Welcome!

I am Shelly King, MA, LPC and I am honored to have you here.

We’re each a beautifully complex story …

Licensed Professional Counseling Services

Therapy for individuals & relationship support in Boulder County,  Colorado

Intuitive Soul Based Therapy

Informed by “traditional” psychotherapy, but includes spiritual exploration & techniques

Individual Therapy

Anxiety, Depression, Grief & Loss, Life Changes, Trauma, Dating, & Relationship Dynamics

Couple & Relationship Therapy

Attachment Theory,  Relationship Support,  Parenting Challenges, Relationship Ambivalence, Separation & Divorce, CNM/Polyam Informed

Babyloss Support

Specializing in Miscarriage and Babyloss support for individuals and couples

Spirituality

Intuitive soul work, Transpersonal perspectives, meditations, visualizations,  energy exploration,  trusting  your intuition

Therapy is a journey

Let me be honest – refreshingly and authentically real with you.  You will find no quick fixes here.  I do not offer the “life hacks” to get things back on track IMMEDIATELY.  I cannot tell you the “five things” you must do to be happy RIGHT NOW.  I have no e-book or newsletter or on-line program to offer you for free to give you the answers, while I collect your email.

Together we will create a nourishing container to invite a new way to be with yourself. A space for you to learn how to allow, surrender, and accept. You might feel broken open, but we will find tools that work for you to feel resourced in the transformation.

My work is individual and unique. I meet with you.  We nurture our unique relationship, we’ll co-create new tools and ideas together, so you can find what works for you. This work will be translatable within and around you, throughout all of your life paths.

Let’s journey together

Here’s how therapy works, in my opinion.  You bring yourself to the table.  And I meet you there. 

I bring my deep authentic presence to welcome in your light and shadow.  I walk with you on your journey – where ever that may take you.  I provide wisdom and guidance based on my personal life experiences, professional training, the discoveries we make together and the relationship we co-create. 

We meet together in genuine, warm, human connection.   We will be real together.  We will laugh together, and cry together.  And in our humanness, and yes with some skilled therapy tools, your life will change.

Therapy Tools

As I have learned in my own journey, there are so many wonderful tools available to help us.  I bring a lot of personal training and different modalities into our therapy sessions to help build your own unique tool belt of useful techniques. 

Please feel free to read more about the modalities that may inform our work together. These are ways we can work together to help you learn more about yourself, those whom you relate to, and embody new ways to heal, transform and BE uniquely you in the world.

Attachment Styles

TL;DR – Attachment is the human biological need to bond with others.

Experiences with our caregivers creates a blueprint that informs the sense of safety and security you bring to adult relationships, or lack thereof.

Attachment has become mainstream and accessible with many books, websites, trainings, and social media sharing information about attachment styles. But why is it important? Because our earliest experiences (12-18 months old, all proverbial and implicit memories – meaning you don’t consciously remember them) dictate how well, or not so well, we do intimate relationships. It’s the reactions we go to under stress. Bringing these responses to conscious awareness allows us the opportunity to influence and change them. Left unaddressed, there insecurities and reactions that have been carried through life can wreak havoc on one’s intimate relationships if they are not resolved.

Brainspotting

Brainspotting is a tool used to help clients work with trauma, negative emotions, and somatic and emotionally based conditions.  In other words, if you have an issue, brainspotting can help.  Brainspotting is a way to help you identify, process and release patterns that are not working for you.  When you can release these patterns, a new flexibility is possible and you’re less likely to be triggered by concerns in your daily life.  Brainspotting is done with me, your therapist, in our session(s) together.  An issue you want to work with is identified and we go from there.  Brainspotting uses a pointer to hold your gaze, bilateral sound (headphones with sounds that alternate), and our relationship to talk through what is happening for you.

You can read more about brainspotting here:  Elephant Journal, Good Therapy and David Grand, PhD is the creator of brainspotting.

Somatic Work

Somatic Work: This is body-based psychotherapy. We now know talk therapy is not enough and that experiences are felt in the body, and can get stuck in the body. Somatic work helps the body renegotiate events on a body-based level so you can experience relief/nervous system regulation. Past events can get trapped in the body and play themselves out through intrusive images, thoughts, tension, unhealthy relationships and states like sadness, anxiety, and depression.

Nervous System Arousal & Regulation

TL;DR – “The moment-to-moment ability to manage one’s energy, alertness, and readiness to engage.” – PACT website
In other words, your nervous system informs you about how your body feels in any given moment. A related term is one’s window of tolerance. This is the capacity, range or zone of arousal in which you are able to function most effectively. You usually feel calm, cool, collected, creative and resourced when you’re within your window of tolerance. Learning how to regulate your nervous system, and how to push your edges to grow your window of tolerance, will help your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body feel better.

Relational Neuroscience

“TLDR: Our brains are wired for connection with others. We are inherently interdependent beings, not the overly individualistic beings American culture promotes and values. To learn more, keep reading.

“Relational neuroscience is an integrated field of study of what brains do in relationship.

Also known as IPNB (Interpersonal Neurobiology), relational neuroscience is an interdisciplinary study of how brains behave in relationship. The field brings together Psychology, Attachment Research, Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and Complexity Theory to create a synthesized understanding of self and other. Dr. Daniel Siegel is the primary figure in this field.

As people learn about themselves with resonance and understanding, they are freed to find their own way to healing and the natural expression of who they were born to be.” – Sarah Peyton

Trauma Work

I believe all of us humans experience trauma, some much more than others. You may experience trauma when you live through a stressful, frightening and/or distressing event. See how broad this is? That’s why I think all of us experience trauma. Trauma work in my practice means we take a somatic approach to the trauma(s) you’ve experienced. The goal of trauma work is not that a memory or experience will be forgotten, but when you recall the memory, it will feel less distressing to your mind and body. You will learn tools of nervous system regulation to help move the trauma through your body and release it, thus feeling more regulated/calm.

Presence, Connection, Attunement

This is the real heart and soul of therapy and human relationships, in my opinion. I love Dan Siegel’s acronym, PART, to help understand the essence of this work:

Presence: Being present with the other with an open mind.
Attunement: Focusing on the other’s emotional landscape rather than just on the behavior.
Resonance: Allow ourselves to be impacted by the other’s experience and giving the other the experience of “feeling felt”.
Trust: When we respond to the other with Presence, Attunement, and Resonance, this activates the social engagement system which leads to receptivity and openness.
By doing these together, my hope is you feel connected with me, as your therapist, and safe enough in our sessions together to say and do anything, so we can work with what is really happening for you. From there, you can consciously choose what to keep, and what you’d like to shift, change and release.

Parts Work/Inner Child Work

“This is a therapeutic lens that assumes that each of us has many different parts to our minds and psyches. Each of these parts (or subpersonalities) has unique needs, wants, and beliefs and may be consciously or unconsciously helping or harming us as we move through our days encountering different situations, triggers, and scenarios.
By bringing our awareness to these many different parts within us – giving each a voice, learning what each needs, wants, and fears, and understanding when, how, and why each gets triggered – we are then more able to lovingly integrate (but not eliminate) the many aspects within us to create more choice, expand our capacity to creatively problem-solve, and to give us a greater sense of wholeness and aliveness in our daily lives.” – Annie Wright, LMFT

Energy Awareness, Spirituality & Intuition

We’ll bring in energy work, intuitive and spiritual practices to help support your therapy journey. This includes tools of grounding, releasing, visualizations and energetic boundary setting.

Intuitive Collage

This is a creative and intuitive collage process. We sit with old magazines, scissors, glue and paper to piece it all together. We may use collage during a session to allow thoughts and messages, known and unknown, to surface from your conscious and unconscious mind.

Schedule your free 30 minute meet and greet to see if we’re a good fit to work together.

Hi! I am Shelly King

Welcome to my website! Now it’s your turn to learn a little bit more about me.

I’m a psychotherapist in private practice, working both remotely and in-person in Lafayette, CO. I work with adult individuals, couples, and those exploring CNM/ENM.

I hold a specialization in babyloss work (miscarriage, termination, stillbirth and newborn loss). I do this particular work because I experienced the birth and death of my firstborn daughter in 2009. She changed my life completely, in the most heart breaking and amazing ways. It is such an honor and privilege to support others with the death of their child(ren).

I am passionate about accompanying clients on their journey with warmth, curiosity, courage and compassion.

As a divorced parent, a mom to a daughter that died and a living daughter, I understand that life can break us times. I also know that there is a depth of wellness and healing that can be found and created in connection with others and tuning into our inner knowing and intuition.

Testimonials

“Shelly helped my husband and I through a very rough time. We had experienced two miscarriages and felt completely at a loss, our lives felt like they were starting to unravel. With Shelly’s counseling we were able to work through our own grief, feelings and patterns, and she provided us the tools needed so we could constructively put the pieces back together as a couple. Working with her helped us recover the rest of our lives after the loss and we continue to use those tools still whenever life presents us challenges. We are grateful for meeting Shelly and working with her through the healing process, without her service I am certain we wouldn’t be where we are today.”  – Couple Client

Have more questions? Feel free to send Shelly a message!