We recently connected with Claire Welton and have shared our conversation below.
Claire, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
I was raised by my single mother who never limited my abilities and was so supportive of my dreams. There was one story that really stuck with me when making decisions to move forward in my schooling and career. She was very adventurous and at 23, sold her car for a plane ticket to St. Croix (where I was born) and lived there for 5 years. When she came back after working and having fun, she had a good friend who had graduated from Harvard Law School. It made her realize at that point, that time passes no matter what we do with it.
I took that quote and ran with it. When I thought, I don’t want to spend 3 1/2 years in grad school. I remembered what my mom said. When I didn’t want to go get my doctorate, I remembered what my mom said. It’s so simple yet it was so profound in helping me keep the momentum up with my career. Either way the time will pass, so what’re you going to do with it?
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?
I’m a clinical mental health therapist and I work at CrossRoads Counseling. Prior to my current role, I was a school counselor in high schools and a middle school. I absolutely loved that and planned on retiring in that career, but COVID changed the role drastically. I found myself loving those one-off, long therapeutic conversations I’d have with students and I was like THIS, this is what I want to do.
I work with a lot of faith based clients, those struggling with anxiety, depression, self-worth or low self-esteem, singleness, and relationships. I think it’s hard enough to find a therapist, so my goal is to really make my clients feel comfortable and build that relationship piece so the work of healing can get done.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
By far, networking and being on social media has been the most effective way to grow my clientele.
It can feel vulnerable or odd to put yourself out there, especially as a therapist whose role is to remain more “‘anonymous”. I think I struggle with the traditional view, because I think relationships are really built from trust, which happens when you know someone.
Making yourself available is key. If people don’t know you exist, they can’t come to you. I think it’s important to remember that you can eliminate competition by putting yourself out there, because then it doesn’t matter how many people are in your profession, people are then choosing you for you.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2022, I left the school I thought I’d retire at in order to go back to school to finish 4 classes I needed to move from school to clinical counseling. It was the scariest time in my life- I was pregnant and didn’t know what I was doing but really put it in the hands of God.
I completely switched gears and once I left for good, felt a huge sense of imposter syndrome and feeling inadequate restarting my career at the time when I was 33. Luckily, I have a supervisor and wonderful coworkers where I can learn and grow from. I’m so grateful for the shift that I made and trusted God through the unknown.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stl-ccc.org/claire-welton/
- Instagram: @jesus_andtherapy & @clairelilywelton
Image Credits
Schy H.