Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christine Vargo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Christine, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
A defining moment in my life was the day I met Josephine. We knew when we met that we were meant for each other within days AND we were meant to create amazing things together to be in service of others. We co-founded Full Expression: The Human Condition, LLC – our mission is to help our clients develop a transformative connection with themselves through embodying their core values, practicing self-compassion, and living their purpose.
The work we do is not just a business and a passion, it’s lessons learned from our own journeys of doing the deeper inner work to connect to our inner voices and develop curiosity, awareness, self-trust, discernment, and self-compassion. With different backgrounds and different lives, decades of self-discovery, graduate school, and experiencing life, we both developed individual passion projects. I developed a transformation program that eventually became the core program for Full Expression. For Josephine, that was a documentary portraiture series that eventually became The Human Condition. These projects developed not only from our work but from a need and drive to help people find their voices and connect to each other on our shared experiences of being human. For us both, despite the passion behind the work we were creating, there was always a “missing piece.” And when we came together, so did our projects. It didn’t take long (I’m talking first date) for us to share our passions. Weeks later, as naturally as we came together, our dreams so magnetically did too, and Full Expression: The Human Condition (FEHC) emerged. Our first creation is our flagship 10-week Collaborative Group Healing program FEHC. Our future: more groups, a community of FEHC participants, a podcast, a book, and retreats.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
The catalyst for wanting to support others was becoming a volunteer rape crisis advocate in Washington, DC. This work led me to create a cross-country bicycle ride to raise money and awareness for survivors of gender-based violence. Once I completed the ride, I moved to New York City and worked in various roles for several nonprofit organizations supporting survivors of sexual and domestic violence. I earned my Master of Social Work degree while working as the Director of Operations for the Safe Horizon Hotlines. After several misaligned attempts at workplace satisfaction, I felt called to return to clinical work and deepen my awareness. This desire brought me to Gestalt therapy. Realizing this was and continues to be deeply impactful for me and my practice, I finished certification in the winter of 2015, and I live with the belief that I was meant to do this work. I have been in private practice for almost 10 years and co-founded FEHC with Josephine. My core values are love and authenticity; I believe in the idea that whatever isn’t love gets “pushed out” and each of us has a purpose and the capacity to shift our experiences from the places that are mired in patterns and defenses that no longer serve us. I support my clients in becoming aware of themselves so that they can choose to live their most honest and authentic lives. As a certified Daring Way™ facilitator-clinician, my work is informed by the work of Dr. Brené Brown with a primary focus on developing shame resilience skills and daily practices that transform the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Dr. Brown’s work impacts my work as I support my clients in understanding their own experiences of shame and embracing vulnerability with the goal of living from a conscious place.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
The mental health field requires clinicians to commit to the process of always learning, of seeking new ways for supporting clients, and the educational tools we utilize in practice are integral to the work. The ingredient that adds the most value to the work is developing the practice of awareness and the capacity to dig deep into our own healing journey.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I’ve learned, after many attempts at working for others in various roles in a handful of organizations and companies that I am truly meant to work for myself. Over the course of 20 years in NYC, I have been “let go,” fired, or “restructured” out of almost every position I’ve had in my career – all of them EXCEPT for any clinical position I held. The universe placed many opportunities along my journey and they have all led me back to working for myself. I understand how the law of attraction works and practice the mindset of living in abundance daily. My soul’s journey is to hold space and honor the process of witnessing others on their path. I have been gifted empathy, compassion, intuition, and the belief that the most difficult process any one of us can take on is the deep, healing work of understanding the self.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.christinevargo.com
- Instagram: @christinevargotherapy
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-vargo/
Image Credits
Josephine Cardin-Vargo