Talia
Wagner
Healing Towards Happiness
Sometimes we have to go to battle for our happiness.
This fight isn’t fought on distant battlefields, but within the landscape of our own minds. Our greatest opponents? The relentless internal critic, the chaotic “monkey mind” and our deeply ingrained intergenerational trauma wounds. These have conditioned us to attend to our fears, insecurities, and the exhausting habit of people-pleasing. These are normal, but part of our journey in the evolution of self, is to master these self-defeating, limited thoughts. Ignoring these can leave us feeling stuck and unfulfilled.
Mastering your mind isn’t as daunting as it sounds. It’s simply a matter of acquiring new skills and learning better strategies that focus on healing the parts of us that have been wounded and unattended to.
Think of your mind as a garden that’s been tended a certain way for years. It’s filled with habitual thought patterns and emotional responses, some of which self-sabotage our relationships and ultimately, do not serve our highest good. We often navigate life based on these preconditioned thought patterns, unaware of how to heal the emotional scars that lay underneath. This affects not only our relationships with others but also the relationship that we have with ourselves.
The path to lasting happiness begins with our willingness to gain self-awareness and mastery over these. Doing so helps us to understand how our internal processes affect the patterns that challenge our emotional growth. Embarking on this healing journey means that we let go of that which does not serve us, forgiving ourselves and others for not knowing better than to move in these self-sabotaging preconditioned patterns.
Emotional growth can be both comforting and empowering in the quest for finding personal happiness and fulfillment within ourselves and within our relationships with others.
Three Acts of Life
Act I
sees you through early adulthood, moving from being a dependent to self-reliance and independence. This era is characterized by important personal achievements, experimentation, and uncertainty. For many it is a time of complete self-absorption and self-discovery, during which you learn to become more comfortable in your own skin. Act I generally gives you the space and freedom to develop your individuality. Living on your own, college, first jobs that morph into careers, and coupling up in mature relationships characterize the act’s major milestones. During this time, the focus is on yourself, and, in accordance, your reality and behavior are shaped through the lens of yourself as a self-driven, individual entity.
Act II
officially kicks off when you commit to a life of “we” instead of “me.” Pairing up, you chose to go through life’s adventure alongside a partner, and, whether married or not, in Act II you share your life with another. This can be a rough transition, where you are all the sudden expected to go from choices for and by yourself to now having to compromise, find middle ground, and share all elements of your life with another. A perfect storm of troubles can be created where, in a condensed period of time, couples build a family, a home, the infrastructure of their lives, and their careers – all at once. While these are theoretically wonderfully amazing milestones, the level of obligation and selflessness required comes as a shocking surprise for most. Couples are often not prepared for the stressors and difficulties that accompany life’s major accomplishments in Act II. A massive mental shift must happen for us to be ready for the demands of this act. Coming from a place of solely indulging your individual wants and needs to this advanced level of togetherness, teamwork and partnership can be jarring.
Act III
can play out like those Choose Your Own Adventure books where, depending on the choices you make, you get one of two endings. This can be a time of great happiness for a couple or a time of deep sorrow as realizations may lead to separation and divorce. Ideally, if couples are able to hold onto each other through the hardships of an earlier and more challenging time with mutual respect, communication, and love, Act III is where you enjoy and reap the rewards. Life slows down, with fewer responsibilities and fewer balls to juggle. The kids are grown – most likely at college or off living their adult lives. The demands on your life are minimal. Employment should be ramping down leading toward a time of reduced workload and/or retirement. This means more time on your hands doing what you love. If you did it right, this could be the best time of your life. If you cherished the relationship and nourished it through the years, it will be there intact in Act III.
Regardless of the act of life you may be in, it is not too late to correct course, especially if negativity, neglect, resentment, or stagnation has taken root. All relational dynamics are fixable and capable of miraculous transformations when we focus on their growth, instead of their problems.
Relational Wellness Services
Individual Services
Create the life you want to be living by removing the emotional and mental obstacles in your path. Gain helpful tools to get rid of the self-defeating thinking patterns that create real life limitations. Understand the ingrained habits and old conditioning that has formed blockages to personal and emotional growth.
Couples Services
Rediscover one another through gaining a greater understanding of the internal dynamics in your connection. Work on resolving long standing sources of misunderstanding and conflict, which often play a huge role in perpetuating patterns of stagnation and emotional unfulfillment. Gaining this understanding will lead to emotional insights that will bring about a renewed sense of hope and a deeper appreciation and insightful understanding of one another.
Family Services
Years of misunderstandings, and faulty misfires can cause a pile-up of emotional triggers and heavy baggage, buried deep down in our individual hurts. Focusing on growing healthy family dynamics heals the past, and lays a positive pathway forward can release these old wounds that are only perpetuated through faulty communication. Gaining helpful strategies and real-life tools can facilitate positive communication, and rebuild trust. These will work to heal intergenerational wounds and resolve long-standing familial issues.
Coaching Bundles
Comprehensive and personalized guidance offered in bundles to increase positive results. Packaged bundles promote higher accountability and creates a surge of motivation, leading to a faster path in achieving the client’s goals.
Coming Soon
About Talia Wagner
As a 20-year veteran in the field of mental wellness, Talia’s expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Solution Focused Therapy has made a positive impact in the lives of many people. Her background as a Marriage and Family Therapist and Relationship Expert in the Los Angeles area, has promoted mental and emotional wellness for both individuals and couples.
Talia’s unique approach emphasizes healing of deep seated emotional and relational wounds that left untreated, often lead to increased symptoms of anger, anxiety and depression. These unseen wounds can wreak havoc on our sense of self and our functioning in the world. Ms. Wagner’s holistic approach normalizes these common struggles, helping individuals and couples overcome stagnation and a lack of progress.