FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #210 Breaking The Overwork Cycle With Serenity Therapy Services
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You can have a full calendar, a solid career, and a life that looks great from the outside and still feel anxious, numb, or trapped. That’s where this conversation with Maria Smith, LPC, founder of Serenity Therapy Services, gets real. We talk about the high-achiever loop Maria sees all the time in therapy: overworking, people pleasing, harsh self-talk, and that lingering sense of “Why am I not happier?” even when things are objectively good.
Maria shares her winding path from Brazil to the United States, her early work at the American Consulate, and how military life, loss, and major transitions shaped her eventual calling in clinical mental health counseling. Along the way, she trained as a yoga teacher, interned in hospice, and built the experience that led her to open her Fredericksburg private practice. If you’ve ever wondered what a therapist is actually listening for, you’ll appreciate her clear take on therapy as both science and art and her emphasis on the therapeutic relationship over labels.
We also break down one of the biggest mental health myths: that emotions are “problems” to solve or delete. Maria explains a holistic, highly individualized model that considers psychological patterns, biology (sleep, hormones, nutrition), relationships, and the larger context of culture, trauma, grief, parenting, caregiving, and life change. Plus, she offers practical guidance for anyone trying to find a therapist, including why “shopping around” is normal, what to ask in a phone consultation, and how her practice avoids long wait lists.
If you’re ready for a more human, more complete approach to anxiety therapy, depression support, and grief counseling, listen now, share this with a friend who’s been carrying too much, and leave a review so more Fredericksburg neighbors can find the help they need.
Maria Smith
Serenity Therapy Services
maria@mariasmithlpc.com
(540) 348-3633
806 Westwood Office Park, Suite 110, Fredericksburg, VA
Welcome To FXBG Neighbors
Speaker 1This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
SpeakerWelcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands.
Meet Maria And Her Practice
SpeakerI'm excited to introduce you to my guest today. We've got Maria Smith joining us, and she is with Serenity Therapy Services. Maria, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
SpeakerWell, I'm really excited about this. I'm excited to learn more about you and your business. So let's start there. Share with us what is Serenity Therapy Services.
Speaker 2Serenity Therapy Services is my solo private practice where I provide outpatient clinical mental health counseling to adults who are struggling with issues such as anxiety, depression, and grief. And most of my clients are kind of like you and me, like they're high-achieving professionals. They're juggling high-demanding careers and family life. And they have achieved great success, but somehow they find themselves kind of locked in a cycle of kind of overworking, people pleasing, self-criticism, and just this kind of overall sense of disenchantment with life. And at some point they find themselves asking, I have a great life, uh, but why do I still feel this way? So then in therapy, what we do is we work on identifying the underlying patterns, maintaining the cycle, and then we work on developing uh life-enhancing skills to help you break free from these cycles.
SpeakerAmazing. This sounds like something everybody needs. I love it.
Speaker 2I agree. Yes.
SpeakerSo I want to learn about you. Tell me your backstory and how did you get into this?
From Brazil To Counseling Work
Speaker 2Well, my backstory has um many twists and turns. So everything started in Brazil, where I'm from, and I got a bachelor's in English language and literature, which is kind of rare for a Brazilian. Um, but I had uh a thought of being a translator and maybe work for the United Nations, for the State Department. Um, and so this dream led me to work at the American Consulate, which is where I met my husband. He's a United States Marine, which then in turn led me to immigrate to the United States after we got married. And um, as we moved from base to base, I went back to college and I started pursuing a degree in education. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. However, I quickly realized that my heart was in psychology. So then I started pursuing a degree in that field, and that is when life said, Oh, that's cute. We're going to throw you a series of curveballs. And uh it was just one thing after another, and um there was like significant change in stability, um, significant loss, and it took me several years to overcome these challenges. Um, but then once life was more stable, and my husband retired from the Marine Corps and we moved here to Fredericksburg in 2006, um, things started to happen pretty fast. I went back to college, I became a yoga teacher, and I did internships at the local hospice, and I also started working at private practices while getting my master's degree in clinical mental health counseling. And after getting my license, I opened Serenity Therapy Services um in November of last year. Um, and now it's like here I am full circle.
SpeakerWow. Well, congratulations on um on uh riding that windy road and and landing where you're supposed to be now. Um that's exciting.
Speaker 2Thank you.
SpeakerAnd I can tell that you love what you do. Like I can feel it when you're talking about it and you're sharing your story. I can tell that this is this is what you're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2Yes, it has been uh a long, longstanding dream.
SpeakerI love
Emotions Aren’t The Enemy
Speakerit. So, do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions about what you do?
Speaker 2I love this question. It's like myth busting is my favorite pastime. Um, so like the top misconception I like to address in mental health is this idea that there's something wrong with our emotions, or our emotions are disorders, or we're not supposed to feel them, or they are problems that we need to solve or get rid of, when the truth is way more complex than that. So I'll give you an example. When a client is talking to me about a challenging experience or a challenging emotion, I need to actually look at several factors influencing the client's experience. So we need to look at psychological factors, and these are things like thoughts, beliefs, sensations, attention, behaviors, the person's sense of self, um, and just kind of this psychological aspect of what is going on. And then, but that's not all, because I also need to take into consideration that we're very complex human beings, so there's another layer: what is happening biologically, like um nutrition, hormones, sleep, um, diet, chronic illnesses, like what has been going on for the client in the physical realm. But there's more. We also need to look at their relationships, right? Um, family history, friendships, um, relationships with coworkers, with their spouses, with their children. Like, what is happening relationally for this client? And one last layer that we need to take a look at is the everything happens within a context, a larger context. And this is like your environment, your culture. Um, have you moved recently? Have you experienced loss? Have you gotten married? Divorce? Has there been a traumatic experience? Did you have children? Are you caring for an elderly parent? So there's a lot more than just, you know, say you're you have clinical depression, for example. There's this whole universe. And here's the most important part: all of these factors they interact together and tell a lot more about a person and what they're struggling with than any single diagnosis ever could. And these factors also inform the work that we do in therapy, which should be highly individualized for each client with this universe of layers and factors that are impacting their experience.
SpeakerYeah. That's when you're talking about it and you're you're you're listing out all the layers, it's it's so complex. It's um I imagine it's um, I don't know, you're a you're like a um part magician, part um you know, like there's so much more that goes into therapy than I mean just you listening to you list all those layers, it's it's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 2Very true. We are listening with those things in mind. Right. Yes.
SpeakerSo it's it's um it's a lot of of digging that you've got to pull out of people. Um yeah, it sounds um like it's it sounds difficult, but I um I imagine, you know, hearing you talk and and I I can tell that you love it and that you're passionate about it. And so um you're very curious.
Speaker 2Yes, it's um there's uh two components to it. There's the science part of it. A lot of what we do is based on research, and research is not perfect, they were always going back and adding more and more information, but again, that's not the only thing, it's also an art. I can know a lot about the science and the theories and the uh interventions, but it takes that certain quality of how to sit with people in a way that it builds that trust. So the therapeutic relationship is really, really important. I need to see the person in front of me and not some label.
SpeakerYeah, yeah, very interesting. Very interesting.
Speaker 2Thank you.
SpeakerUm, what is something that you wish the listeners knew about what you
How To Choose A Therapist
Speakerdo?
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a good question too. Um, I think getting into therapy can be a very um like overwhelming and frustrating experience. Um I have a personal experience as a client too. Finding a good therapist that I can trust can take a lot of time, sometimes like months, um, to even like get an appointment. And then there's another experience. You get the appointment and you sit in front of the therapist for the first time, and it's like, uh, I'm not clicking, it's not a good match. Um, now what? Right. So shopping for a therapist is a thing, right? It's a thing that we need, we need to tell people that it's okay. It's okay to it's frustrating to go through all the hurdles. And here I am, but it's like you're not stuck with that person. You can you can definitely shop around. So to minimize this, I have designed my practice with this in mind. So, for example, I do not have wait lists, which means that you can get an appointment with me within days. And if we're not a good match, I can also provide referrals to other therapists. And I also provide an initial phone consultation that so we can, you know, the client can get a sense of me and my voice and who I am to start getting that sense of, yeah, I see myself meeting with this person. Um, and so and it's an opportunity for us to have a conversation and see if working together makes sense, if it it feels right. Um, they can ask questions and they're talking directly to me. So that is how I kind of mapped out my my practice to address some of these concerns that clients usually have.
SpeakerThat's nice, and that's really good for people to know, and I imagine puts a lot of people at ease so they don't feel like you know, uh-oh, I'm going into this, and you know, having all the the question marks, this you know, kind of lays it all out there, it's okay if it's not a good match. I love that. That's a great approach.
Speaker 2Thank you.
SpeakerYeah.
ABCs Of Building A Business
SpeakerSo being a therapist and and you're not just a therapist, you're also a business owner, and you're managing, you're wearing all the business owner hats. And so if someone listening is inspired by you and are thinking about starting a business, whether it's in therapy or not, do you have any advice for them?
Speaker 2I sure do. Um, so if you're interested in opening um practice like me, if you're a mental health practitioner, I developed what I call the ABCs of well owning a business, which is to advocate for yourself and for your needs and for your clients, which can be kind of hard and involves making some tough decisions. And then the B stands for learning about the business, which is tricky because we go to um our grad school and we learn how to be therapists, but we don't learn the business, so it's gonna take a lot of your time to learn that, but it's important before you even think about um opening your private practice, and then the C would be to form a community, and this is applicable to anybody who is opening a business, no matter which type of business, uh, to have your advisory board to build community around you of people that can provide you with wisdom, with guidance, and with expertise. These are people that can be honest with you, can be real, can listen without judgment, and remind you of who you are, because it can be hard. And um, they will also celebrate every single victory, no matter how seemingly small it is. I find that that is still something that I rely on always, so that would be like the emphasis on building community.
SpeakerI really love that. I I asked this question, and I haven't heard anybody talk about building an advisory board and building community, and it's really, really smart.
Speaker 2I love that. Exactly. We're good, we it's it gets it can be lonely, yeah. So you need that bubble of love around you.
SpeakerReally smart.
Speaker 2Thank you.
Why Fredericksburg Works
SpeakerSo you uh came to Fredericksburg, uh, I think you said about 20 years ago.
Speaker 2Yes.
SpeakerTell me what you love about living in the Fredericksburg area.
Speaker 2I like how Fredericksburg is so unique. There is this uh sense of uh there's a charm, there's a vibrant community life, and there's this mix of the um small city atmos city atmosphere and the metropolitan opportunities because we are like location, location, location. We are in between Richmond and Washington, D.C. So you know, within an hour you can be in these big hubs that offer a lot of culture and opportunities. So I like the diversity here in this area.
SpeakerYeah, I I agree, I agree. We've got our our little Hallmark town in the city of Fredericksburg, and we can get up to DC for all the you know theater and the opera and all that, and yeah, not far from the mountains or the beach. So exactly, and it's still pretty safe. Yeah, I love that.
How To Reach Maria
SpeakerSo if the listeners want to work with you, if they want to learn more from you, where can they find you?
Speaker 2Uh you can visit my website, it's Maria Smithlpc.com, and you can fill out the contact form so we can schedule a phone phone consultation and see how I can help.
SpeakerAmazing. Maria, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today, and congratulations on all your success.
Speaker 2Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to FXBG NeighborsPodcast.com.