The Meaning Behind Glasshouse Effect Psychotherapy Center!

So many people have inquired about why I decided to name by private practice, Glasshouse Effect Psychotherapy Center. Where did that name come from, they asked with such puzzling expressions? I wanted to use this opportunity to share the meaning behind the name.

This name came to me when I was going through a very vulnerable and sad time in my life. I had a traumatic experience happen to me and I found myself just “sinking.”  Like many people, I soon found myself drowning and I needed someone to help me get out, to rescue me. I, with the help of loved ones, decided to seek a therapist for the first time ever. Yes, I was a therapist needing to see a therapist, which is actually a very difficult thing to do. Not only that,  but I was a Christian born in Nigeria needing help outside of what was already available to me. Let’s be honest, having a such a background, therapy is usually heavily frowned upon. However, I finally gave up! After so many months of depression and anxiety, I realize that seeking professional therapeutic advice was one of the best choices I made in my life. While seeing this therapist, I remember sharing with her that I felt like the walls of my life was literally crashing down all around me. With her help, I realized that I had placed my life in this glasshouse and the walls were FINALLY shattering all around me.  For years, there have been cracks made, but never a complete shattering. What do I mean by this? On the surface, I would say that I am a pretty successful person, I went to school, went to church, I got married, I had children, I developed faith and a relationship with God. I had a supportive base of family and friends. As a result of my relationships and different realizations in life, there were cracks made in my barriers, but there was never a true “shattering,” a full deliverance (as those in the spiritual world may understand it to be).  When this traumatic experience happened, it initiated the “shattering.” It released years of anger, disappointments and my distorted “truth” that I had of myself, others and God. It was used as a platform to prove that I had “invisible barriers” that kept me from being “me.” Frankly, it was my first meeting with “me.” As joyful and hopeful as that may sound, it was and still can be uncomfortable, unknowing, and unlike any other encounters I have ever had.  I thought I knew me, moving beyond those plaguing issues of my past.  However, when my glasshouse’s walls shattered, I realized that it was an illusion, my “safety blanket” that made me think that it was all good; when in reality and in truth, I was not. “I looked heavenly on the outside, but hell was ever so brewing on the inside.” Now beware of this. This shattering process is a painful one.  I was wounded with shards of glass as my walls tumbled. However, getting wounded made me realized that a healing was to take place. An understanding formed,  “to be healed,  we must first be wounded.” Healing is painful and necessary medium that pushes us to move forward. Recognize this phrase? “No pain, no gain.”  There is hope in this process because if you can feel it, that simply means that “you are still alive. ” There is still an opportunity. All one really needs is just an opportunity.

Another earth shattering realization that I received was that “everything I went through was necessary.” All the bad, the good, the indifferent, the gaining and loss of relationships was needed because of who I am and who I was called to be and do for others. In other words, I do not regret anything that I have endured because it prepared me for “such a time as this.” It propelled me into my destiny. “Mistakes can lead to progress, if we choose to learn from it.” So if you are like me and you are obsessed with your past mistakes, your failures; it can be difficult to believe that it was ALL NECESSARY.  The most successful people to me are those that have failed and are not ashamed to be transparent. I recently heard a Pastor Dave Stone say this in a sermon, “God never waste a hurt. Anything you experience, God can make good of it.”

At Glasshouse, I desire for those to be transparent. I don’t ask of clients what I will not do myself. Being transparent is the first step in the right direction. An acknowledging is a must. Now, the next step, what to do once there has been an acknowledgement? In my circumstance, I could see out of my glasshouse which means that I had done the first step. I acknowledged my limitations, my weaknesses, but I had yet to do anything to truly work towards true healing. Because of my past, I thought that this was as good as my life will get. The shattering that took place in my life made me that realize that I had been missing out on the “so much more” of life. I thought I had seen, but now I could really see, without the stains of my past plaguing me. I thought I had heard, but now I truly could hear without the “earwax of life, distractions and hopelessness” clogging me up. My fellow humans, I thought that I was experiencing life! Little did I know, I was barely surviving, not living.

Now, enough about me. Glasshouse is not about me, but you…all of us. If you could relate to any part of what I just disclosed…I am you and you are me. Don’t get me wrong, we are not copies but rather originals, but if there were some things in what I shared that you could relate to, then it is simply time. It is time to break those walls and to begin the shattering process. Don’t worry, I’m here with you. I understand, I care, and I experienced it.  I get it and so will you.