Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Fort Collins. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Nick George helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Fort Collins, Colorado.
Is your business serving the residents of Fort Collins? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpFortCollins.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins
Sarah Vendegna believes therapy should be joyful, not scary.
When Sarah Vendegna talks about her journey to becoming a therapist, you feel the authentic connection between her Cajun roots and her counseling approach. Growing up in South Louisiana surrounded by "good food, good people, good music, and just good times," Sarah witnessed how discrimination affected her peers—and became the non-judgmental friend they turned to. Combined with her own mental health struggles during adolescence and college, these experiences shaped her path to becoming the compassionate counselor she is today.
With licenses in Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and Florida, Sarah has been practicing in Fort Collins for eight years and brings nearly 11 years of therapy experience to her clients. What makes her approach unique is her commitment to creating spaces where therapy doesn't feel scary—where laughter and joy become part of the healing process. "I laugh with my clients. I love laughing, like belly laughs," she shares, emphasizing how a comfortable, non-judgmental environment helps clients open up and find their own answers.
Sarah especially connects with college-age adults navigating the chaotic early stages of adulthood, teenagers (whom she describes as "feisty" like herself), and adults in their 30s-50s who reach that pivotal moment of wanting more fulfillment. When she's not counseling, this self-described "extrovert times a thousand" balances planning social events with quiet evenings at home with her husband and two dogs. Her philosophy extends beyond her practice: "I really do hope people reach out... whether it's with me or someone else, I do hope people find their place to be themselves, because that's really what this world needs." Connect with Sarah through her website Vendegnacounseling.com, Instagram @VendegnaCounseling, by phone at 970-658-5526, or email sarah@vendegnacounseling.com—just remember, she honors her boundaries and isn't available after 8pm!
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of personalized, individualized counseling? Well, one reputable company might be closer than you think. Today I have the great pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, sarah Vandania. With Vandania Counseling Sarah, how's it going?
Speaker 3:Good, how are you? I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Excellent. We're excited to learn all about you and your business. Please tell us about your practice.
Speaker 3:I'm an individual counselor here in Fort Collins. I've been practicing in Fort Collins for eight years now, but I've been a therapist for almost 11. I'm licensed in Colorado, wyoming, oregon and Florida and I'll probably get more licenses for the future, just because I like giving myself a challenge. And yeah, I absolutely love what I do. I love being a therapist, I love being a counselor, I love working with the clients that I work with here in Colorado and other states.
Speaker 2:How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Oh, this is a good question. I'm a big believer that if you have like a really honest conversation with any therapist, they would tell you that they themselves struggled with some stuff in life and that's why they became a therapist. And that's pretty much my story. There's a couple of layers. I grew up in South Louisiana, which was some of the core tenets of Cajun culture is good food, good people, good music and just good times. That's something I still hold closely to my heart.
Speaker 3:But unfortunately I was exposed to a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia growing up and that was really challenging for me because I had a lot of classmates that unfortunately were hurting as a result of that and I was kind of the person that they came to because I didn't judge them. I always welcomed them. My parents taught me that we treat everyone equally and we treat everyone with respect, and so I was exposed to that growing up and then in my adolescence, as well as in my college years, I also struggled with a lot of mental health and my support system was what got me through it and just kind of all of those things put together led me led me to this career.
Speaker 2:What are some myths or misconceptions in your career?
Speaker 3:The two that I think of are is therapists have all the answers and we have everything figured out and that therapy is scary. As far as the first one, I tell my clients all the time I'm on this journey of life just like they are. I'm trying to figure things out just like they are and I'm learning and also unlearning, just like they are. They are and I'm learning and also unlearning just like they are. So we may not have all the answers, but we definitely we know how to provide that space for our clients to find those answers within themselves. And as far as, like, I don't think therapy is scary.
Speaker 3:I myself am in therapy and I'm a huge advocate of it. I think it's a scary process the idea of change but something that I really hold in my heart is making sure that we find joy in our therapy sessions. I laugh with my clients. I love laughing like belly laughs. That's just a very important thing for me. And also I really work hard on just providing a very nonjudgmental space for my clients in case they are hesitant when stepping into the therapy process. I really attune with my clients to make sure that, like, I'm not pushing too hard, but I'm also going to push when needed, and so I just really I really just try to make the space as comfortable as possible for my people.
Speaker 2:Who are your? We know that marketing is the heart of every business, but and we talked about this before we started recording who are your target customers? I know you said everybody, but a lot of times a listener out there thinks that they don't fall into any of these categories until they hear you talk about about who, who you think might need you out there most. Who would that be, and how are you reaching out or trying to attract them through marketing right now?
Speaker 3:I am so bad at marketing. I will absolutely acknowledge that it is something that you know when I went into private practice.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, sarah, we got to figure out this marketing thing.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of great friends that kind of give me some guidance. But as far as the people that I really love working with my main niche because we're here in Fort Collins and universities are around us I love working with college age adults, either those in college or not in college, just trying to navigate the early stages of adulthood. I've been there, you've been there. It's so chaotic, it's overwhelming. So I really work with them a lot. I also work with teenagers. They're feisty and I'm feisty, so I love working with teens. And then just adults. You know male, female, anyone and everyone from you know 30s, 40s, 50s. I really love helping clients just kind of come to this realization in their 30s, whether they become parents or they're establishing that career, and they're just like I want more from life, I want things, I want to feel different about myself, I want to feel different about my world and just wanting a space to kind of figure that out and just needing the support. In that, those are usually the people I love working with.
Speaker 2:Have you ever thought about reaching out to people through podcasting?
Speaker 3:I've done one before, and then I had a friend that I went to grad school with that she one before. And then I had a friend that I went to grad school with that she, um, she asked me if we could do it. I have so much on my plate right now, both socially and professionally. I think it would add another kind of big stress to me, um, to do my own podcast, but I would love to pop in and just kind of give my two cents on what the mental health field is seeing when it comes to certain topics and you said you've already done one.
Speaker 2:Do you want to plug that here? Is it not a big deal?
Speaker 3:It's on my social media. It's on my Instagram. I did it years ago when I first started. Oh, I cannot remember what it was, but it was honestly just kind of how to deal with, like, the hardships of life, and I connected it to just like providing space to grief, to grieve things. Grief is not just related to someone dying. There's a lot of things related to grief that don't involve losing something like forever. It's still there, but we just aren't connected with it. So I think that's what it was, but it's definitely on my social media.
Speaker 2:Outside of work. What do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:I love naps. Those are my favorite. Um, that's like big part of my self-care. Um, a lot of times I'm at home with my two dogs and my husband. That our dogs definitely just make us laugh and we just enjoy having movie nights and cooking. Um, but I'm also like a huge extrovert. I describe myself as an extrovert times a thousand. I'm always planning social events. Um, my birthday is a big thing, so I'm always planning things like that Me and my husband will go to musicals, we go to burlesque shows, we go to drag shows. We really love just going to like Denver, even in town, for different entertainment and just spending time with our friends.
Speaker 2:Sarah, please tell our listeners something that should be the big takeaway from this podcast today. What do you want people to remember about Sarah? Vandenya Vandenya Did. I say that right Vandenya yeah, what do you want people to remember about your company?
Speaker 3:Whether it's me that someone decides to work with or anyone else, I just want to always promote the need for mental health services. If anyone's just having that question of like something just feels off, I don't know what to do, or maybe I should go talk to someone or need a little extra support that I'm not really getting, I really do hope people reach out. There's so many different amazing services in Fort Collins. It's why I love living here. I mean, there's so many people who are open to mental health and there's so many services that are there for people. So, whether it's with me or if it's with someone else, I do hope people find their place to be themselves, because that's really what I think this world needs is just people feeling comfortable within themselves.
Speaker 2:Sarah, how can our listeners learn more about your counseling services online, and could you literally spell out your last name? I'm going to get to the website. My name is not easy, is it?
Speaker 3:So my website is Vendania Counseling V-E-N-D-E-G-N-A counselingcom. There's a whole slew of things on my website as far as information about me, a couple of blog posts and also just like little pages on certain things I work with as far as trauma, men's health, women's health, teens, young adults, things like that and my approach to it, and there's a nice little box for you to fill in and contact me. I do have an Instagram Vendania Counseling.
Speaker 3:I'm not the best at it but I do have some posts on there from things I've done in the past to kind of let you get an idea of who I am and just the things that are important to me.
Speaker 2:Well, this is streaming on your Instagram right now, so you're an expert, apparently. Expert yes, I've never been able to stream on my personal account, except for what I do professionally, so you're more professional than me even now. Can you tell us if there's a phone number?
Speaker 3:Yeah, 970-658-5526. Feel free to send me a voicemail, a text message. You can email me, sarah, at vendaniacounselingcom. I'm pretty open to all forms of communication. I'm not available after 8 pm though because that's my self-care time.
Speaker 2:Sarah, hang with me after we're done so I can talk to you while we're downloading on both sides, and I want to let you know how much we really do appreciate you coming on our show. We wish you and your counseling practice the very best, moving forward.
Speaker 3:Awesome, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpfortcollinscom. That's gnpfortcollinscom, or call 970-438-0825.