Greetings from Virginia

Just checking in from the road!

My brother and I had a blast at all the theme parks! Bella and Rex got to go to Dog Daycare at Disney and made lots of new friends. I recently found this photo of what must be my first theme park ride with my brother, so we recreated it at Magic Kingdom. Had to share!

All the activity definitely wore me out but it doesn’t seem like any of the rides aggravated my back! It was really wonderful to spend time with my brother, reliving childhood magical moments and making new memories together. Space Mountain was just as fun as we remember, and Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind was our new favorite. The very first ride we went on was the Velocicoaster and that was also the fastest! I uploaded pics here if you’d like to check them out.

I am anxious to get to Brooklyn and get settled, but trying to honor what my body tells me and not drive too many hours each day. Looks like I’ll arrive in Brooklyn on Friday and will post another update soon! In the meantime, we are enjoying some time in nature. Xoxo

Made it to Florida!

Stopped in Tallahassee for the night. Rex, Bella, Ryan and I enjoyed dining al fresco at Outback Steakhouse 🐨

Today we’ll arrive in Orlando where we’ll be for the rest of the week:

Universal Studios Islands of Adventure on Tuesday 🦖

Hollywood Studios on Wednesday 🪐

Epcot on Thursday 🚀

Magic Kingdom on Friday 🏰

Animal Kingdom on Saturday 🦁

I’ve found some manual therapy tools that have really helped decrease my hip and back pain and increased my mobility, so I’ve been able to decrease my pain medication and have more activity the past few weeks. So I’m feeling relieved, excited, and hopeful for the week ahead! 🎢

My last few days in Nola, I was able to eat some of my favorite meals, go to a crawfish boil, visit the zoo, and watch the sunset at the fly.

Thank you for all your words of encouragement, and I hope your summers are filled with adventure too!

Love, Renée ✨

P.S. In case any of y’all are also going on summer road trips, here’s my driving playlist. I made it a few years back en route to NY, just by adding all the songs I could think of that had words like “drive,” “road,” and “car” in the lyrics. Enjoy! 🎶

Asking for Help

Squirrel!

As a therapist, I have emphasized the importance of honoring our needs and asking for help meeting them. I always say the goal is neither independence nor dependence, but interdependence. Planning for my surgery has been a great opportunity for me to practice this myself. I asked for help from friends and family before leaving for Ireland, but ended up preparing my condo to list for sale largely by myself. After returning from Ireland, it became clear I needed even more help packing to get on the road. So I asked again. My best friend flew in from SC last weekend to help me, and took the pic above on one of our walks. My brother is going to fly in on May 30th and help me load up the car, then drive with me to Orlando so we can go to Disney World and Universal Studios together. I’m really excited to get to have some sibling-fun-time (Renée ™️) before the surgery!

So I wanted to update y’all that I’ll now be getting on the road on June 1 instead of tomorrow, and also share that sometimes we need to ask for help more than once. I felt really vulnerable and uncomfortable sharing just how much difficulty I am having both physically and emotionally, going through all my possessions and those of my now-deceased parents, and deciding what to take with me. This condo is where I lived when Katrina hit, and while I feel ready to leave New Orleans, closing this door for good is really hard. Bending, lifting, and walking are also really hard! So I am having to grieve the body I had even just a month ago, and accept that my capabilities are more limited now. But with the support of my therapist and my wise mind, I was able to tolerate that discomfort and ask for help more desperately. Even typing the word “desperately” still feels uncomfortable, but it’s accurate!

Unfortunately, one of my closest friends has not shown up for me even after I made the ask several times and shared how hurt I was by her absence. I think it’s important to share that here too, because when we honor our needs and ask others to meet them, it doesn’t always turn out like we hoped. Some people are not able to meet those needs, and that is disappointing. One of the thoughts I uncovered was, “If I ask for help, and I don’t get it, it will hurt worse than if I didn’t ask.” But it clarifies the dynamic of the relationship and ultimately allows us to better meet our needs elsewhere. So while asking for help has led to grieving the friend who has not shown up, it has also deepened my relationships with the people who have. The connection, gratitude, and hope I feel now is greater than before I asked for help. I hope this inspires you to honor your needs, especially when they change, and ask for help. We all deserve support!

P.S. If you’re ready to ask a therapist for help, click below for my updated referral list. I’ve added clinicians licensed in AZ and CA as well.

Referrals 5-14-25.pdfDownload

Photos from Ireland

Here are some photos from Ireland. We had beautiful weather, and I got to ride a horse!

The views were amazing. Trotting was too painful for me so the horses just walked, giving us plenty time to take in the sights.
Blondie took great care of me on the way up and on the way down the hill.
A rainbow in Ireland! I’ll let you fill in the punch line.
The view from the bridal suite.
Cows!

And as always, Bella and Rex were at Camp Bow Wow having a great time.

It was a great honor to be invited to stand in one of my best friend’s wedding and I didn’t want to miss it. So I planned to have the spinal fusion surgery after this trip. I am grateful I made that decision, but the traveling was really hard on my body and has further limited my mobility. I am taking my time packing up my belongings before getting on the road to NY. I am trying to pare down my possessions to the essentials, which is surprisingly difficult. I have accumulated a lot stuff over the years!

I’m hoping to get on the road by May 15. I’ll be driving 3 hours a day so it will take me at least a week to make the 20ish hour drive. I am hoping to make a detour to Disney World and Universal Studios to get in some roller coaster rides before the surgery. Like the horseback ride, I think it will be worth some additional discomfort pre-surgery to do the fun things I won’t be able to post-surgery. I am having lots of opportunities to practice cost/benefit analysis lately!

I think about my former clients every day. Please continue to email me if and when it feels helpful for you. Any message you send me is read with care. I am struggling with not responding, but I know it’s necessary to protect our boundaries. Remember you are always loved and never alone. My referral list and crisis resource list are also available on this site if you need extra support. 💕

Greetings from Ireland

I’ve just arrived in a small town in Ireland called Dingle, where I will be standing in a friend’s wedding on Wednesday. I wanted to take a moment to say hello to all my former clients. It’s been sad and strange not seeing any of you for 2 weeks now! I’ve received and read all your emails, and I am grateful to feel our connection even as we are apart. I miss being right there with you, but I know your journeys are continuing exactly as they are meant to. May the road rise to meet you. ☘️

Here are a couple pics I snapped on the drive from Shannon:

Adare Castle
Brandon Peak
Annascaul

More to come!

X-Rays and Plan for Surgery

From the left, the first 2 are my x-rays and the third is a post-op x-ray of a woman who had a similar curve. So before, now, and hopefully-after. I have thoracolumbar scoliosis with a 60-degree thoracic curve and a 47-degree lumbar curve. My MRI shows some fairly significant degenerative changes at several levels. The apex points of both my curves are where I experience a great deal of muscular pain. The compression of the spine below the lumbar curve is also causing nerve pain down the front of my left hip. My spine x-rays show that the curve is relatively mobile, which means the surgery will likely get me pretty straight.

I have met with 6 spinal surgeons, 4 in New Orleans and 2 in New York. Most have recommended a posterior approach with posterior osteotomies, and then T3 to pelvic fusion. This means the discs will be removed and replaced with cages, the spine will be straightened as much as possible, and then rods and screws will hold the spine in place, anchored into my pelvis. If only they could add adamantium and some retractable claws so I could be like Wolverine. Sigh.

It’s hard to see, but I have straws for claws here.

After surgery, I will not have any flexibility in my spine below the neck. I will be able to turn my head and bend over from my hips, but I will not be able to twist or curve my back in any way. Having been a dancer since age 6, this will be a lot to get used to. I get asked why this surgery seems worth it, and that is a valid question! This surgery was first recommended to me in 2022. I wanted to take a couple years to do all the physical therapy and alternative treatments available to me to see if I could manage the pain without surgery. The pain has continued to increase, and my quality of life is decreasing. In 2023 I stopped teaching dance because of my pain, and in May 2024 I stopped teaching yoga and performing. As anyone with chronic pain can tell you, it takes a great toll on your mental health in addition to your physical health.

I was first diagnosed with scoliosis when I was 12. I was told by my providers that my curve was not great enough for a brace or corrective surgery, and that the curve would not progress after I stopped growing. As we can see, that was not the case. Despite this deformity, I have led a very active life. No one has been able to tell me what caused the rapid progression in my 30s. It seems that my flexibility is now contributing to my pain, so while the surgery will take away that flexibility, hopefully it will also take away the pain.

I will require a lot of assistance to care for myself and my pets while I recover, and my brother and his wife have kindly offered for me to move in with them in Brooklyn. My plan is to move up in May to hopefully have the surgery in NYC sometime over the summer. I will post updates here about the surgery and throughout my recovery.

I am very grateful for everyone’s words of encouragement!

With love,

Renée

Terminating Therapy

Dear Clients,

We have 8 remaining weeks together before I close my psychotherapy practice on March 31, so I put some information to help us plan to make the best use of our time. I know “terminating” our therapy relationship sounds intense, and it is! It is normal to feel a mix of emotions during this time. Please practice self-compassion, pace yourself, and make space to process your emotions in your journal and in our sessions. You can also reach out to me between sessions for extra support.

1. Book our remaining sessions. Take a look at your calendar to confirm the number of sessions we are able to have between now and March 31, and book them now (if we haven’t already). 

2. Decide if you’d like to stop therapy for now, or transition to working with another therapist. To help you clarify what has worked well for you in therapy with me, and help you decide if you’d like to continue therapy long-term or stop therapy for now, I encourage you to journal. This will be helpful either way. I know it can be overwhelming to think of starting with a new therapist, but writing out your answers to these questions will help you find a great starting point if and when you do decide to work with someone new. 

I create a Termination Note for each client that remains in your electronic health record. I would like this document to be collaborative, so I want to incorporate your words into it as much as possible. If you’d like to share your journal entries, I can incorporate them into your treatment summary. Then you will get a signed copy from me that you can share with your future therapist if you would like. 

3. Plan our remaining sessions. You might like to write out an agenda for each of our sessions. We can start with a check-in like always, spending about the first 10 minutes of the session on your week, and then move on to what we’ve planned. 

Here are some things you may like to do in/between our remaining sessions

  • Journal (see prompts)
  • Complete worksheets or workbooks
  • Review initial goals for treatment and reflect on achievements
  • Re-take assessment questionnaires and reflect on changes
  • Set a new/continued goal to focus on with the next therapist
  • Clarify search criteria for the next therapist
  • Contact referrals and set up consultation calls
  • Review Treatment Summary and records, if requested
  • Develop Mental Health Maintenance Plan

4. Complete a Mental Health Maintenance Plan if you plan to stop therapy, or book consultations with therapists you might like to work with. I have a list of referrals below.

5. Review my record keeping policies and submit any record requests. From now through March 31, I am waiving my administrative fees. Please re-read your Consent for Treatment form to make sure you understand your rights as my client, even after we terminate. It is also posted on my website if you’d like to review it there (click here). If you have any questions, please let me know. 

The termination process is hard, and can feel overwhelming. Please know I am right here with you, and will always support you however I can. 

Here is an article you might find helpful to read as well.

Referrals and Journal Prompts are linked below.

Termination Journal PromptsDownload
Referrals 5-14-25.pdfDownload

Understanding and Applying the Cognitive Model

Here’s some additional information about how you can continue making progress toward your treatment goals even after terminating therapy.

I utilize a cognitive behavioral treatment model. This means that therapy sessions focus on understanding the relationships between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Anxiety, depression, and relationship problems are often rooted in cognitive distortions, which are misconceptions of reality. We can improve symptoms and feel more in control of our lives when we can challenge and replace these cognitive distortions with more accurate and compassionate thoughts.  

It’s helpful to remember the cognitive behavioral model as the ABCDE model.

retrieved from http://www.therapistaid.com

A- activating event. This can be any situation or experience. 

B- beliefs. These are the thoughts through which we interpret the experience. 

C- consequences. These are the emotions and behaviors, what we feel and do in response. 

D- disputation of beliefs. This is where we identify and challenge cognitive distortions, or unhelpful thoughts. 

E- effective new beliefs. This is where we engage the restructured cognitions, or more balanced thinking that empowers us to make choices which better reflect our values.

Any time you catch yourself feeling an uncomfortable or intense emotion, or having a stressful interaction with someone, journaling about it using the format below can help you process it and make wise-minded choices thereafter.

ABCDE Journal Template

A Activating Event 

This may be either an actual event or situation, a thought, mental picture or recollection. 

B Beliefs 

1. List all statements that link A to C. Ask yourself: “What was I thinking?” “What was I saying to myself?” “What was going through my head at the time?” 

2. Find the most distressing (hot) thought and underline it 

3. Rate how much you believe this thought between 0 to 100. 

C Consequences 

1.Write down words describing how you feel. 

2. Underline the one that is most associated with the activating event. 

3.Rate the intensity of those feelings (0 to 100). 

4. Jot down any physical sensations you experienced, or actions carried out 

D Disputation

1.Check the hot thought against the list of Cognitive Distortions and see which it falls under.

2. Challenge the distorted thought. Evaluate evidence for/against. 

3.Think of other possible explanations for or interpretations of the activating event. 

4.Re-rate how much you believe the hot thought from B 0 to 100.

E- effective new beliefs

1.Find a more realistic, nonjudgmental thought. Rate how much you believe this thought between 0 to 100. 

2.Engage the effective new beliefs by doing an activity or adaptive coping skill that reinforces it.

3.Re-rate the intensity of the feelings from C (0 to 100). Write down and rate any new feelings, like acceptance, compassion, or hope and rate those as well.

Happy journaling!

Announcement of Practice Closure March 31, 2025

January 21, 2025

Dear Clients, 

Due to medical reasons, I will be closing my psychotherapy practice on March 31, 2025. I will be undergoing spinal fusion surgery later this year, and after careful consideration I’ve decided it’s best to close my practice before I have the surgery. 

As your therapist, my primary concern is providing you with the highest quality care and support. I will hopefully be able to resume working after I recover from the operation, but I can’t say when or to what capacity. Closing my practice on March 31st allows us to plan how we finish our work together over the next 10 weeks. During this time, I can support you in transitioning to another therapist if you’d like to continue therapy long-term. 

I understand you may want to know more about the surgery and recovery. I am happy to share more and answer any questions you may have in our remaining sessions. My code of ethics prohibits me from contacting you after we officially terminate our therapeutic relationship. However, I plan to post updates about the surgery on the blog tab of my website (reneegaubert.com/blog), which is available to the public. You will always be welcome to visit that site, and can subscribe to receive email notifications when I publish a new post. 

If I decide to re-open my practice in the future, I will announce it in a blog post and you will have the option of re-establishing care with me through my website.

I will make space to process this news together in our next session, and you are welcome to reach out between sessions as well.

I love being your therapist, and I look forward to our next 10 weeks together. 

Sincerely,

Renée 

Renée Gaubert, LCSW

renee.gaubert.lcsw@gmail.com

504-315-5663

Sacral Chakra Meditation

Venus will reach its greatest distance from the sun on January 9-10, and since Venus is often associated with the sacral chakra, it’s a fitting time to try a sacral chakra meditation. You may be able to see Venus shining brightly after dark in the western sky, setting about 4 hours after sunset today. I invite you to try to see Venus tonight, and use that visual to anchor this meditation.

The sacral chakra is the second chakra, located in the lower abdomen just below the belly button. Its element is water, its color is orange, and its Sanskrit name is Vam. The sacral chakra governs the reproductive organs, bladder, and bowels. It regulates confidence, creativity, sexuality, and issues of dependence, addiction, loneliness emotional imbalance, anger, and fear. Ailments associated with this chakra include feeling pissed off, usually at the opposite sex, blaming others, concerns with money, lack of financial support, anxiety, fear of letting go, self-criticism, self invalidation, hopelessness, and fear.

Visualization & Meditation:

Picture a bright orange light emanating from just below your navel. Stir this color counterclockwise creating a cone-like vortex of orange energy. Stir faster and faster. visualize drawing white energy in through the cone as you breathe in and as you breathe out continue visualizing the vortex spinning; each breath existing inside this vortex.

Bring to the front of your mind any obstacles or discomfort associated with this chakra, in your body or your life. Repeat these phrases to yourself: I release the pattern in my consciousness that created this condition. I am willing to change. I love and approve of myself. I trust the process of life. all that I need is always taken care of. I am safe. I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new in my life. I acknowledge my uniqueness. I am a sensual and creative being. My senses are alive and connected. I am radiantly beautiful, healthy, and strong. I now go beyond other people’s fears and limitations. I create my life. I see myself and what I do with eyes of love. I attract only whole and nurturing relationships into my life. I embrace life with passion and feel abundant joy.

Incorporate these asanas into your practice: goddess, triangle, dancer, butterfly, cobra.

Venus will reach its greatest distance from the sunset today