October 7, 2025
October Greetings!
Colorful leaves are falling and autumn is in full swing. Here in North Carolina there’s a chill in the air in the mornings, but are often are shedding layers by noon because we are still seeing some 80 degree temps. Whatever your weather, we have helpful tidbits and insight to help you along this season.
Christine, here!
I am joyfully writing this month’s newsletter to share a big win for Take Root, what it means to me on a personal level, and what it may have to offer you as you traverse eating disorder (ED) recovery or any transformational journey you may be on. October marks one year since Take Root Counseling and Coaching opened literal doors in Cary, NC, and added in-person therapy to our services. While we continue to offer virtual services across NC and SC, we’ve made 102 New Edition Court our home, and it brought us such delight to welcome our community to our very first open house to share this space, which holds a wealth of clinical skill and powerful healing. Every day, the Take Root team meets with individuals, families, and groups in order to support them in meeting their goals and showing up in their lives in the way they want to, despite obstacles and barriers to transformation that many face. As I sit in my office reflecting on some of my favorite moments here over the last year, they all involve our phenomenal, intentionally chosen clinicians meeting our community with present and attuned spirits, ready to hold space for their clients, just as they are.
Right now, I am purposefully taking a moment to celebrate that. I am proud of my team, and it’s important to take a moment to be proud of myself as well. The owning and operating of a business can make pausing to celebrate wins more challenging. It’s very easy for me to want to push right past it, grasping for the next item on my ever-growing to-do list. AND, I know that slowing down and taking in what I’ve already accomplished is essential.
I think that celebrating wins is a piece that often gets left out of ED treatment. I don’t believe this is intentional. I think that ED recovery as a process has a long history of being something that folks who are struggling, or their families, often want to get through so they can get to the other side and then pretend it never happened. There is so much shame wrapped up in having an ED and needing help that folks aren’t always taking the time to acknowledge growth like: the eating of the cupcake to celebrate a friend’s baby shower, or the development of a new sensory regulation skill so that fullness can be navigated, or the purchasing and wearing of clothing that aligns more with ones identity or body shape and size are all wins in the journey of ED recovery. They are all wins in the direction of making space for oneself to live.
Taking time to celebrate “small wins” opens a door to a path of larger wins. Many of us were raised in a culture of perfectionism or with parenting practices that emphasized punishment over praise, assuming that praise of “small” wins would create individuals who were willing to settle for less or who would let themselves off the hook too easily. Kristen Neff’s self-compassion research, as well as a host of other studies on motivation and confidence development, demonstrate something different. When we celebrate our small wins, we actually create momentum for bigger wins. When we skip over the celebration, we can miss out on the experience of igniting our brain’s reward system, which brings with it a host of benefits, including increased self-confidence and faster development of the positive habits that led us to the wins in the first place.
I’ve had to go and look at some of the science myself because my first instinct when I’ve accomplished something is to move immediately onto the next thing. When someone congratulates me on a success, I often feel a little uncomfortable and will frequently find myself giving credit to others. Neither of these tendencies is all bad, but I know that slowing down and taking the time to celebrate an accomplishment lets my body know it’s true, which allows me to integrate the experience so that it can eventually become the wisdom with which I make my next move.
This business that I have built, which now occupies 2000 square feet of office space (plus a group room and a conference room), is a big win. As I take the time to actually honor that and reflect on the small wins it took to get here, I can identify that those wins included things like registering Take Root with the Secretary of State, creating company values, writing company policies, opening accounts, taking a finance course, hiring my first amazing team member, and then another and another. And when I look back even farther in my personal journey, the foundation to build this dream in the first place, is actually built on moments like, taking bites of fear foods, putting poster board up to block my mirror, saying something I legitimately felt grateful for on a truly awful day, letting my body go up a size, and the many steps that led to little wins, which led to my own ED recovery.
Whether you are in the throes of ED recovery or building your own dream, if you’re reading this, I hope that you can take the prompt to celebrate your own win today. It won’t hurt, and it might even lead to something amazing.
Sources
Amabile, Teresa M., and Steve J. Kramer. The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.
Miller, C. A. (2024). Big goals: The science of setting them, achieving them, and creating your best life. Wiley.
Neff, K. D. (2021). Fierce self-compassion: How women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power, and thrive. Harper Wave.
Our Community Partners
Learn with Dr. Emily / All About Evaluations for Autism, ADHD, & Twice Exceptionality
This free video is a great resource for parents navigating evaluations for autism, ADHA and twice-exceptionality
Break Free From Binge Eating with Ruby Oak Nutrition
Our Friends at Ruby Oak have a helpful support group starting soon as we head into the holiday season.
We Are HIRING!
This is an exciting opportunity for a therapist interested in working with an outpatient therapy practice, featuring highly skilled and creative therapists who offer specialized treatment to clients of all ages struggling with eating disorders, trauma, anxiety, and depression. Take Root Counseling and Coaching treatment values include: client as expert, individualized treatment, doing what works with creativity and nonconformity, grounded compassion, and liberation and anti-oppression. This is a full-time therapist position for a therapist interested in working with a thriving group practice that fosters clinicians in a thoughtful, kind, and collaborative culture. If you know of anyone who you think might be a good fit for our team please feel free to send them the link in the button below!
Upcoming Support Groups
Dates: Sept. 18th through November 13th and December 4th through February 5th
Time: Thursdays, 6 – 7:00 pm
Location: Virtually on Zoom
Cost: $20 per session (pro bono option available)
Who: This group is for folks 18+
The workshop will meet once per week for 60 minute sessions and will cover the following:
- Week 1: Mindfulness
- Week 2 : Emotional Regulation
- Week 3: Distress tolerance
- Week 4: Interpersonal Effectiveness
Erin Lewis, she/her, is a doctoral intern at Take Root Counseling and Coaching. She is a fully licensed clinician and specializes in trauma and dissociative disorders. Erin feels blessed to share that she has an emotional support animal, ESA named Glenn Coco, who comes to work with her daily.
Her communication style is a blend of humor and bluntness. She strives to be as transparent as possible in order to facilitate better communication with clients.
It was such a special experience to get to share our beautiful space with our community members at our open house! We were so touched that you shared your Friday morning with us and brought your warm spirits and friendly faces over to our offices. We hope you enjoyed this lovely time as much as we did. The Take Root team is so grateful to serve and be a part of this amazing community!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! We look forward to visiting your inbox again soon:) If the info in this email felt helpful, and you know someone who might also think so, please consider passing it along and sharing- we are so grateful for your support.
Kindly,
The Take Root Team
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