Christopher Holowaty Counseling

08/12/2025

Sometimes, it's about getting back to fundamentals.

10/25/2024

Therapy theme of the week:
An element of working with people is knowing how to validate and normalize experiences. So often, there is the implicit or explicit question of, 'Is this normal? Does anyone else react like this?'

All week, this quote from Mary Oliver, and this other line from a friend, have echoed in my mind.

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves." (Mary Oliver)

"Own it. Own everything you like. There is no weirdness in honesty." (T.)

And sometimes, I can believe and integrate these things...

05/23/2022

Tara Brach tells a story of a woman who, due to some problem with her inner ear, would suddenly lose her balance and fall to the ground. This happened often, in public, at work, and she had grown to accept this disorder as a fact of her life. She spoke of how shocking this would appear to bystanders; after all, it is surprising to see an adult person suddenly hit the ground. Every time, they would rush over and hurry to help her up; and she sensed this seemed to be more about their need to ease their own awkward discomfort rather than what she needed.
One time, after a sudden collapse, a bystander who saw her fall walked over and sat down with her. She held the fallen woman's hand and talked with her, asked if she was hurt, and then chatted with her with no apparent rush to get her to her feet. This patient act of simply sitting with her was markedly different, and was deeply helpful. As she put it, "sometimes I just need someone to get down on the ground with me."
I have sat with clients for countless hours and witnessed their stories of falling, of trying to get back up, of feeling pressure to "get better." There is often shame that accompanies mental health issues. What I am leaning into is that I don't need to have the same struggles as my client; I don't need to have tripped up the way they have. I just need to know how to sit down with them, joining them in whatever they may be feeling in the moment, and be available to get them on their feet when they are ready.
This track is what came out of me as I meditated on this story, and the work I have the honor of doing each day. It was a new process for me in that I wrote the music before I had any inkling of lyrical content. But something about the switching time signatures, the off-beat 7/8 rhythm, seemed to fit the theme well.
Hope you enjoy it!

from the album New Material

04/10/2021

Allow

There is no controlling life.

Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.

The only safety lies in letting it all in:
the wild and the weak;
fear, fantasies, failures and success.

When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.

By Danna Faulds

04/01/2021

About a month into the COVID pandemic, I began to notice a pattern emerging among my clients. While many of them were having trouble adjusting to the increased isolation, the fear of catching the virus, and an overall anxiety, these were issues that could be tied to the disruptive changes we were all experiencing. We were hearing of over-crowded hospitals, of the long-term effects some people were experiencing after the initial danger of having COVID had passed, and there was justifiable reasons for our anxiety.

However, as time passed and folks adjusted to taking a mask with them, keeping socially distant, stocking up on toilet paper, a new symptom emerged: fatigue. Many clients reported feeling tired “even though I’m not doing a whole lot.” There was a sense that, for many of us, the pandemic was creating inconveniences, but these did not seem to justify just how exhausted we felt – emotionally, physically, and mentally.

What came to mind was the feeling I had while visiting a friend in Albuquerque, NM. For the first few days, I felt far more tired than usual. As much as I enjoyed the view of the Sandia Mountains, hiking among the brush and exploring ancient Native American petroglyphs, I felt lethargic and weary.

The simple reason was the difference in elevation. My home city of Seattle is about 30 feet above sea level, while Albuquerque sits at around 5000 feet. At this elevation, there is less air pressure and, therefore, less oxygen taken in with each breath. According to the Army Public Health Center, the effects of high altitudes create “decreased perception, memory, judgment, and attention" as well as increasing dehydration

Anyone else struggling with a lack clarity and focus during this season?

Realizing that living through the pandemic is akin to being at a higher elevation helps normalize the symptoms of feeling drained and foggy. When I can’t find my keys or my glasses for the 30th time this week, I recall that I’m living at 10,000 feet and there just isn’t as much oxygen as there used to be. This helps me avoid getting angry at myself, fearing that I'm losing my mind, remaining in a state of frustration and stress, or cycling into shame. Instead, I remember to take some deeper breaths, grab myself a glass of water, and go easy on myself.

It’s the little things.

03/21/2021

One little victory:

A client was telling me about her week. Over and over, she would describe a decision she’d made to set boundaries, or a calmer response she had to a stressful situation, and then would add: “it was weird.” For example, “my kiddo was getting really frustrated with her online classwork, and instead of yelling at her to stay on task, I tried naming her feelings with her, calmly reminded her take a few deep breaths, and she relaxed… it was so weird.”

After a few comments like this, I had to ask: “Is it possible that ‘weird’ might mean ‘healthy?’” She began to laugh, realizing that, yes, for her, making healthy choices and beginning to embody deep changes felt strange to her, accustomed as she was to feeling like she was failing at everything and stuck in unhelpful patterns.

I love this work.

03/04/2021

Welcome.

I want to first acknowledge that it takes courage to enter into therapeutic work with a new therapist. In order to set your mind at ease, I want to lay out the way I will approach our work together so that we can enter into this process with a sense of how to move forward together, and what you can expect from me.

My focus will be to engage in our relationship by listening carefully to what you say and how you say it, asking questions when I don’t understand or am unclear by what you mean, and doing my best to be fully present with you. This will involve delving into your history – where you grew up, your family – along with seeing how the experiences of your past show up in the present. Basically, what is it like to be you and how did you get to see the world this way?

I will also be open about what is going on in me, to let you in on how you are impacting and coming across to me.