We recently connected with Danielle Matthew and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Danielle, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
The day I learned what the word resilience meant, I was 10 years old. I was in elementary school when a group of girls who were supposed to be my friends started running away from me when I would try and be part of their group. I remember vividly feeling so sad and lonely because I had no friends. That day was also when I learned what it meant to cope.
As a 10-year-old girl, I had to quickly figure out how to handle my emotions and the impact the bullying and the mean behavior of others had on my self-esteem. My first experience of resilience came from being bullied.
I knew I had to find a way to be strong and rise above what got thrown my way. Early on, I learned to cope and understand that life can feel unbearably hard.
Bullying was my first introduction to using coping skills. However, as I matured into an adult, I encountered other challenges that required me to use similar coping skills to move forward with resiliency. As difficult situations arose in my personal and professional lives, I’ve had to navigate the anxiety and fears outside my comfort zone.
The life lessons that I’ve had to learn have equipped me with experiences that I can share with others. I’ve gained the attributes and understanding of empathy, compassion, and sensitivity and have made it my mission to share these in helpful ways with others. I wanted to use my voice in the most powerful way possible. So, I became a therapist, bullying expert, author, speaker, and coach.
I always tell my clients that we are all messy people who must learn compassion for ourselves. We all experience hardships and learning how to work through these stressful times is so important. All these areas allow me to speak my truth and help others find their voice. I am grateful that my life experiences, as challenging as they were, made me understand how to cope and be resilient.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a therapist. I am also the author of The Empowered Child: How to Help Children Cope, Communicate and Conquer bullying. I primarily work with bullied victims, parenting issues, adolescents, and adults. I appreciate helping clients find their own voice and the ability to speak their truth to others and be compassionate towards themselves. I often find clients are the harshest critics of themselves. I appreciate being allowed to go on the journey with them and see their transformation. Helping others find their voice and live a life that feels lighter and more centered for themselves makes my work important.
I also appreciate my public speaking on topics surrounding mental health. I enjoy speaking about social and emotional learning skills, bullying, and depression. I appreciate impacting an entire room of people with my knowledge and providing strategies and support to them. I feel it is very important for a speaker to provide their audience with skills that get utilized after attending a conference or workshop. I want people to feel empowered to get through difficult situations.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
When I think back to my own journey, the qualities that I found most helpful in my growth were self-empowerment, transparency, self-awareness, sensitivity, and self-compassion. I believe therapists should help their clients realize their inner qualities and empower them to use those qualities to become the best version of themselves. We can do this by encouraging our clients to be transparent and teaching them self-awareness and self-compassion while being sensitive and empathic to their struggles.
I believe it is important for people to live their own truth. When people try to be someone they are not or are afraid to be who they are, their journey to acceptance becomes stunted. I encourage everyone to discover and accept who they are. The journey can be painful, but I believe it is necessary to become truly happy.
How would you describe your ideal client?
I appreciate learning from my clients, who teach me lessons every day. I feel honored to work with clients who are open to the journey and want to heal their own pain. I know it is hard to be vulnerable and to live with painful feelings, so I find it very courageous when my clients are open, honest, and self-aware.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://empowerment.space
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniellematthewlmft/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheEmpowermentSpace/?fref=ts
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-targan-matthew-b8b587a/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fdmatthewempower
