Today we’d like to introduce you to Bridget Jowid.
Hi Bridget, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I am the 11th of 12 children. We were a very close, enmeshed second-generation Lebanese American family. Sometimes I imagined I was forgotten, but I was not. My parents were very calculated with their children and meeting each of us where we were. My siblings and I were very attuned to each other, maybe too much, finishing each other’s thoughts and sentences. I learned so much from a big family. I mostly learned that there are always different options and different ways of doing something. I learned that everyone’s experience deserves to be validated. I learned a lot about integrity in my family. Everyone is called to live a life of integrity. Integrity meaning upholding the truth that lies within each of us, and that truth is different for each person. When we are each allowed to live in integrity, and we are validated for our integrous individuality, then amazing abundant collaborative things happen.
I started out as an occupational therapist where I worked with individuals who had significant trauma, i.e., spinal cord injuries, strokes, burns, limb loss, and chronic illness. I noticed that there was a difference in the way people with the same type of injury or trauma healed and rehabilitated. The difference was within the person’s psyche and how they held trauma in their body. At the time, I was influenced by an amazing Social Worker as part of the rehabilitation team who played a great role in the patient’s healing by validating their journey, helping them find meaning, and through her own journey with congenital limb loss, gave them hope. She inspired me to go back to school to study counseling. With three kids in elementary school and a supportive husband, I went back to school at SMU and studied counseling. I originally was only going to study individual counseling, then I took a family therapy class, and I was sold. I went home apologized to my husband and studied an additional year to graduate with 73 graduate credits. I am an Occupational Therapist, Licensed Professional Counselor, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. What that means for my clients is that I look at how they adapt in their environment, their sense of self, and how their sense of self is relational, and what gets in the way of successful relationships. I am growing a business dedicated to helping people live an integrous life where trauma does not dominate their sense of self, their relationships, or their families.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I really like the metaphor of a road to describe my experience. “A smooth road” is all about perspective. There are for sure challenges; that is how I know I am growing or about to grow. I do not want the smooth road, so I do not see a smooth road. The challenge in the road is the growth, so I look for that and welcome the wisdom that comes from the experience. My greatest obstacle has been recognizing when it is actually me that is sabotaging opportunity based off of my own unresolved stuff that I may or may not have known was there. Sometimes, I pray for just ten more points of the IQ that I think will get me to the next place in my life or my career, and then I am reminded that I am enough just the way I am. I am faced with living in the moment, one moment at a time while keeping my focus on the future.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about PATH Counseling and Wellness?
PATH Counseling and Wellness is a private practice that promotes compassion for self and others. Our values are integrity, wisdom, and connection. We aim to support the integrity of our clients; everyone is on a different path, and we meet you where you are on that path.
PATH came around in July of 2018. I was sitting at a little Mexican Restaurant in Richardson, Dos Arroyos Comida Casera, eating chips and salsa. I was telling my husband that true healing happens when we can assess ourselves and gain the awareness needed to understand what fuels our reactive behaviors. I explained that this happens during counseling. As I told my husband my theoretical perspective of counseling, he looked at me and said, “PATH.” Personal assessment and awareness with therapy brings healing.
PATH Counseling and Wellness began forming in 2018-2019 then officially opened its doors on October 15, 2020. We are designed to be a collaborative practice where we focus on excellence in care and the abundance that comes with helping and healing. We also provide a specialty where we utilize modalities that support the healing process, such as HeartMath heart coherence biofeedback, NeurOptimal neurofeedback, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) when talk therapy is not for the client. We also utilize a variety of successful relational neuroscience-based theoretical tools such as Safe Conversations, Emotion-Focused Therapy, and Internal Family Systems. We work with 12 and up in age. We work with individuals, couples, and families. The human experience across the lifespan is our specialty.
What does success mean to you?
No one can define success but yourself. Even if you try to define the success for someone else, it is only a reflection of your own lens and values in which you see the world. My best friend, when I was in college was amazing. She could read a calculus book like it was a hot romance novel. Straight A’s, great friends. Well, she committed suicide. I remember how she would express her challenges in life as a brown girl in Austin. She fell in love with a tall American Caucasian man, and between her cultural challenges and inability to find her own power in life, she took her life. It did not matter what anyone told her about how successful and amazing she was as a student and person; she still surrendered her life. So how do we define success… a person’s character? A person’s fame or money? No. Success is when a person recognizes their own sense of self; what their sense of self can do in the world, and then that person looks inside themselves and says “That feels great, and I am proud of me!” Then you have success.
Pricing:
- $150-200 *sliding scale based on needs
- $100-135 *NeurOptimal Neurofeedback
Contact Info:
- Website: www.
PATHcounselingandwellness.com - Instagram: PATHtx
- Facebook: PATH Counseling & Wellness
- Other: 972-454-0415
Image Credits
Cindy Swanson
