We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Connie Toavs. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Connie below.

Connie, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I take pride in my roots in where they’ve led me to today. My father is a farmer and I’ve enjoyed being able to grow up in that environment. Agriculture has always been close to my heart and in my roots. My mother is a healthcare worker. I went with my mother and volunteered at one of the Assisted Living she worked at. This is when my passion grew, and I truly enjoyed hearing people’s stories, holding that space and spending time with them. When pursuing a career, I knew I could always help on the farm whenever I wanted, and made the decision to go into a profession of helping others. I earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Gerontology in 2013 and then a Master’s of Social Work in 2015. In October of 2023, I founded Cultivate Empowered Healing, a psychotherapy clinic. It was an emotional moment where I literally laughed and cried when I came up with the name that had my farming roots and my career roots tied together as it provided a hopeful vision for me moving forward in my career as I took this courageous risk. I couldn’t have made this career change in my life without the support of my husband. We have two young sons, and we wanted to start creating a better work and personal life balance. With being a new business owner I certainly feel overwhelmed at times with navigating new obstacles, and I’m happy with how this big risk has transformed my life and my family’s life too. Through making changes in your life by taking risks you can feel less emotional heaviness and see empowering changes happening. You’ll never know what change will look like in your life if you don’t take that first step.

Connie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In the state of Minnesota, I’m a psychotherapist who is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) and Licensed Supervisor of Social Work (LSSW). I’ve earned the certifications of: Certified S*x Addiction Therapist (CSAT) and Advanced Training for Problematic Sexual Behaviors (ATPSB). Specializing in areas such as s*x addiction, betrayal trauma, PTSD, complex PTSD, grief and loss, aging, depression and anxiety. There are not enough trained professionals to help support people that are struggling with s*x addiction, or a partner of a s*x addict that is struggling with betrayal trauma. There is a stigma around s*x addiction or even just talking about s*x and sexual health in general. With being trained in these specialties, I take this work very seriously and compassionately, because I know most of my clients feel so isolated due to the stigma they feel from the world and people they know because of the private nature of this. Helping clients navigate through the underlying issues, traumas and maintaining sobriety to reclaim their lives again that not only can provide freedom emotionally for them, their partner but also future generations too. This work truly matters and it impacts lives. I get emotional as I write this because it’s hard to put into words the emotional impact of the transformation that I help my clients through. It’s truly a gift to walk the path with them on their therapeutic healing journey. Even if I just help one client, I know that I helped one client feel less lonely and feel a little more empowered in their story.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

As I made the change to open my own business and made other life changes too, I started to realize a shift in my nervous system. My nervous system was more relaxed at this new pace of life I was creating for myself and my family. I reflected that I was always “on the go” and with the shift in life my body started to feel relaxed. It was a lesson I didn’t realize I needed that I was burned out from the busy lifestyle I was doing before. I’m holding myself accountable for making a healthier lifestyle with self-care so I can have that balanced personal and work life balance where I can be meaningfully present at both.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Rather than strategies, I think it’s important for me as a therapist to think of being true to my roots. It’s important for me to be authentic. It’s important for me to have knowledge through training and other credible resources to provide evidenced based treatment. Client’s find comfort in knowing they have a therapist who is knowledgeable so they don’t have to “teach” the therapist or be questioning if the recommendations aren’t helpful. It’s important for me to be predictable because in so many of our client’s lives they don’t have much predictability and consistency. Having a good balance of professional and personal boundaries but also showing I’m human too does help the clients feel that you’re not “perfect” and also connected. I like to bring in laughter too as normally in therapy there’s a lot of emotional heaviness and laughter sometimes is appropriate and can be healing. I have good listening skills with a good memory that clients appreciate that make them feel heard and valued. There are so many other values that go into making effective strategies for growing connections with clients to build up your clientele. But the overall factor is if your client can trust you that is significant. In trying to grow my clientele I try to make meaningful connections with my potential clients through consultations, my current clients and hopefully they refer other people to my clinic, other professional relationships and my website to demonstrate my roots of who I am and what services I can help on their healing journeys.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cultivateempoweredhealing.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555035833198
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/connie-toavs-23335b49
• Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/connie-toavs-owatonna-mn/1200680