’m not certain where this blog will take us, I do want to keep thematic clarity within three areas:
Mental Health & Recovery: I know this is incredibly broad & that’s great because it will allow us to dig into small, but mighty things like, practicing grace, affirmations & gratitude. Or jumping into heavy hitters like OCD vs Perfectionism, effects of traumatic bullying, or recovery from intimate partner violence. We are a mental health practice after all. I hope we can cover meaningful pieces of recovery that matter to you. I bet we will.
Connection: I don’t know many more worthy and impactful practices than connection. I believe that without a foundational awareness, acceptance & peace within ourselves we are less likely to find meaningful connection with others. This is why I like to start inward - whoa, that’s gonna be hard. And we are worthy to seek acceptance, grace & love toward our self. Equally as important to self-connection is building (& maintaining - always maintaining) meaningful connections with others. Last, something incredibly important in my life takes us to the third theme of the gokc blog: Connection with Nature.
Nature Heals Us: If you already believe this - wonderful. I do too. And most folks I know have dozens of experiences of how they’ve felt calmer, more at peace, spiritually balanced when in nature. Not everyone has the ability to wake up with an unobstructed view of The Grand Canyon or even Table Rock Lake…for us midwestern folk. But nature is so accessible if we just look. You do NOT have to live the van life to access nature (although, you may find me living this life someday!). There’s an emerging theory & practice in the health field called Ecopsychology. Basically, I understand that as a post-industrial modern society we’ve created a disconnect from nature in today’s people. I can relate on the days I wake up in my house, drive to work in my little Mazda box & straight into my office with no windows. Then put my thing down, flip it and reverse it. If I get stuck in this routine without intentionally getting outside, gardening, landscaping, strolling in a wooded trail then I feel down. Ecopsychology also claims that the disconnect with nature causes effects such as loneliness, depression & anxiety. Nature Therapy is the process of intentional connection to the natural world. And there’s so many ways to do this! I can’t wait to share with you some basics that I practice. And to hear back from you about what you do to connect to nature.
I’m grateful you’ve found our blog & site. I’m hopeful for many more opportunities to connect with you. We’ll talk again soon.
