Why Skylight?
Why Skylight?
Why Skylight Wellness Center? Several years before I became a therapist – before I knew I was going to become a therapist – I began envisioning a different kind of life than the one I was living at the time. I had a reasonably good job, a reasonably good apartment, a reasonably good life. Yet a growing voice inside me began speaking up and telling me that this current life was too small, too limited. If I wanted to live the life I truly desired – the inspiring, deeply fulfilling, more-than-reasonably good life I knew I was capable of living – I was going to have to make some changes.
I have always been a fairly cautious, perfectionistic, risk-averse person; big changes are scary for me. But I gradually started to envision myself in the future as a business owner, an entrepreneur. The word that came to me as a name for my future business (which did not materialize, at least not in that particular form, at that particular time) was “skylight.”
The years that followed were a time of major change and transition. I moved three times, and changed jobs twice. I navigated the coronavirus pandemic while working as a hospice social worker supporting patients and caregivers. I achieved some big goals, including earning my clinical social work license and buying a house. My new house had a skylight on the upstairs floor. When it was finally time to launch my independent therapy practice, “Skylight Wellness Center” was born.
What does “skylight” stand for? A skylight is an opening: an aperture that lets light in (an especially helpful feature in a Philadelphia row home). Unlike an ordinary window, a skylight is somewhat unexpected. It requires a certain shift in perspective; you have to look up to see it.
When we’re struggling with depression, anxiety, or grief, feeling lonely and disconnected, or stuck or unsure which path to take, life can feel a bit dark and claustrophobic. We can’t see a way out of our predicament; we’ve already examined the doors and the windows. The usual exits, the usual escapes, no longer cut it. We might even feel like giving up.
And yet, often when we least expect it, a new possibility appears. It could come in the form of a song or a poem, an early morning walk in the woods, or wise words from a friend. We look up, and the light comes streaming in. We see that just beyond the confines of our everyday, limited perspective, a whole world awaits. A world where things are always shifting and changing with the weather, with the seasons, with the unpredictable creativity of life unfolding day by day. We are so much more than we thought.
We can learn to let in the light and fresh air, and allow them to touch us. We can open ourselves to new ways of seeing and being. We can appreciate the ever-changing colors and textures of life, and know that we are not separate but an integral, interconnected part of the whole. We can trust, in the words of Thich Nhaht Hanh, that “because [we] are alive…everything is possible.”