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

Seema, appreciate you joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

For the past 25+ years, I have served in leadership roles at notable corporations, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to tech-based start-ups. My position required that I travel extensively, manage corporate teams, and effectively and efficiently facilitate cross-functional collaboration. Working in a leadership role, I had an opportunity to witness senior leaders, c-suite executives, and the management struggle – mostly alone and isolated – with personal and professional challenges. These struggles would impact the performance, teams, and the company as a whole. Senior leaders in most corporations spend most of their lives in the workplace. The business has the ability to consume them, impacting their professional performance and their personal lives in a variety of ways. The characteristic variables that allow leaders to succeed in the workplace may be variables that hinder the many aspects of their lives. Leaders create corporate culture, which has the power to impact the lives of every employee within that organization, as well as employee retention, engagement, motivation, and innovation. I truly believe that corporate risk management should include licensed clinicians who understand the nuances of corporate existence and wellness. Providing support for the executives, senior leaders, and professionals who lead a business essentially provides support and facilitates wellness for all those associated with that business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Many times, clients come to me claiming that they haven’t had a big trauma in their life but are experiencing challenges or emotional suffering. What they don’t realize is that the meaning of the word “trauma” is “wound, ” and it is our woundedness or how we cope with it that dictates much of our behavior, informs our ways of thinking about the world, and shapes our social habits (Mate, 2022). Our woundedness can impact our ability to have rational thought on all matters in our lives. As a society, we have become so obsessed with wellness, yet we are sicker than ever.
Over time, the corporate workplace started feeling empty. For years, I had thought about becoming a psychotherapist. Still it wasn’t until I experienced sexual harassment that I decided that I could no longer support the system that was systemically structured to silence victims, exacerbate mental health issues, and contribute to professional isolation and loneliness. So, in 2019, I decided to retool and return to school to become a therapist focused on corporate wellness, professional fulfillment, and the many variables of trauma. I wanted to help professionals move from surviving to thriving professionally and personally. I noticed that very few clinicians truly understand the corporate arena and what it means to operate at that level. However, over time, I noticed similar struggles with clients of all ages and from all walks of life. Through my education and exploration of research, I discovered that healing from challenges and struggles in life requires a holistic perspective. As with most things, I became obsessed with learning everything I could about trauma, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and holistic wellness.

Today, I am a Holistic Trauma Therapist who works in private practice in Pasadena, California. I specialize in helping motivated clients who want to live expansive and fulfilled lives find a space to dig deep and explore different aspects of their human existence. Sure… I see quite a few executives, senior leaders, and professionals, but I also see young adults, those struggling with dating/relationships, LGBTQ+ folx, prominent individuals, clients striving to expand their consciousness, and those in the medical field. Clients seek me out in hopes of strategically analyzing their life, holistically. They may want to analyze how their past impacts their present and future but also all of their relationships – at work, in their families, and with their friends. My focus on the mind, body, and spirit (an individual’s sense of meaning on purpose on this planet) is unique and provides clients with an all-encompassing source to address their many concerns.

I stand out from other clinicians. My education from the California Institute of Integral Studies is unique and foreign in Southern California. When we often hear about consciousness, embodiment, intuitive knowing, synchronicities, or visualization, we think it is bogus. I couple what I say and do with scientific research on which has unfortunately been marginalized from mainstream psychology. I also conduct research and present on many of these topics, highlighting the science behind these “woo-woo” techniques. Many of these techniques date back 1,000 years, such as drumming, emotional purging, collective grieving, and other modalities of ancestral wisdom around depression, anxiety, and stress management. Coupled with my psychological education from some of the greatest pundits in psychology and trauma, I have a practice that looks at therapy as more than talk therapy. True, there is time for talking and talk therapy, but at other times, we must look at other aspects of embodied knowing that may come from our spirit or body. Allowing space for all aspects of our human experience allows me to treat the whole person instead of a portion of that person. Long-term healing is holistic and addresses all aspects of the person.

I am a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) who has Advanced Professional Training in Trauma and Dissociation from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. I am trained in EMDR, and am also an AASECT-trained sex therapist specializing in sexual abuse survivors and childhood sexual abuse. I integrate my doctoral education, which includes elements of East-West Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology, with a transcendental and transformative understanding of the true self. Today, I specialize in the workplace, childhood trauma, dissociation, sexual abuse, body image issues, somatic therapy, and life fulfillment issues.

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

Human-to-Human connection. Whether it is through my clients, other clinicians, my students, or those who have heard me speak at an event, my most effective strategy for growing my clientele has been through word of mouth and client testimonials to their friends or family. I use techniques in my practice that aren’t ordinarily considered “therapy,” such as drumming, nature, breath, visualization, intention, automatic writing, and techniques to access one’s deeper Self. Many people don’t realize these techniques are part of psychology and have quite a bit of research and science that backs the practices. The unique service I provide helps my clients, who in turn become some of my biggest marketers.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

After COVID-19, most psychotherapists gave up their physical offices and decided to work remotely. This shift in the way a psychotherapist operates has exacerbated the loneliness among clinicians. My doctoral education focused on Integral and Transpersonal Psychology, with an emphasis on the Contemplative Neurobiology of Consciousness. What does that mean? Well, that means that my focus was on how human beings are deeply interconnected to the physical and non-physical. We have lost our sense of connection and are now facing a Loneliness Epidemic, the topic of my dissertation. For that reason, I have consciously attempted to build community by meeting face-to-face with clinicians, one clinician at a time. As a natural introvert, this is sometimes very difficult. However, I push myself to meet two new clinicians each week. Through these meetings, I have built my reputation in the market.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.legacytraumatherapy.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560777775887