We recently connected with Valerie Carmel Dorsainvil and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Valerie Carmel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When you’ve been a professional in an industry for long enough, you’ll experience moments when the entire field takes a U-Turn, an instance where the consensus completely flips upside down or where the “best practices” completely change. If you’ve experienced such a U-Turn over the course of your professional career, we’d love to hear about it.

Early in my career as a therapist and wellness strategist, I subscribed to what many of us were taught to believe—that success required sacrifice. I was conditioned, both culturally and professionally, to equate worth with output. Long hours, constant accessibility, and emotional exhaustion were seen as indicators of dedication. The unspoken message was that burnout was just part of the cost of impact.

But over time, I witnessed a complete U-turn in our field—and in myself. The moment came when I began to see how those same “best practices” we glorified were actually depleting the very people we were trying to help, including practitioners like me. Emerging neuroscience, trauma-informed frameworks, and the post-pandemic mental health landscape began revealing what many of us felt in our bones: rest isn’t the reward for success—it’s the foundation of it. Creativity, emotional regulation, and leadership capacity all thrive when we honor recovery and balance.

That realization didn’t just shift my clinical approach—it transformed my entire business philosophy. It inspired the creation of my Synergy Strategy framework, built around three pillars: Self-Awareness, Self-Care, and Self-Growth. I began working with high-performing women and organizations to redefine productivity—not as constant motion, but as intentional alignment. My mission became to show that sustainable success isn’t about how much we do, but how well we’re resourced to do it.

Now, as technology continues to reshape how we live and lead, I see this U-turn evolving again. The next chapter of wellness and leadership will depend on human-minded innovation—where systems and workplaces prioritize emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and recovery as much as performance metrics. My work today sits at that intersection: helping individuals and organizations create cultures where both people and performance can thrive in tandem. Because true progress isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing it in alignment with who we are and what sustains us.

Valerie Carmel, 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?

I’m Valerie Carmel, a licensed clinical social worker, wellness strategist, and founder of Valerie Carmel Therapy, a Florida-based mental health agency that supports high-performing women and organizations nationwide. My work sits at the intersection of mental health, leadership, and sustainable success—helping people rise without burning out.

After years of watching brilliant, capable women—myself included—sacrifice well-being for achievement, it became clear that what we often call “high performance” was really just chronic survival. That realization fueled my commitment to help people build lives and businesses rooted in balance, clarity, and alignment.

Through my proprietary framework, the Synergy Strategy™, I guide clients through three pillars—Self-Awareness, Self-Care, and Self-Growth—to create a foundation for success that is both strategic and sustainable. My practice offers therapy, leadership coaching, and corporate wellness consulting, using evidence-based tools and over 20 psychological assessments to enhance emotional intelligence, communication, and team cohesion.

What sets my approach apart is that it’s not just clinical—it’s cultural. I help leaders and organizations translate mental wellness into measurable results, cultivating workplace climates where people and performance thrive together.

Beyond my clinical work, I’m also the co-host of Calm in the Chaos, a podcast created by Michele Badie, PMP, where we explore the intersection of mental wellness, identity, and leadership for women professionals. I’m most proud of how my work gives people permission—to rest, to redefine success, and to lead from wholeness rather than depletion.

At its core, my message is simple: success should feel sustainable. You can build something great without losing yourself in the process. My mission is to help people feel good while doing good work.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the hardest lessons I had to unlearn was that being strong means doing it all alone. For a long time, I carried the belief that independence and endurance were proof of resilience. As a Black woman, a therapist, and an entrepreneur, I wore that strength like armor—convincing myself that needing support or slowing down meant I was slipping.

The backstory goes back to my early years in the mental health field. I was juggling multiple roles—clinician, business owner, mother—while building my practice and helping others manage their own overwhelm. I was deeply committed to my purpose, but underneath that drive was exhaustion I refused to name. It wasn’t until I hit a season of burnout with the panic attacks to match, that I realized I had mistaken overfunctioning for effectiveness.

Unlearning that lesson required me to redefine what strength actually means. True strength, I’ve learned, is the ability to pause. It’s being willing to receive help, to delegate, and to rest without guilt. That shift became personal healing and professional transformation—it’s now the foundation of my Synergy Strategy™ framework and the message I share with other high-achieving women:

you are not more worthy when you’re overwhelmed.

Now, I view strength through the lens of sustainability. It’s not about how much I can carry, but how well I care for myself while carrying it. That mindset changed the way I lead, build, and teach—and it’s why I help others find their own version of success that doesn’t come at the cost of their peace.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

Without hesitation—yes. I would absolutely choose this profession again, but I would enter it with a deeper understanding of the importance of boundaries and balance.

Becoming a therapist was never just a career choice for me—it was a calling. My journey into mental health was rooted in a desire to understand people, to heal generational patterns, and to help others find clarity in the chaos of their lives. What I didn’t realize in those early years was how much of myself I would pour into others without recognizing my own need for replenishment.

If I could go back, I’d still choose social work and therapy, but I’d approach it the way I do now—with a strategic lens and a holistic foundation. My work has evolved from traditional therapy into something more expansive: integrating clinical insight with leadership strategy and organizational wellness. That evolution allowed me to create the Synergy Strategy™, bridging mental health and sustainable success for both individuals and teams.

What keeps me grounded in this field is the privilege of witnessing transformation—watching someone go from surviving to truly living, or seeing a leader realize that empathy is their greatest strength. Those moments remind me that my work is bigger than sessions or titles—it’s about helping people build lives and systems that honor their humanity.

So yes, I’d choose this path again, every time. But I’d do it the way I do it now: with rest as strategy, wellness as leadership, and sustainability as success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://valeriecarmel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevaleriecarmel
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thevaleriecarmel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thevaleriecarmel/
• Other: Calm in the Chaos podcast on Spotify: http://bit.ly/47HFe1K

Image Credits

Seize Your Moment Photography for the branded photos