Meet Lenese Barnes

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lenese Barnes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lenese, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

I’d like to believe much of my confidence and self-esteem have come from my parents. My mother was a plus size woman and my father only had a 9th grade education. They both instilled in me that not only was I ‘pretty’ but I had the smarts and the ability to do and be anything. I grew up being a very ‘shy’ child, however, with witnessing the love between my parents, my curiosity of how to socialize and engage with others and my high engagement in primary school grade levels I do believe this has began the development of my confidence and self-esteem.
As I got older, I have always identified as a ‘plus size woman’ and this did have a wavering impact on my confidence and self-esteem. Once I began to engage in group exercising and the intentional movement of my body this afforded me another layer of adding onto my self-esteem and confidence. The essence of knowing I am able to move my body and for my body to provide me with feedback of goodness and knowing how much it could sustain made me highly proud of myself and created another source of being able to cultivate self-esteem and confidence.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Dr. Barnes is a counselor educator and is currently an assistant professor at Trinity Washington University within their counseling program. In addition to being a full-time professor, Dr. Barnes also is the CEO and founder of Hopeful Counseling, which was established in 2018. Throughout her career she has worked within various entities providing trauma focused counseling and educational content to an array of individuals. All of her honorary degrees were received from Hampton University, George Mason University and Argosy University with her doctorate research focusing on the quality of life for overweight African American women in higher education. Outside of her identified research, she has received many awards to include Counselor of the Year award from Maryland Counseling Association (MCA), Top 40 under 40 recognition, Black Excellence recognition from Essence magazine, to name a few. She has been featured on essence.com speaking about the mental health of black women during the COVID pandemic, various publishing materials discussing the importance of remaining a consistent form of daily exercise throughout times of high stress and to address any mental health symptoms.
Dr. Barnes operates a group mental health private practice that’s CARF accredited servicing the DMV area in addressing mental health concerns. She clinically supervises at least 10 licensed therapists and interns from surrounding colleges and universities. Hopeful Counseling is a practice that services the DMV area in addressing and supporting healing mental health concerns, in addition to working with individuals Hopeful Counseling also works with the bariatric population with offering evaluation services and group sessions focusing on the mental health connection with an individual’s relationship with food. My clinical supervision focuses on the teachings and instrumentation of the trauma focused treatment, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), in addition to addressing sociocultured attuned content. As of 2019 she has become a certified EMDR therapist identified by EMDRIA organization. Dr. Barnes is a woman who believes in having a spiritual foundation along with assisting people reach their highest and fullest desires of their heart. She shares her platform with others to assist with developing and utilizing their own personal voice and exercise their power of choice, a cheerleader for those needing the encouragement and is always open to educate others! Her spiritual faith is an important factor that adds to the overall quality of her life, along with exercise and enjoying time with friends and family, traveling…oh and shopping (*smiling*)!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

(1) my faith journey and beliefs have been a major important quality I possess. Much of what has come to fruition for myself has been through having faith and being dedicated to my religious beliefs and practices…having HOPE!

(2) My IT factor to preservere and overcome adversities is another quality I possess about myself. I’ve always remained a hopeful person and looking beyond the problem or chaos and to remain focused on what’s in front of me and not go further

(3) I believe my ancestors (mostly my mother and father) have guided me through my life’s journey and allowed me to secure where I am in the time I am meant to experience it.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

The most impactful thing my parents (and grandparents) was to make me a homeowner before knowing what a homeowner was. My grandparents willed their house to myself and my brother after their passing and then after my mother passed (in 1992) and father passed (in 2019), this became our 2nd time to be a homeowner, with 2 properties in our name. This did assist with financial education/literacy and allowed for me to afford my higher educational degrees and my brother’s personal HVAC business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hopefulcounseling.org
• Instagram: Hopeful Counseling
• Facebook: HopefulCounseling
• Linkedin: LeneseStephens
• Other: www.goodhopefdn.org
  www.drstephens.org