Leona Esmaeily,  LMFT #142467

“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us,” David Richo. Opening up and talking about our struggles is one of the hardest things to do. My job is to ease that process for you. My name is Leona Esmaeily and I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT #142467). I earned my master’s from California Baptist University.

My primary specializations include anxiety and panic attack due to trauma and relationship issues. I’ve previously worked with kids ranging from age 2-3 years old, provided them with behavioral therapy and collaborated alongside their parents and teachers to reduce behaviors. Additionally, I have experience working with individuals and couples, supplying them with therapeutic tools to achieve all their goals.

We Can Find Solutions Together!

I know making your first step into the therapy office is uncomfortable and I want to make that experience easier for you. Having struggled with my own anxiety, therapy was the saving grace I needed to work out my problems and motivation to become a therapist myself. Therapists are more than just mental health professionals; we are here to guide you through your darkest times and loneliest moments, both as a counselor to educate and a supporter to lean on.

It’s Normal To Feel Anxious

Anxiety can creep up when we least expect it. Whether it is from a busy home life, a demanding job, or simply overthinking, anxiety will find us. Anxious individuals tend to overthink negative thoughts leading to uncontrollable and terrifying panic attacks. I am confident that I can reduce that ominous dread from your shoulders through a variety of proven and effective calming techniques. For example, deep, slow breaths lower your heart rate thereby promoting a state of calmness, while naming different characters from your favorite show redirects your mind from your emotions and onto something else. These techniques and many more all serve as short-term coping mechanisms for panic attacks until we unearth the underlying source of your anxiety. The majority of the time, anxiety arises due to the lack of self-love or self-esteem. Our therapy sessions will work to uncover and reduce those symptoms while your overall confidence will soar.

Human beings have evolutionarily been programed to appear strong and invulnerable to life’s unending challenges. Those who were perceived as weak did not last. Personally, coming from a Middle Eastern background we did not talk about our feelings. Happiness was the only emotion I expressed while all others were tucked away. This seemed normal until my therapist showed the destructive effects this “normal” lifestyle had caused. I was emotionally immature, closed off from my emotions and extremely out of touch with my true feelings. Repressed or buried feelings can cause tension in our hearts and stunt our personal growth. We want to be able to release some of that tension by talking about our feelings. We want to be able to trust the people around us and let them into lives. We need to be aware that there are so many emotions in this world and we have the ability to feel them. We need to open our hearts and minds to start feeling.

Because anxiety is so complex, I provide my clients with a variety of tools to help them manage through anxious thoughts. With anxiety, there is a disconnect with what is real and what is happening in our heads. These thoughts can consume our minds and make it hard to function. Surprisingly, the simple act of writing these thoughts out, frees our minds to think more clearly. 

After recognizing and labeling these stressors, we’ll focus on fueling your body with positive, “feel-good” hormones (serotonin/dopamine) to help decrease anxiety. These are your self-care activities and they can involve meditating, going on walks, listening to music or anything else that you truly enjoy doing in your free time. During this stage, you’ll rediscover what your body needs to feel happy and we’ll create a specialized self-care routine you can pull out whenever life gets too rough. I also like to use a thought record worksheet. This worksheet helps to decipher what is real and what is not. You can tackle intrusive thoughts by identifying the harmful thoughts you’re experiencing, listing facts that support and oppose that thought, and finally processing an alternative, more realistic perspective. 

Attachment Styles

When you buy a plant you need to water and feed it to help it grow, but once it starts growing, do you stop? The obvious answer is no. I see relationships in the same way as I see plants. You don’t stop taking care of your relationship as soon as it starts growing. You have to continue nourishing it and  giving it what it needs. A useful tool in growing your relationship is understanding attachment styles. Attachment styles ultimately derive from how we were raised. There are three different attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. These attachment styles are an integral part of us all and dictate how we view and treat our relationships and partners. 

A secure attachment can be seen as a person that truly acts like themselves in the relationship and values their self-worth. They openly seek comfort and are most at peace when their partner relies on them for emotional support. They feel secure in the relationship and are trusting, and loving to their partners.

An anxious attachment manifests as a constant fear of their partner pulling away. Seemingly small inconsistencies can be magnified into much larger problems that push both partners away from each other. They seek constant reassurance to ease this uncertainty about their bond and can become overly attentive, constantly questioning the status of their relationship.

Finally, the avoidant attachment is characterized by a constant need for independence. As a result, they are uncomfortable with intimacy/closeness and terrified of commitment. They may express the feeling of being crowded or suffocated when others get too close and inevitably push people away to regain their space. Much like the anxious attachment style, they have difficulties trusting others and opening up. In our sessions, I will challenge you to communicate openly about your wants and needs to determine your specific attachment styles. With this information, we’ll work to fulfill these needs and specify the way you want to be loved by your partner. 

Trauma

Trauma can present differently in each of us. My trauma work involves talking through the pain at your own pace, processing through the emotions you’re feeling, and purging it out of your body either through journaling or other mindful work. It’s normal to try to hide these feelings and run from them, but in reality, the trauma happened. I believe you have to have the strength to accept the pain for what it was and grow from it. 

I provide my clients with a variety of tools to help them connect with their emotions and to allow themselves to truly feel. Once you begin to dissect and feel your emotions, you’re allowing yourself to take back that feeling of powerlessness and come into your true self. 

Everything You Need to Know About Couples Therapy

It is no surprise that relationships are hard work. Relationships, like a flower, need a lot of love and nurturing to grow. In a relationship, you need to remember that there is a completely different, whole other individual in your life. Your partner might not share the same qualities, characteristics, or mindset as you and that is okay! One of the biggest struggles between couples is communication, and it is important to accommodate your partner’s communication style. Common communication issues couples face are not listening, speaking before thinking, raising their voice, degrading each other, playing the blame game, and trying to be understood rather than understanding. Communication takes a lot of compromise and working together to reach a resolution. When you two play on the same team, you will see the enormous difference proper communication will do for your relationship.

Approaches To Psychotherapy

My therapeutic approach is a mix of Person-Centered Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). I will help you feel heard through practicing empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard. This means I will try my best to understand your point of view without judgement as well as help transform and replace your automatic negative thoughts with more positive mindsets and emotional responses.

When all is said and done, I will help you find some healthy coping skills to make your struggles easier. I want to help show you that there are positive ways of dealing with stress, anxiety, and relationship problems. Additionally, we need to recognize the difference between healthy and unhealthy coping skills. Meditation, exercise, setting boundaries, journaling, making lists, and positive thinking are a few of the wide varieties of coping mechanisms available to us as mental health professionals. I want to help you help yourself and if I can make your life a little bit easier in the process, then my job is done.

I provide individual therapy sessions for 50 minutes/ $150 per session and couples sessions for 50 minutes/ $170 per session. I look forward to connecting with you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for a free 20 minute consultation.