"Acknowledge your tough love situations for yourself-- know your boundaries. Stop giving so much of yourself to people that are not loving you back, or reciprocal. Make healthy connections."
-Chevonna
The beautiful Mrs. Gaylor is actually a licensed marriage and family therapist, who specializes in substance abuse treatment, residential and psychiatric inpatient/outpatient groups, for families, as well as couples therapy.
The mom-treprenur travels through contracted services as well, even though she has her own practice in Southern California.
Making time to serve for the Glory of God, Gaylor is also an activist against sex trafficking.
“I’m very passionate about irradiating human trafficking. I’m passionate about illuminating the power of victimization of women.”
Initially, Gaylor began her works with therapy after watching her mother struggle with difficulties, resulting from traumatic childhood experiences.
“I seen my father continue to live, and I seen my mother die,” said Gaylor.
“My father is no long here on earth, but my mother is; however, my father learned to rewrite his story and grasp life with both hands and live out loud.
My mom always had a level of challenge and pain, and I love her immensely, and I’m deeply grateful for that; but I realized that I was born into pain and shame, as well as difficulty. So, I, from birth, was trying to heal, and help heal her heart.”
From her own personal charges, it was a no brainer that mainstream doctoring needed adjustment, to bridge the gap between psychotherapist and patient.
Gaylor acknowledged early in her career that the model needed a little refining.
she understood that many people embrace fear when they hear the word, “mental health.” She didn’t want her patients feeling as though they were plagued by some ugly illness just because the terminology is…different.
The counselor earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from UCLA, and a Masters in Professional Counseling form the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. Gaylor has about 12 years of service under her philanthropic belt-- she is fully capable of making waves with the old structure, by shaking things up for the betterment of her patients.
Gaylor recently published a self-help manuscript, “The Emerging Healer…” Gaylor said that she always wanted to write a book.
“I had been planning for a few years. I always felt that there was a book within me; however, a few years ago, I was a judge in the Mrs. Canyon Lake Pageant (L.A.). I was reading the bios from all the judges, and one of the other judges was an author. She had won an award and I was so impressed with her.”
Gaylor met with the reviewer, and they had lunch—though the book didn’t renovate from paper to paperback at the time, Gaylor remained in contact with the woman, while learning all that she could about the self-publishing business… and ultimately, she published her own resourceful guide, in hopes that the book will be used as a mandatory reading tool for psych courses throughout the U.S.
The therapist agrees that things are different than back in the 80’s and 90’s—that old way of counseling isn’t as effective because times have changed and so have the people.
“I just trained about ten clinicians, all therapist, working with an organization that I conference with. I explained to them that you have to have a level of disclosure, and there needs to be a meaningful relationship for the healing to happen.
The whole concept of, “You are the expert opinion on this person, their hurt and pain, and their need to be fixed,” that concept is gone. It didn’t work,” she said.
Gaylor also said that knowing the power and struggle of minorities in the professional setting allows her to be more sensitive to her client’s needs.
She goes on to say that the power of awareness is out there now, “We are strong enough to rewrite our stories,” she said.
Gaylor was a young mother that entered into a very unhealthy relationship. She said that at the time, she didn’t have expert advice, although her mother had always been an excellent provider.
Gaylor said that she so desperately wanted to be "Claire Huxtable (from the Cosby Show)."
“I didn’t want a baby daddy, I wanted to be a wife,” she affirmed.
Although Gaylor nurtured the hemorrhagic relationship, she anchored her life into more positive things and left the situation.
Speaking of healing mechanisms, Gaylor created an outline called the 5 Step Blueprint to heal, with “Honest” as the first acronym in the passage.
She said that honesty is an important element.
“It’s critical because I believe that it’s hard to heal something that you’re refusing to call out. When we aren’t addressing it, we aren’t facing it,” she added.
Gaylor implored that if you treat your honest thing as though it were a student facing a bully, then you have addressed the situation.
“It’s one thing for you to go face that bully at three o’clock by yourself. It’s a whole other thing, for you, your sisters and all of your cousins, to face that bully together; so what I’m telling you is that you don’t have to face that pain or hurt alone. You face it with someone else, holding your hand and saying, ‘We have this.”
For more information on Chevonna Gaylor, or if you'd like to participate in her weekly empowerment sessions via Facebook Live:
Chevonna Gaylor Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ChevonnaLMFT/
Chevonna Gaylor Website: http://www.chevonna.com/
Chevonna Gaylor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chevonnalmft/