Today we’d like to introduce you to Danesha Ward
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Turning passion into purpose is my story. I began my schooling thinking I would be a lawyer and quickly realized that I wanted to help people through honesty and truth, not political convincing. As the go-to listener for friends and family to seek for sound advice and problem solving skills, I thought to myself, “Girl you are already doing therapy for free. Let’s get paid to use this gift!” After changing my major from Political Science to Psychology, I fell in love with human brain work. Currently, the application of psycho-education is at the forefront of my teachings to clients on how to understand and rewire brain mapping for more effective emotional processing and behavioral responses.
My journey began by serving the Memphis community within the corporate healthcare sector, working with a variety of populations such as substance use comorbid with mood and personality disorders, impoverished family systems, domestic violence victims and offenders, prisoner society re-entry programming, anger management, crisis hospitalization, long-term residential care and child play therapy.
These ventures brought on the tiring endeavors of advocating for more effective system structure such as extending therapeutic care when insurance panels determined a client’s readiness for discharge from care. Simultaneously, I suffered in my own well being through managing the extreme demands associated with maintaining high caseloads and later being the Lead Therapist within the context of fast-paced crisis hospitalization and then long-term residential care.
It became increasingly evident that there were limits to the quality of care a client could receive from a clinician who was persistently fatigued and overburdened. Motivated by a commitment to elevate the standard of care to align it with my ethical principles, as well as to address my own self-care needs, I made the conscientious decision to transition into private practice. This transition affords me the autonomy to prioritize client-centered ethics, integrate my personal values, and employ a diverse range of therapeutic modalities in the service of client well-being. I now pass these lessons along through Clinician Trainings where I discuss the impact of being well to produce wellness as while being the expert of wellness.
Dream Identity Counseling offers, individual and family counseling, public speaking, business wellness consulting and our mobile Art-to-Heart art therapy technique and release workshops. Although we are now located in Tampa, Fl, we employ our services, aside of counseling across the Memphis, TN area to give back to the needs of the community that include collective, creative release and restorative wellness.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
This journey of becoming has absolutely not been a “crystal staircase” over here! If anyone is getting into entrepreneurship thinking that it is a smoothe road or an easier way of life, this is not the path for you. My journey has been full of highs and lows. Initially, those losses felt defeating as I was first learning how to be a business woman and balance that along with being somebody’s therapist. Clinical collegiate prep does not prepare you for private practice. The language is centered around being a therapist only in corporate healthcare, which conditions you to limit your goals of how to provide care to the community.
My initial struggle was accepting the fear of the unknown that leaving corporate healthcare meant I was leaving my nice cushioned office, substantial salary, benefit package and retirement plan to fulfill my dreams that included none of those perks.
The second struggle is the ongoing surrender to God’s will and not my own plan. I went into private practice in February of 2020. I had to navigate my own belief systems and practices around financial wellness while still attempting to provide accessibility to care. Starting off learning principles to do business correctly means navigating the mistakes, pivots, and all of the trials and errors in financial stewardship, marketing, outsourcing and prioritizing tasks. The unfortunate positive was that Covid-19 and racial injustice was at the forefront of our mental health needs in 2020. Therefore, I was able to build a solid caseload and leave my part-time job as a mobile therapist for the Lee County School System by Fall of 2020. However, any therapist can tell you your case-load can be loaded one week and can drop the next due to clients needs, environmental and societal factors.
The most challenging part of the journey has been managing my own self to produce business through my own hardships more so than managing the business itself. When I am in my low moments, I still have to show up, in the best effort I can, to provide adequate care to a caseload full of people that are also suffering in their low moments. Times that proved my purpose was navigating through my divorce right after becoming a new mom and experiencing death in the family while being miles away from all of my family and friends. Even if I had to break down right before a session and then recover with a few minutes of meditation, prayer, body stretching to ground myself and concealer to hide the bags under my eyes, I was determine to still operate in the spirit of excellence through business and client care. Ironically, that period of time was actually some of my best work as a clinician. I know God used my pain to produce practice of the very principles that I teach.
It took some time to shift my mindset in accepting that progression is not linear & perfection is only a make-believe construct. The process of learning and growing is embracing the ups and downs and knowing that your best may look differently baed on the season you are in. So now, the motto is, “Just do it in fear, and your best is enough.” The falls are the prerequisites to the wins,,,every time!
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Dream Identity Counseling is dedicated to enhancing mental wellness and empowering individuals throughout the State of Florida, offering a range of virtual and in-person services designed to support holistic well-being. Our mission is to empower individuals and families to cultivate their desired lives through comprehensive wellness strategies and resources. Our services include mental health counseling, workplace wellness consulting, and our transformative Art-to-Heart traveling Art Therapy workshops for youth and adults.
By providing holistic wellness strategies through application of behavioral and mental wellness tools, we are committed to destigmatizing mental health and supporting individuals as they navigate past and current life challenges, belief systems and behaviors, while fostering a journey from surviving to thriving identities. Our belief is, “If we are all individually accountable for how we are cultivating our best self, we create a greater community.”
Our mental health counseling services provide psycho-educational and behavioral analysis to assist individuals in coping with mental health symptoms and diagnoses. Through workplace wellness consulting, we educate company groups on enhancing work-life balance and preventing burnout, promoting overall employee well-being.
We are most proud of our Art-to-Heart program that was virtually launched on social media during lockdown of Covid-19 to share therapeutic art techniques to facilitate creative release. This program has grown to a traveling workshop that equips participants with evidence-based coping strategies tailored to address life’s challenges, fostering emotional resilience and building interpersonal connections within the community through creative healing.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I am continuously intrigued and inspired by the arts and culture of Memphis. We set the standards for so many cultural norms. We are the trendsetters of creativity that we see displayed back to us across the U.S. However, what I do not like is how our gifts and creative genius is overcompensated by the negative impact that Memphis receives saturated in experiences of violence and crime that exists here. What I have learned is that the language around “hate” culture here stems to violence and crime because the counter-effect of being a creative, a trendsetter, let alone a business owner in the area can simultaneously cause you to be a target of pure hate crime. Memphis culture has built a “survival of the fittest” mentality that disengages support. Now, let’s not even go into policies and system structure that promotes this mindset. However, the lack of support that is provided by the community to others in the area that are on a mission to build a dream, create a vision, and provide opportunity, impacts not only discouragement for the dreamers in the city, but as we see now, the closing and discontinuation of businesses and services.. So the likes are all of the creative commencement of experiences, events and businesses and the dislikes are the outcomes of closures. Unfortunately, a common theme is that we have the gifts to create here, but the lack of resources and supportive mentality to sustain here, hence my move to Florida, but my dedication to provide in person and virtual services in Memphis.
Pricing:
- Counseling rates for Florida residents are on my website
- Contact info@dreamidentitycounseling.com for Art-to-Heart art therapy technique and release workshops
- Contact info@dreamidentitycounseling.com for Public Speaking
- Contact info@dreamidentitycounseling.com for Business Wellness Consulting
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dreamidentitycounseling.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreamidentitydanesha/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamidentitydanesha
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXFEt3UCz14ho9U8-5Z-Dxw
- Google Maps: https://g.page/r/CefvTVPj12uREB0/review
- Other: https://linktr.ee/dreamidentitydanesha
Image Credits
featured photo by: C. Isabel Photography
