In this debut episode of Redefining Us, host Stephanie Konter-O’Hara takes the mic solo to introduce herself and share her personal journey. With over 13 years of experience as a therapist and a business owner since 2017, Stephanie Konter-O’Hara reflects on the various roles she juggles—therapist, business owner, mom, and wife—and the invaluable lessons learned along the way.
Key Takeaways:
The Journey to Motherhood: [Your Name] opens up about her own struggles with infertility and the extensive efforts she made to overcome the challenges, including seeking help from therapists, acupuncturists, and reading extensively.
Building a Business: Learn about [Your Name]’s initial foray into business ownership, her approach to learning and growth through business coaches, programs, and podcasts, and how she manages to lead a team of 15 while maintaining a full client caseload.
The Power of Community: Discover why [Your Name] believes that personal and professional growth is deeply intertwined with the support and influence of a strong community. She emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with supportive, inspiring individuals.
Balancing Life’s Roles: Hear about the balance [Your Name] strives to maintain between her roles as a therapist, business owner, mom, and wife. She discusses how embracing the busyness of life helps her thrive and find creativity.
The Importance of Connection: [Your Name] reflects on the idea that no one should navigate life’s challenges alone. She discusses how leaning on others and finding a supportive tribe can be instrumental in personal growth and well-being.
Finding Alignment with Your Community: Gain insights into how [Your Name] encourages listeners to seek out communities that align with their values while also challenging them to engage with diverse perspectives.
Episode Highlights:
Personal stories of overcoming infertility and business challenges.
The impact of therapy and community support on personal growth.
Practical advice on finding and nurturing supportive relationships.
The significance of being part of a larger community and the value of diverse perspectives.
Stephanie Konter-O'Hara is deeply passionate about the work she does as a clinician, supervisor, business owner, podcaster, wife and mother as they all inspire her to be the best version of herself and challenge her everyday. A guiding mantra that Stephanie follows in life is the Gandhi quote of "be the change you want to see in the world", and this inspires her to keep doing things in a way that don't necessarily follow the mold but is ideally changing the world one interaction at a time. She believes her purpose is to inspire others to be the best version of themselves and empower every person to deeply know they are good enough just the way they are.
“ Each part of this journey has really taught me a lot of lessons.”
Guest links:
Where to find more from Redefining Us:
Website: wellmindedcounseling.com/redefining-us-pod
Facebook: www.facebook.com/wellmindedcounseling
Instagram: @wellmindedcounseling
Bio of Host: Stephanie Konter-O’Hara
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Well, as my first episode on the podcast, I'm going to make it a solo episode and introduce myself have been a therapist for over 13 years now and I'm so crazy how time flies I have been a business owner since 2017 and every part of my story has been quite a journey. I struggled so much to become a mom.
I had my own infertility experiences. I had my own therapist to help me along the way, on acupuncturists, talk to friends, read books, everything that I thought would be helpful to do, I did to try to move my journey to become a mom.
I would say my journey to be a business owner's quite similar. I started flying by the seat of my pants. I hired business coaches. I took programs and read books and listened to podcasts and did it one day to time.
And anytime I share my story about how I became a business owner, I always find myself feeling a little uncomfortable because boasting isn't something that I'm good at, as I've always been taught this dialogue of being humble, but I do have a team of 15 people that I supervise and manage and I have my own full caseload of clients.
And so I'm a pretty busy person. But I thrive in the busyness. I wouldn't say it's chaos because I do have a lot of time to myself to be creative and to be a therapist as well. I went to therapy and it saved my life in more ways than one. I figured out what I wanted to do for my career.
I figured out what I was passionate about, figured out some coping skills that I've kept to me alive. I was in a really dark place at that time.
I would say moving from a place of complete, like, chaos and confusion to clarity and peace is so healing. And I tell my therapist that I supervise that regularly that is part of their mission with clients.
Like, this isn't a job or career, for the faint of heart. You do have to have a good sense of who you are, or at least of who you want to be and be working towards that.
And each part of this journey has really taught me a lot of lessons. And I love being a therapist. I love being a business owner as well.
I love being a mom. I love being a wife. All of the hats that I wear sometimes can get a little dirty and get a little crumpled because life can be just hard and messy.
But I always come back to like what has helped me get to this point. It's talking to other people. It's being a part of a community that lists me.
that I think continue inspiring me. And so I'm hoping that through this journey of doing this podcast,
I'll meet more women like that who will continue to help me grow and help everyone who's listening grow as well because I don't think that we can do this life alone.
It truly does take a village, whether you're raising a child or raising yourself. It really does take a lot of effort. And I think if we decide that we're going to go it alone and we're going to be independent and we're going to not need anyone or I know a lot of people are like,
I don't need no man. And that could be true. Maybe you don't need a man, but you do need people. Like you do need good, hearted, solid people in your life in order to have a full life,
in order to have a life where you feel stable and comforted because it just can't be done alone. And I think at one part in my journey,
I thought that I could do everything all by myself and then I didn't need anybody. I didn't need help. I didn't need support. I didn't need guidance.
anyone. And it's not until I started to look towards other people and lean on them that I think I became the person that I was meant to be.
There's this thing that a lot of people say that the five closest people to you are the people who influence you the most and the people you become the most. And I surrounded myself by people who I wanted to be like.
You know, I had a therapist. I had some teachers. I had some friends. I had, you know, some people in my family that I really leaned on to figure out me.
And now becoming a mom trying to figure out who I am in this new phase, in this new of my life.
I had to figure out how to be a new version of me and how to tap into a different network and a different part of myself.
And now in this new phase of being a mom, it has been so incredibly eye -opening of just how challenging it can be to take care of another human being, for one, how to live in a life where you feel sleep deprived and finding a new tribe.
I haven't left any of my old tribes, but you do need a new tribe in almost every phase of life if you're going to land on your two feet and to be grounded is to be connected to historically have grown up in tribes and not in these isolated little silos that we live into now where every single family has their own home like we grew up in communities where everyone knew everyone and everyone helped everyone and
everyone had a separate function so the idea that women today are supposed to work or are supposed to take care of their children all how people need people and people need mental health services and people need help cleaning their house or help watching their kids or help like taking care of other responsibilities like I don't know any shade or shame that someone throws on another person for asking for help or for
needing support for I guess all of that to say that in this podcast and in these interviews where I talk to women who might be business owners or stay -at -home moms or just women trying to figure it out,
I'd encourage you to listen to their stories and to figure out how you can access resources, access, like other parts of yourself that need...
or it's the seven -year -old who got pushed on the slide and, you know, skid their knee because they weren't going down the slide fast enough.
Like, whatever part of you needs to be healed, those parts need attention. And it's going to be really hard for you to give them the attention they deserve if you think you can do it all by yourself.
You are the one that needs to listen to those parts and pay attention to what those parts need. That is your responsibility, but getting the nurturing and support from other people will help you be able to access those parts and have time to nurture those parts.
But if you're busy doing all of the things all of the time, that won't be possible. So before I go on more tangents about how we all can be more connected to ourselves by being connected to others,
I think it's important to... talk about what it means to be in alignment with the community that you're in.
So I'm sure we're all aware of the vastly different opinions that exist on the internet. And how about the vastly different opinions that exist in our society?
to find those people who might reinforce your beliefs or reinforce your ideas. And I also challenge you to find people who are saying just something a little different.
So you yourself can be challenged and figure out how other people are doing life. Figure out how other people think, what other people believe. Because even though you need a village,
it doesn't need to be only people who think. and listening to why they believe what they believe and listening to why they came to that conclusion and what inspires them to continue to go down that path.
So that's my spiel for why I'm doing what I'm doing and how I got here and I just love talking to other people and hearing other people's stories and helping inspire other people and just being grateful to be a part of other people's stories and journeys.
And yeah, I hope you'll, you'll join me each week as we listen to the conversations that I'll have with other people. And yeah,
I hope you'll stick around. All right, take care.