I’m a lifelong Baldwin County resident, a husband, and a father. This community is home. My life has been shaped here; my family is here, and getting to spend my days doing work that matters with people in this community means a great deal to me.

I love being a counselor. I love getting to know people beyond the version of themselves they feel like they have to present to the world. I love the moment when something that has felt confusing for years begins to make sense. And I love watching people discover that understanding their story does not mean being trapped by it.

Many people come to counseling as a last resort, and I hear them asking questions like, “What is wrong with me?” But I am far more interested in asking, “What happened in your story that taught you to respond this way? What has this response been protecting? Is it still serving you now?”

I don’t believe our patterns come from nowhere. The ways we protect ourselves, pursue connection, avoid pain, respond to conflict, or try to keep relationships together usually make sense when we understand where they came from. For me, counseling is about creating enough room to look at those things with curiosity instead of shame—to understand what they have done for us, and then decide whether we still need them.

That is true whether I am sitting with one person trying to understand their own life or with a couple trying to understand what keeps happening between them. In both cases, I get to be present for conversations that are honest, difficult, hopeful, sometimes painful, and often deeply important.

There are few things I could imagine doing with my life that would feel more meaningful than this. People trust me with parts of their stories they may have never spoken aloud before. Couples invite me into relationships that matter enormously to them. I consider it an extraordinary honor to bear witness to the stories of others.

That, more than anything else, is why I do this work.