From a licensed therapists office to your inbox - each week get evidence-based insights on healing attachment wounds, softening fear, and learning to trust again. Move from self-protection to real connection—with yourself, others, and a God who is safe
“Blake’s work is like being introduced to a friend. Along the way I realized that friend he was introducing me to, was myself.”
Your heart is wired for connection, but trauma teaches you to protect instead.
Pain can make it feel safer to shut down, to stay small, to keep others—even God—at a distance.
But healing is possible. You don’t have to stay in survival mode.
In More to the Story, I explore how to move from self-protection to real connection—with yourself, others, and a God who is safe.
Each week in my newsletter, I explore how to move from self-protection to real connection—with yourself, others, and a God who is safe.
Sharing insights as a licensed therapist on developmental and relational trauma, healing attachment wounds, softening fear, and learning to trust again.
If that sounds similar to the journey you’re on, you’re in the right place.
In this post you can expect:
What this newsletter is about.
What to expect if you join the community.
More about me.
What this newsletter experience is about.
In my work as a therapist, I witness people doing the courageous work of journeying inward and facing hard things and making sense of those things and overcoming those things. Here is where we explore the nuances of the journey that I get to help people on a daily basis with. A journey that we’re all on in some way or another.
This a newsletter, an invitation, a guide, a community, an experience. A space that encourages you to journey inward and move towards wholeness. We’ll candidly explore the nuances of topics such as mental health, parenting, addictions, relationships, faith, creativity, trauma.
My goal for this space is for you to:
Become more curious and less critical toward yourself and others.
Engage your inner world on a deeper level.
Find beauty and meaning in the complexities of the “mundane.”
Discover some things. Put language to some things.
Hopefully laugh some along the way.
My biggest hope is that my words put language to the not yet spoken. To what it’s like internally for you. Or, at least, inspires you to put language to what it’s like.
What you can expect as a part of the community.
All content at this time is free. There may be bonus content and other things in the future for paid subscribers, but I don’t feel the pull to that just yet.
It currently exists in two parts:
Newsletter Experience
Ideally you’ll get two letters a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less, as that is what works for me in this season. The letters will be a combination personal essays, my clinical perspective & experience, current research regarding mental health, stories inspired by real people, and exercises that invite you to engage your inner world on a deeper level.
Notes
If you have the Substack app you can follow me on Notes where I share “therapy thoughts”. These are shorter candid ponderings that come up during my daily work with clients. It’s also a great place to connect further with me and other readers and writers.
About Me
I’m a therapist and own a private practice outside of Nashville, TN. The path to getting here has been quite interesting. After graduating college, where I played football and earned a degree in religion thinking I’d become a pastor, I found my way to managing an art gallery and creative brand.
It wasn’t until some personal issues arose with my girlfriend—now my wife—nearly a decade ago (a story for another day) that I stepped into a counselor's office for the first time.
Fast forward through many years of realizing there was more to my story; I began to engage with my trauma in individual therapy, worked on our relationship in couples therapy, faced my addiction, got involved in 12-step recovery, and truly started “doing the work.”
It took what felt like forever for me to even bring up the idea of becoming a therapist to my wife because I was so afraid of it (a story for another day). Fast forward a bunch more years, with grad school loans and a lot of hard work, and I’ve now owned a successful private practice for three years, which is still wild to me.
Along the way, I’ve discovered that the journey through life is not a straight line but a winding road filled with lessons that can often leave us breathless yet wiser—if we allow them to.
My wife and I have been married 8 years and in July of 2023, welcomed our daughter into the world. Being a dad is the most beautiful and complex thing I’ve experienced.
Some of the therapist stereotypes are true. I wear cardigans and have lots of sweaters and love a good cigar. I love music and grew up playing the drums. These days I listen to a lot of jazz, ambient music, and indie folk.
That feels like enough for now. You'll learn more along the way through personal essays I share here. I’m glad you’re here.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you soon!
— Blake
Thanks for being here and share this with a few friends if you feel like it. 🙏
*DISCLAIMER* - More to the Story is not therapy or a mental health service. Nor is it a substitute for mental health services. If you are looking for individualized support please reach out to your local mental health providers. If you would like to inquire about working with me therapeutically, please reach out here.
I hope you enjoy this work and that it’s a sort of balm to your soul. Also, share it with people you care about.
