Karyn L. Skiba

I probably contribute my success to all of the hard things I've experienced. I've had a lot of loss in my life - that's what drove me to get this grief educator position. I was driven to perinatal mental health because of the hardship in my pregnancies. I loved talking to people because I wanted somebody to talk to. All of the teachers that influenced me, including my mom who was a teacher, gave me this wonderful community around me growing up that always supported me. I'm still friends with some of them today because I actually worked as a school social worker in the district that I went to school in. I think I contribute all of my success to all of the hard things that I've gone through, all of the opportunities that people have given me to rise above that and show me my strength when I didn't see it, and just my own curiosity that I was naturally born with. This has really given me this drive to just keep asking what's next - not to get fame or fortune or anything like that. I just truly want to know how can I continue to help in the best possible way and reach the most people that I can, so that this country, this world can start healing.

I've had so many influential people in my life, kind of all sprinkled in at the exact moment that I need them to give me some advice. I would probably say the most impactful came from my mom. I was in school for nursing, and I remember the day perfectly. I had just failed an exam again because I have a central auditory processing disorder, and so it's really hard for me to take tests. It was raining, I was sitting in my car, I was crying, and I called my mom. She's like, I really think that you need to be a social worker. I'm not kidding, I thought that was like a form of a secretary, and I was like, I don't want to be a secretary! And she's like, that is not what that is. She told me that it is a career that has multiple avenues that you could pursue, all of which I was very passionate about - working in the schools, working in the medical field, working in the community, grassroots kind of stuff. She's like, you just have to pick an avenue. She's like, I really think that based on who I've always seen you be in your life and caring for people, and listening to them, and being able to support them, I think you need to pursue social work. She is really the one that saw who I was before I saw myself. So she put me on this path. And then the next person that touched that was my first professor in social work, Dr. Don Cooney. He lit up my world. He was so influential. He just told me that I had an extreme passion for this work. He saw so much in me. He was actually one of my references to go on to grad school. He was just like, I see so much potential in you. Again, you just have to kind of figure out this avenue, and you're just gonna keep going. Ever since then, it's always been like these people that are like, oh, you should probably turn this way, or you should probably turn this way, and eventually I got to this spot in clinical work. I never thought that I would actually want to sit down and listen to people all day, but I truly am passionate about hearing how I can be the influential person in their life, like all of these other people have been for me.

I think women in our industry have such a hard role in life. From when we're young, and it's getting harder even as these generations are growing up now - they have more worries to think about than I did growing up, and it's scary. When I think about the women in this industry, there is risk - I'm thinking of a tragedy that I just read a couple of months ago about somebody that was killed by one of their clients, and I think that's something that we need to keep in mind. We are vulnerable people by nature. People see us as a vulnerability, but in this role, we have the ability to help heal wounds in a nurturing type of way that a lot of people look for. I think that's where our strengths come in in this field - being honest, being true to ourself, not feeling like we have to be perfect, because the people coming in aren't perfect. I think being authentic to who we are and what we stand for makes us wonderful in this field. My kind of statement or encouragement to women is, you know, don't shy away from the hard things. Don't shy away from this job when somebody told you you're not good enough, or you don't know how to handle this, or what are you gonna do if you have somebody come in your office that's aggressive, or how are you gonna handle those things? And it's like, by being who we are, by being nurturing, by being understanding, by being supportive. We're not there to tell you how to live your life or judge it. We're being the supportive person that a lot of us miss in our life, and so I would just encourage people to follow that side of them.

AI and all things social media - it's wonderful, but Instagram, social media, I feel like it's given people this instant gratification sometimes that they look up what, you know, why do I feel this way, or what are the steps to EFT tapping, emotional freedom technique. And they're losing out on having and making a connection with a real person that they could have with them for their life. A lot of people will look at therapists as, you know, there's nothing wrong with me, but a huge part of Dynamic Wellness Collaborative's viewpoint is that we are not just therapy. We are a collaborative of all whole body wellness services. We have estheticians on staff, we have craniosacral therapy, we have EFT tapping, we are bringing on a nutritionist, we are bringing on a PT that does pelvic floor, and we want to continue to grow and bring on other things so that when you're in our waiting room, you're not just there for one thing. You could be there for anything that helps you feel grounded in the present moment, feel like you're healing those wounds, because we don't just believe that therapy is the cure. I do think that, yes, AI, people looking to social media to help cure that, but stopping there and not taking the next step to follow through with setting up an appointment with somebody. But I also think that it's the viewpoint of what people still look at therapy as. There's still a big aversion to it that I'm hoping with time people can understand that, again, we're not there to judge you, we're there to offer space for you to heal and kind of help be that light to let you know that some of these things you don't have to carry alone. Those are probably the biggest boundaries that I have noticed, and the cost of it. I think that mental health therapy shouldn't be something that is defined by your medical benefits. I think it's something that just needs to be available to every person because of all the stuff that is going on, and so I think the cost is probably the biggest, if not the second biggest thing that impacts our ability to do our job.

I am very honest. I think that's probably my biggest thing. My clients tell me a lot that, you know, they don't always like what I say, because it's hard to hear, but I am very honest, and I love that about myself. It has not always been a strength of mine, because it, you know, like I said, some people don't like to hear honesty, but the people that are in my life are in my life for a reason, and it's because they see that that honesty is a strength. And I don't want to ever have somebody question what I say. And so, I stand behind that authenticity and authentic piece of myself. I am very honest.