Hello, World

I’m very excited to be writing this post. Having spent all of my years prior working in tech, I can’t imagine a more appropriate way of introducing myself and my practice than a “Hello, World” blog post. And then there’s the reality that I am writing this outside at a cafe while overhearing an informal interview where the two parties are discussing revenue structures, carbon offsets, and whitepapers.

Why I left tech

Prior to becoming a therapist — more specifically, I am a registered associate psychotherapist (AMFT and APCC) — I worked as a product marketer and marketing generalist at a number of Bay Area startups. Tech presented me with a lot of opportunities. I learned a ton about how teams work and why they sometimes don’t work. I discovered how to operate at my best, moving between my edge, home, and groove (ideas discussed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey in their book An Everyone Culture). I built some wonderful friendships, and I was pushed hard throughout those 14 or so years to develop a set of skills that will carry me very far in life.

For all of that and a bit more, I am very grateful.

However, I started feeling as if something was missing, and it got a lot harder to show up and actually do my job. I began finding the work I was doing no longer aligned with who I am and what I wanted for myself in life. I didn’t know my purpose initially, but I knew whatever it was didn’t lie in tech.

Eventually, I found that I wanted to be working to better my community. I wanted to be connecting with the humans around me that I saw every day. I wanted to be working for a reason greater than capitalism.

Why I transitioned to therapy

The Bay Area has changed a lot. While I have called this place home my whole life — I’m from the East Bay — I really started noticing the changes four or five years after moving to San Francisco in late 2011. The biggest changes? Fewer people that look like me and more people on the street seemingly dealing with mental health challenges. What’s more, many of the people around me didn’t seem to notice or care. (They’ve come around since.)

I knew I wasn’t going to solve these problems, but I did want to contribute to making things here just a bit better and just a bit easier for some. To do that, I believed I would have to sit down and actually listen to the people consistently being overlooked.

Listening to peoples’ stories is something I’ve always enjoyed, and it’s one of the things that excited me most about my work in tech. As exhausting as tradeshows might’ve been, getting to hear from users and prospective customers, getting to hear how a product could be made better, and hearing how a service was being used and shared with others to support their work was enlivening. I knew that sitting with clients would certainly be different, that it would be challenging in a variety of ways, and I also knew I would consistently be refueled by lending my ears, mind, and energy in service of another’s well-being.

What I hope to accomplish as a psychotherapist

Helping to better the lives of people I share space with and people who look like me — Black people. Supporting others in nurturing greater self-awareness, empowerment, and self-acceptance. Creating a space in which others feel safe to share their stories, to be and express who they are, and collaborating with them to expand the bounds within which they feel safe to do so. That’s what I hope to accomplish through this work.

I will forever have a whole lot of learning to do — that’s one of the many exciting parts of this work.

This is the first of what I hope will be many posts. As I continue to gain more experience working in mental health, my intent is to share what I learn, my questions and concerns, how I experience my work, and how my approach to practicing develops as I continue learning about myself as a clinician.

Once again, hello. I’m Michael, and I’m grateful you’re here.