Jessica Gallant : AuthorI believe no one should struggle alone and I commend anyone with the courage to reach out for help. As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I offer faith-based therapy for teens, adult individuals, and couples. With empathy, transparency, and honesty, my aim is to act as a professional mentor to guide you through life’s challenges. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, relationship issues, or other concerns, I would be honored to join you wherever you are on life’s journey as you search to find peace and restoration.
Cultivating biblical self-compassion feels like you’re swimming upstream against the current of everything you’ve been taught about spiritual growth. Many believers are hard on themselves, thinking it demonstrates humility and spiritual maturity, or creates an internal environment where grace exists, just not for them. This is a contradiction, leaving them exhausted and confused. They know intellectually that God loves them, yet they feel as though they don’t quite measure up. Faith then becomes a performance, rather than a relationship. [...]
Life can be an unpredictable and winding path, taking you places you never thought you’d be. No one who sets off to get married does so thinking they want to get divorced, even if they know it’s a possibility. This could be doubly so for a believer who holds to their faith in Jesus and is walking in the biblical understanding and purpose of marriage. If this is you, how then do you cope in such circumstances? The Challenges [...]
Death is a part of life. Yet, some people become so obsessed with death that they forget to live their lives. People become obsessed with how they’re going to die, how painful it’s going to be, etc. Death appears to be final, and people recognize that because death is brutal and causes people such pain and sorrow, they can’t help but fear it. 5 Reasons Not to Fear Death But for the Christian, there’s no reason to fear death. [...]
Grief is a unique, nonlinear, unpredictable, off-putting emotion that can knock your seemingly steady world right off its axis. Not only is the process of dealing with grief different for each person, but each situation is unique as well, which means that your grief journey will be distinct to you. The idea that what you are going through is uncharted territory can add anxiety to an already tumultuous period of your life. Not having a map or a forecast [...]
Is there something you’ve always wanted to be and do? Most of us have long-cherished dreams and hopes about ourselves, but not many of us get to live them out. At the heart of our various pursuits, hopes, and dreams is one thing – the pursuit of happiness. We chase after things because we believe we will be happy if we obtain them. We all want to be happy, and that is what drives us and our day-to-day activities. While [...]
Most people have a crisis of faith at some time in their lives. For some, the crisis happens when they are betrayed by a spiritual mentor or when a prayer goes unanswered. Others may be challenged when a new friend or social circle starts questioning their faith or when they are confronted with scientific theories that seem to contradict the Bible. Whatever the reason for your conflicting emotions and doubts regarding your faith, the fact that you’re reading this [...]
Overwhelming stress can make you physically, mentally, and emotionally ill. Stress is the body’s natural response to danger. What we perceive as dangerous differs from what our ancestors experienced thousands of years ago. However, our brains still react by releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to help us through perceived danger. Chronic stress causes inflammation, high blood pressure, rapid heart rate, anxiety, panic attacks, sleep issues, digestive problems, appetite changes, and weight gain or loss. Learning coping mechanisms for [...]
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the diagnosis used in the mental health field to describe someone who shows symptoms or behaviors for a month or longer, after having experienced or witnessed a potentially traumatic event or series of potentially traumatic events. In PTSD counseling, a traumatic event is defined as one that threatens death, serious injury, or sexual violation. Symptoms are grouped around four different categories: intrusion symptoms, avoidance symptoms, negative changes in mood or cognitive behavior, and alterations [...]
Anger is an emotion that occurs in just about every situation you can think of. Whether you’re at the grocery store, sitting at a restaurant to have dinner with your date, visiting a sick loved one in the hospital, at the school drop-off zone, or at the park walking your dog, anger isn’t far away. It can sometimes seem as though it is a living thing waiting to escape from its cage if we’re not vigilant. Our life experiences [...]
Anxiety is something we all have to deal with occasionally, but for some, it is a constant experience. Anxiety can be complex, irrational, and sometimes undetectable. However, the people who must deal with anxiety daily will feel the effects of it, whether they know where it comes from or not. Highly anxious people tend to develop similar habits over time. These might serve as indicators or red flags for the presence of anxiety in their lives. Common Habits of [...]
AnxietyAs one of the most common mental health illnesses, Mental Health America states that more than 8% of American adults (more than 21 million) are affected by major depression and an alarming 15% of youth aged 12-17. The number of people who struggle with some sort of depressive disorder is likely far higher, and it is said that only about a third of people who suffer seek help for depression. Depression and Christianity have in some circles earned a [...]
Friendship is one of many good gifts that God gives us. In the wisdom literature of the Bible, there are several sayings relating to friendship such as, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24, NIV). We see many examples of friendship throughout the Bible and in history; some of these are great, like David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel of the Old Testament, or [...]
