“I want to make self-discovery trendy. Self-discovery is sexy and it’s stylish; you can tell a woman that knows herself when she’s walking down the street.” – Brooke Miller, SoapBox Therapy founder
Get to know Brooke, a woman giving her heart to heal yours.
SG: Who is Brooke Miller?
BM: I’m the founder of SoapBox Therapy; it’s my baby. SoapBox Therapy exists to support people in becoming their emotionally healthy selves. It’s diving into real-life head on, not covering things up with a lot of psychobabble.
I’m a real person; I have my own stuff and my own emotional health journey. I’m honest about who I am and where I’ve been, and with my education and experience, I’m able to translate emotional intelligence into a language that’s digestible. I could talk to my girlfriend over a glass of wine and have the exact same conversation as I would have if I was talking to a client or doing a workshop.
You can come to SoapBox Therapy and truly be yourself, but don’t come and expect to send out invitations to your pity party. I’m going to challenge you and help you to get real.
SG: Break down emotional health – how do we know where we stand?
BM:
1. When you say that you’re happy and you’re not, that’s NOT emotionally healthy. That’s fake. That’s a lie.
2. Emotional health IS about your capacity to be accountable for your emotional life. If you’re in a bad mood, it doesn’t mean that you need to vomit your bad mood all over the world.
3. Emotional health IS about being real, and mindful and curious about where you’re at, for example, “I’m in a bad mood today, what’s that about?” OR, “I keep dating the same kind of guy, unsuccessfully, what’s that about?” OR “I keep dodging my dreams with excuses, how come?”
SoapBox Therapy helps to figure out why; what emotions and situations are you holding inside that are keeping you held down? Emotional health is really having the balls to figure out why.
SG: The word ‘authentic’ has a special place in your heart; tell us about the importance of authenticity.
BM: Even when you say that word, I have a knot in my stomach and tears welling up in my eyes. I actually get sick to my stomach when I think about the fact that there are so many people that feel being themselves is the hardest person to be. Authenticity is just about being who you are and being OK with that.
If I’m upset about something, I’m authentic and say that I’m hurt. People are so worried that if they say that they’re hurt, the response is going to be, “Why? You shouldn’t be hurt, you’re too sensitive, that’s silly, and why are you being dramatic?” My answer to that is, “I don’t care, it’s how I feel.”
The point is you’re allowed to feel the way that you feel and if we can figure out why you feel that way and what happened to lead you to that point, you probably won’t feel that way anymore. Once you figure out where it comes from, it doesn’t have such a hold on you.
I went through a time in my life when I was extremely inauthentic, I put as many emotional layers as I possibly could so no one could see who I really was; that was really painful. Peeling back my own layers led me to get my Masters in Psychology and become the emotional expert that I am.
SG: Is the most important relationship to cultivate the one with you?
BM: We’ve all heard the line ‘you need to love yourself before anyone can love you.’ I actually don’t believe that…
I believe that you need to believe that you deserve to be loved before anyone can love you. Sometimes it takes someone else to love you for you to wake up and realize how awesome you are. But that can’t happen, you can’t even let that in, until you believe that you actually deserve love.
Community is also really important to emotional health. I hear people so often say, ‘no one else has ever felt the way I feel, I’m alone, and no one will understand.’ I couldn’t disagree with any group of statements more. I don’t care what you’re talking about, if you are a human being, you are not going to feel something that has never yet in the span of lifetime been felt! Some people feel emotions on a different level than others, but you have not invented a feeling. On SoapBox Therapy you have an emotional community that allows you to connect. You can read an advice column and very likely relate, at some level, with what you’re reading which allows you to say, ‘oh yes, me too!’ When it comes to relationships, those are the two most powerful words in the English language.
Are you loving Brooke? Yep, me too!
Have a love affair with your emotional side, you won’t be sorry. Visit SoapBoxTherapy.com for daily doses of Brooke.
Also, watch for Brooke’s monthly contributions to HerExchange.
(Love you Brooke! Thank you for doing what you do so well!)
- Stephanie Goetsch, March 2011
