Ryan is an engineer at heart. He believes that everything makes sense once you can understand how and why it works.

Pain is not random and meaningless. Your sorrows and struggles are not just chemical imbalances. Everything is meaningful. And deep healing is available to those who are willing to discover these meanings.

Ryan practices Coherence Therapy and EMDR, which allow clients to get to the essence of things, finding their own path to healing at their own pace. Often that path looks surprising, even shocking. Consider this parable by Anthony de Mello:

There was a young lion that grew up in a flock of sheep. He had no idea he was a lion—he would bleat like a sheep, he’d eat grass like a sheep. One day a mighty lion attacked and all the sheep scattered. The young sheep-lion was frozen, cowering in front of the king of the jungle and whimpering “Have mercy on me. Don’t eat me.” But the mighty lion dragged him away saying, “Come with me.”  And he took him to a lake and he said, “Look.”  So the lion who thought he was a sheep looked—and for the first time he saw his reflection. Then he looked at the jungle lion, and he looked in the water again, and he let out a mighty roar. He was never a sheep again.

Ryan can sympathize with people who feel tired, discouraged, and don’t really believe there’s much healing to be found. Ryan has felt that way too, but has come to believe in a God much bigger, kinder, and more beautiful than we could ever imagine. There is much available to us.