Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melissa Graziano. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Melissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

I have always known two things about my future career; I was going to be a therapist and I was going to be in private practice. I began graduate school knowing I wanted to do my internship in private practice, instead of community mental health. My professors were not completely supportive of the idea and almost told me no, until I found an opportunity for an unpaid internship at a practice.

Being an entrepreneur was not new to me, as I had a mobile dog grooming business in prior years. I struggled as I worked two jobs and went to my internship for a year, while barely being able to pay my bills. In my frustration, I made the decision to use the opportunity to learn everything I could about running a practice. In addition to offering therapy, I was responsible for scheduling, marketing, completing paperwork, and maintaining regular supervision. I was basically already running my own practice, minus my licensure, and well, the pay.

I convinced my supervisor to keep me on after graduation to accumulate licensure hours and I was finally compensated 40% of my earnings. Better than unpaid, and still very little money for my level of education. After 4 years, I had become so comfortable with my supervisor, I wanted to work towards becoming her business partner. Unfortunately, she decided to move out of state.

I was devastated after all I had invested into her business. It forced me into a full pivot. I created my own private practice in a matter of weeks and gave all my existing clients the option to transfer to my new practice. Every single client chose to transfer, and I opened my practice doors with 44 clients. It was truly divine alignment in action and the push I needed to believe in myself and to create something of my own.

My biggest piece of advice for anyone wanting to start a business or go into private practice is to believe in yourself. You are enough in this moment to chase your dreams and you do not need to settle by investing in the businesses of other people. Looking back, I wish I had advocated to be paid as an intern and for higher wages post-graduation. I now realize how my own insecurities kept me from moving forward in creating my own dream. Use your voice, ask questions, negotiate, and be ready to walk away if it is not in alignment.

Melissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a trauma therapist and founder of The Lanterns’ Way: Counseling & Consulting, a busy private practice in Fort Collins, Colorado. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, Registered Play Therapist, National Certified Counselor, and EMDR trained. But what does that all mean? Simply put, I work with all people of all ages, as young as 3 years old doing trauma work. To be clear, I am defining trauma as anything that happened to us, big or small, that interrupted our sense of safety, attachment with others, and/or created disruption in the nervous system. I truly believe we all experience some form of trauma in our lives.

My current therapy services include: individual therapy, play therapy, couples, and family therapy. Next year, with the support of Colorado laws, I will begin training for Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy with a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) framework. My workshop/retreat offerings include: breathwork circles, nervous system education, therapeutic circus arts, and trauma-informed yoga. Lastly, I also offer consulting services for therapists to discuss cases, their journey as a therapist, and being an entrepreneur in private practice.

I knew I was going to be a therapist since I was a teenager, when I was experiencing challenges with my mental health and dysregulation in my body. I now know it was due to developmental trauma from being adopted as an infant in the 80s. Back then, they did not acknowledge that the infant had experienced trauma. My whole life I felt different and could not quite put my finger on it, until I began to learn more about attachment trauma in my undergraduate program for Psychology. This led me to wanting to incorporate more body-based approaches for my own attachment healing, as traditional talk therapy was not enough.

Fast forward, I pursued my Counseling degree and was shocked at how little the body and trauma were discussed in my graduate program. I demanded more and decided to get trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). A fancy name for accessing and processing distressing memories/feelings/sensations in the body that never got fully integrated. The client and I carefully prepare and assess to get a clear understanding of where to begin the trauma work and then, use bilateral stimulation, like, tappers or eye movements, to replicate REM sleep. It has been so effective, I began integrating EMDR with almost every client. I also incorporate my play therapy knowledge by adding in body-based elements of art and play.

Shortly after, I received some training in Somatic Experiencing® (SE), as part of my Be Free Breathwork™ Facilitator certificate. SE has been such a wonderful compliment to the EMDR process. I am incorporating more body release methods, such as, screaming, punching a bag, saying words out loud that could never be spoken, or representation of breaking free physically; to name a few. Utilizing the body in these ways can help with what SE describes as renegotiation of the traumatic event. This is the ability to have more influence over feeling like we had a different ending, by giving the body a chance to enact what it never got to do.

For instance, if a person was confined during a traumatic event, then their body may need to do the exact opposite by engaging in motions of fight or flight in a safe and controlled way. Every client needs something a little different, so we get curious and creative using titration. With consent, I have even used toilet paper to wrap clients like mummies, so they can rip through the toilet paper to create the act of breaking free, during their EMDR process. I find EMDR to be even more effective and powerful with this concept of renegotiation.

Later, I became a Registered Yoga Teacher (200-Hour) finishing my program in Panama through CircAsana, which was my introduction to circus arts. I began using circus arts as another outlet for stress and joined the circus at a retreat in Nicaragua called Circus with Purpose. It cracked me open in ways I never knew existed and inspired me to start planning therapeutic-based circus workshops. I am honored to be returning to the retreat again in 2025, as a Trauma-Informed Space Holder and supporting staff member.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I remember being younger, more naïve, and eager to become a therapist. It was a life dream of mine to help others and I am good at it. But, before I became good at it, I had to go through my own complicated and messy process in healing developmental trauma from my adoption. As I mentioned earlier, my experience of a closed adoption in the 80s was subpar at best. My Birthmother was a teenager who was forced into giving me up. Once I was birthed into this world, I was taken from her and put into a group home, where I would await my new family for a few months. I was then placed with my adoptive Mother and Father. My Mother mentioned a few times over the years, that I often “did not cry” as an infant. This always perplexed me, until I began to learn more about attachment trauma.

Growing up, the challenges I encountered with constant dysregulation in my nervous system and how interconnected it was with my attachment wounding became obvious. I was living in a constant state of survival in my body, and I had learned to shut down in response to perceived rejection or abandonment. My inner child would often take over as a defense mechanism and I could not separate my adult-self from my wounded child-self.

This propelled me into a series of toxic relationships in which I was subconsciously playing out my attachment wounding by recruiting people who were more likely to be avoidant or dismissive of emotions. I lived here for a long time, until I began doing EMDR, SE, breathwork, and yoga regularly. I also learned to renegotiate my attachment trauma narrative by recreating body-based opportunities to revisit my birth and the proceeding events with my created ideal parent and higher self. I nurtured my infant self and gave her a sense of safety and belonging.

Through this process, I learned to feel secure within myself and it has allowed me to move towards secure attachment with others. It seems so simple and yet, so life changing. I highly encourage body-based interventions if you have been struggling with letting go of a distressing event, feeling triggered, or replaying an old narrative. We humans have the innate power to heal ourselves and it allows us to take our power back!

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Just like any profession, therapists and really any helper, need to be willing to engage in regular self-inquiry and continued personal work. As we go through each season of life, it brings different challenges and obstacles that we must endure. It can be hard to manage our own personal lives full of emotions and loss, while holding space for others. Burnout in these professions is real! You are not alone if you are feeling this way.

Therapists are people first and foremost, who also need to do their own work and seek support to maintain this profession; much like a gasoline car needing oil to continue to run. Continuing education is a requirement to maintain licensure, so why would we not also require continuing personal work? This is another reason why I started offering consultation services for therapists, so I may support them in an often-isolating profession. Sometimes, the personal work even means stepping away from the profession for a period and returning.

I purposely plan time off every quarter out of the year to travel and recharge. I also believe PLAY is extremely important to our well-being and one of the reasons I am drawn to circus arts. Therapists need to find what brings them pure joy that is not connected to any outcome and do it often. By doing so, we begin to increase our satisfaction, confidence, distress tolerance, and overall resiliency. This helps us with expansion and to ensure we do not get stuck in a clinical rut, take on our client’s energy, or leave room for potential countertransference within the therapeutic process.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lanternswaycounseling.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daring_greatly_everyday/
• Other: Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/melissa-graziano-fort-collins-co/933114

  Email: Melissa@lanternswaycounseling.com

Image Credits

Breathwork images and scream photo @ Don Hajicek
Sunflower and hood image @ Kendra Blattner
Water sling and yoga @ brifreephotography
Fireflow image at Circus with Purpose, 2024 @ goodplanet