Good Neighbor Podcast: TN-WNC-SWVA

EP#359: Inside Ascending Self: Practical Therapy For Real Life

• Skip Mauney & Barrett Wilson • Episode 359

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Ever wondered why some conversations spiral while others heal? We sit down with Barrett Wilson, owner of Ascending Self, to unpack how practical therapy tools and real empathy can transform daily life—whether you’re navigating grief, stuck in recurring arguments, or just craving more ease in your relationships.

Barrett traces his path from a spark in a high school psychology class to building outdoor programs for foster youth, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and working in wilderness therapy. That journey shaped a grounded, skills-forward approach that blends insight with action. When families saw change with their teens, parents invited Barrett to help repair marriages and rebuild trust, laying the foundation for his private practice in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. Along the way, he dispels the myth that therapy is only for crisis, highlighting how support for communication, emotional regulation, and values alignment can prevent small issues from becoming big ruptures.

We also explore how personal loss informed Barrett’s craft. After his father’s death in 2020, he became a client himself, deepening his understanding of grief and the courage it takes to ask for help. He shares accessible tools—reflective listening, repair scripts, pacing tough talks, and reframing harsh self-talk—that make relationships safer and more resilient. Expect insights you can try the same day: how to slow a heated exchange, how to validate without surrendering your needs, and how to create rituals that keep connection strong. If you’re curious about real-world therapy that fits busy lives and complex families, this conversation offers both hope and a map.

Explore resources or book time with Barrett at ascendingself.com, and if this conversation resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors find practical mental health support.

SPEAKER_00:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Money.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. So today I'm super excited to have uh someone in our studio for the first time, and um all uh excited to learn all about them and their enterprise, and I'm sure you will be as well because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Mr. Barrett Wilson, who is the owner operator of Ascending Self. Barrett, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too, Barrett. And like I said, we're really excited to uh to uh have you here. We focus on uh locally owned small businesses and nonprofits, and we'd love to learn all about you. So if you don't mind, why don't you kick us off by telling us about Ascending Life, Self, sorry, Ascending Self.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, ascending self, it's uh it's just a small uh mental health therapy uh practice that I run. I work with individuals and couples and families, just helping them uh work through uh the challenges that they're having uh relationally and um and and you know just work in mental health uh for themselves as individuals as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Very good. Well, um Barrett, how did you how'd you get started in in this industry?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I got um I got really inspired uh all the way back into high school. I took my first uh psychology class, and it was the first thing that interested me outside of just literature and that kind of thing. And from there, I I started studying uh psychology at UT and I uh helped create a a small um feature of a of a foster care program where we were doing out outdoors uh exposure and like work with kids that uh were just struggling to fit in for their um for their uh foster care homes. And then from there I um graduated, hiked the Appalachian Trail, and uh and then uh started working for therapeutic programs in Utah, doing stuff um with adolescents and um wilderness therapy. And then um after that came back, got my master's, and uh started started working adventure therapy as well. And then from there, uh the the family systems that I was working with were so uh you know grateful for the healing that was happening in their families that they started hiring me on the side uh to do work with the parents, uh, help heal their marriage after we had repaired the relationships with their kids. And then uh from there I started uh ascending self uh let's see about 2015.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh wow, wow. So eight years, nothing to sneeze at for sure. Yeah, it's been good. Awesome, awesome. Well, very unique, actually. Adventure therapy. What uh what are some miss or misconceptions that you can think of in the therapy business?

SPEAKER_02:

I think a lot of people uh get uh into this mindset that um therapy is for folks that are having uh real severe uh challenges. And I think that uh therapy can be great for folks uh that are dealing with uh relational challenges, communication, um uh experiencing uh you know all kinds of discomforts in the grief process or uh even in employment. Um I help I help folks uh work through all kinds of different challenges. It's not just about um you know uh a diagnosis, it's about figuring out how I can be authentically um comfortable in my own skin and in relationships with other folks.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, very, very good. So it doesn't have to be a huge problem in order to everybody needs help.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Everybody needs help. Well, obviously you're you're a super busy guy, but uh outside of work when you're not working, uh what do you like to do for fun?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I love to go uh rock climbing and backpacking and and doing uh all kinds of like outdoor adventure uh kind of things. Those are my favorites.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, you live in a great place for it.

SPEAKER_02:

I do. East Tennessee is amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

It is the most beautiful place on earth. Switch gears here for a second. Um can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've personally or professionally overcome and how it made you stronger on the other side?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I um I thought it was really really great for my practice when um I had the experience of being on the couch myself. Um my dad died in uh 2020, and uh and going through that grief process was uh quite the challenge for me. And and what what that did for me in the long game as a practitioner was having the experience as a client, it helps really enrich my experience as a therapist so that you know helping folks navigate through that and having experienced it on the other end, I felt like has really been a huge help for how I do my work.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely, and I'm sure your clients appreciate it as well that they know you know you've got perspective. So yeah, yeah. Very good.

SPEAKER_02:

Going through knowing what it's like to go through that process can be really helpful in the empathy that I can bring for clients that are going through similar challenges.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. So if uh Barrett, if you could think of one thing that you'd like our viewers and listeners to remember about ascending self, what would that be?

SPEAKER_02:

It would be that um let's see, that the challenges that I'm having uh internally with my own uh conversations in in my head uh can really improve and resolve through the right kind of help and and treatment. I think that uh it's also um incredibly useful to understand the skills and communication and how to uh come to a place that we really understand what's happening for uh our partners, for our family, and for the friends in our lives uh that we uh can can really heal the places that uh are challenges for us relationally, both with others and internally.

SPEAKER_01:

Very good, very good thing to remember. And for those of us who, you know, um need some guidance, some help, or intrigued and would like to learn more about uh all the things that you offer, how can how can they do that? How can they learn more?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I've got a website, just ascending self.com. You can you can go on there. I have a few articles that are uh help for folks there, and you can also schedule an appointment if that's if that's the direction you'd like to go.

SPEAKER_01:

You can do that on the website, yeah. And schedule.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, yeah, it's got a booking link right there, and and uh that's typically the best way to get in touch with me.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, very good. Well, Barrett, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here and to tell us all about Ascending Self and the wonderful things that you're doing. Thank you for that. And uh we wish you and your family, your practice all the best moving forward.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks so much, Skip. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. And uh maybe we can have you back sometime. It'd be great. All right, sounds good. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Tries dot com. That's GMP Tri Cities.com or call four two three seven one nine five eight seven three.