When I was working on creating a logo for my practice, I wanted it to represent the many different parts of my day. I am grateful to have the privilege of learning about the highs and lows, joys and grief, fears and strengths of everyone I welcome into my office or online. After many drafts, I finally settled on the image of a willow tree. It might not seem to connect to counseling, but bear with me.

When I was in Kindergarten, my family moved to a new house. We left an area with houses that were very close together with very small yards to what seemed like an endless field of grass that had woods far in the back. To a six-year-old, this seemed like an enormous place to play and explore! But my favorite part of the yard was the large weeping willow tree in the front yard.

Other Gen Xers like myself remember those days when mom would say, “Go outside and play” and we were left to find something to keep us busy. The willow tree had long, dangling branches that were easy for me to reach, so I would play under the shade of the tree. There was a small drainage ditch that ran alongside it, and I used to take a branch and “fish” in the ditch. I honestly don’t remember if I actually thought I would catch a fish, but it kept me busy.

In October, my mom would hang tennis balls draped in white cloths from the tree to make the illusion of ghosts for Halloween. The branches bent in the wind, ghosts flying as if celebrating the arrival of colder weather. The leaves would fall like confetti and create yellow piles in the grass. Not a typical leaf pile to jump in, but fun to throw at my little sisters nonetheless. That tree is still one of my clearest memories of that house.

For the children I have seen, and for many adults, I talk about flexible thinking, the shift from wanting a yes or a no, black or white, my way or no way. The image we use is often a palm tree because it bends in the wind and does not break, allowing changes to come and go and standing tall through it all.

But that willow tree is the image that appears in my mind when I think of flexibility. All of those thin branches, swaying in a choreographed display, going with the flow, changing with the seasons. The bright green buds of new leaves let me know that spring was coming despite long stretches of gray Pittsburgh days.

I searched for the perfect image for my practice longer than I care to admit, but nothing I found matched the image in my head. I tried an AI image creator and after a few hilariously bad images, I figured out how to refine my request and ended up with the logo I use today.

The painting at the top of this post was my attempt to make one myself. It’s certainly not exactly like my logo, and sometimes when I look at it, I see the work of an untrained “artist” pretending to know what she’s doing, relying on random YouTube paint tutorials. But I love it.

I’m still working on loving myself where I am RIGHT NOW, not waiting for perfection or even something better. I think it would be unfair to expect you to be kind to yourself if I am not practicing being kind to myself. So I hung it on the wall in my office and I posted it here to show that I, too, am trying to find ways to bend without breaking, trying to find the good in today instead of waiting for the perfection I hope to see tomorrow. I try to look past the obvious flaws in the painting and remember the hot summer day when I made it on my porch, excited about the possibilities my new practice would bring, oblivious to the long road ahead of insurance challenges or new business stressors.

The growth and change I’ve experienced since then has been remarkable, and I’m so glad I have this painting to remind me that I, too, have the ability to go with the flow and change with the seasons of life.