The Founder’s Story
My great grandmother Elvira Spiazzi, came to New York from Italy through Ellis Island. She was a seamstress by trade. She set up her shop on 5th Avenue in New York City, where celebrities would bring ballgowns for her to alter. She also created pieces from scratch. My grandmother says: “She could make a dress with no pattern, and the fabric print would perfectly line up.” She was a master at her trade. She didn’t value the patterns that others sold her because she created her own templates from within her heart and soul.
The self is the greatest value that we have, and those who know how to work from their core, like my grandma, will always create something beautiful in this world.
Elvira was 6 generations ago, and her legacy continues through the women in my family and is one of my ancestral spiritual guides. My grandmother, from her line, graduated from an Ivy League school on the East Coast as a chemist, while raising 5 children. All of her daughters, went on to own and operate several businesses as engineers, teachers, real estate and insurance brokers, shopkeepers, leaders of business trades and community organizations.
I used to think I was the only soft scientist in my family. The only one with the emotional and healthcare aspect of business represented. Until an engineer aunt described how she solves problems on the backend of computer systems. We have a few engineers in my family, who can do amazing things with coding and organizing data, including my sister. I finally realized that I use the same skills as they do! As I’ve conducted EMDR with my clients, I can see the map of the brain and where the pathways are going, and rewire them more efficiently so people don’t feel trauma activating anymore. I just competitively joke with them saying “yeah, but you do know the brain is far more advanced than computers!”
People often are frustrated that they cannot order their emotions to match their beliefs, desires and current reality. This is why EMDR is our main clinical modality at Mirror Pond Counseling. In therapy, I organize emotional data I am hearing from my client in a way where the EMDR work will yield real, lifestyle results. This structured way of operating as a therapist, truly illustrates the engineer within me. It took a minute, but I finally named, that I am an engineer of the mind. Genetics are strong. I have been gifted this inheritance that is in my bones, in my DNA. And that all of us women in my family have strengths we draw upon, that others methodically did the work to develop. In my great grandmother Elvira’s case, as an immigrant.
The biggest value that we were passed down from Elvira, is to bring your whole embodied self to the table, no matter what barriers are there, that would eventually entice you to sell yourself out. My great grandmother Elvira was never a sell out, she stayed stubbornly true to herself.
I can do services; EMDR, DBR, and KAP, reorder defense mechanisms in brain pathways, great! But it has been the spiritual embodiment that I unapologetically bring into the space and developed as a therapist, which brings an energy in the room that contributes to upgrades, grounding and embodiment in the brain networks to live out something more effective, life-giving and resilient. Presence. It’s one of the most universal spiritual practices, and I believe my great grandmother had it.
Without knowing my values or where they came from, when I started Mirror Pond Counseling, I vowed to not become jaded, sterile, sell out, or ineffective. I have no tolerance for wasting mine and others time. I knew that my value was in something greater than my credentials, contracts or ownership. As a young therapist, I interviewed with the county, and a couple of larger group practices in town. I boldly shared with them my value in becoming a spiritually-integrated therapist. At that time, mindfulness, faith-based, much less “spiritually integrated,” was not as mainstream. It is inherently subjective, and not evidence based. I believe a big part of being rejected from those workplaces was because I was so demonstrative about wanting my practice to be based and led by spirituality. Maybe that was just too risky for the other businesses. But to me, it was too risky to sell out to someone else’s pattern.
We now know, in our current climate and with so much collective trauma, evidence based won’t cut it. We need a spiritual awakening that unites us together at our core.
As an entrepreneur, my explicit spiritual branding remains today, one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made. I absorbed pay cuts and it took a good amount of energy to implement correctly. I had to find a way for it to fit in a medicalized box, yet create the space as simultaneously spiritual and non-threatening. It has saved me time and time again, because my business is led by spiritual guidance. And now, fortunately, the industry is coming out with ways to provide evidence based spiritual practices that originate from ancient spiritual traditions. For example, IFS has many buddhist principles.
Because of my early experience in branding, we value innovative and cutting edge services that we know work, whether or not it’s completely evidence based- yet. Part of our job is to provide access so our clients can receive long term healing results. For example, many struggle with persistent and treatment-resistant depression but still can’t get access to Ketamine Assisted Therapy due to cost. We now able to bring cost-effective Ketamine Assisted Therapy that is properly integrated, and clinically effective, to our community! Unlike other Ketamine programs, we require set, setting and embodied integration. We are so committed to proper integration, we include other modalities, like yoga therapy integration after and in between journeys.
Like my family of origin, I have surrounded myself with a community of kick-ass, intuitive and dedicated professionals, who can bring their heart and soul into their space, and give clients permission to do it too! It allows us to stay attuned to the needs of our community, create services and open access for them. If there’s a barrier, we get over it. We are activists, talking with policy makers and creating awareness in what healthcare barriers we see with our boots on the ground. And we will be advocating beyond my retirement.
When I think of my great grandmother, I wonder what she would think about all that’s happened in our country since she made the trek over the pond from Europe. What would she think about how the pandemic has affected our hope in the American dream, and crushed some our spirits? She says “Just keep working really hard, and when there’s a barrier- find a way to get over it. No matter what the circumstances, bring your whole, embodied self to the table.”
Kimberly Drew, MA, LPC
Owner and Clinical Director of Mirror Pond Counseling LLC
