Navigating the Depths of Parenting with Ruth Minnick

Ruth Minnick, NCC, LPC

I am a mental health professional with a strong focus on wellness. I seek to highlight and build upon individuals’ strengths and what makes them unique. I believe that healing is a holistic process and that we all have within us the tools to reach our highest potential. Together we partner to understand what might be getting in the way of you being your most authentic, talented self. As a body-based therapist, I specialize in helping others gently access and heal their pain. We work with an integrative approach with the nervous system to unlock trauma and stuck emotions so that they may be released. Body integration supports us to feel more alive, present, and grounded in who we are and what truly matters to us. I work with all populations including men, women, couples, and groups. I integrate evidenced-based practices such as breath-work, mindfulness, EMDR, CBT, and emotionally focused therapy, all under a psychodynamic lens of therapy.

As a Master’s graduate of Northwestern University’s Family Institute of Counseling, combined with a Master’s In Transformational Leadership & Coaching, the study of group dynamics, psychology, Social-Emotional Intelligence, along with many years of supporting visions for my clients, I understand how to bring out the best in others.

I have a long history of working in the corporate environment with high-level executives and a strong background in the creative industries. I understand what it takes to transform people & environments to realize their potential. As an artist, I see the beauty and potential of everyone I work with. I utilize creative approaches to co-create a unique healing path for each client. Design thinking applied in all areas of life can provide the blueprint of how-to re-wire our potential. I believe that healing is an embodied process of feeling, experiencing, and engaging our yearnings and emotions for greater transformation and a more profound sense of self.

I am passionate about personal growth, human potential, and sustainability, which is expressed in my lifestyle, fitness, studies, leadership, and practice as a professional. I continually seek new learning opportunities, ways to expand my practice, what I have to offer to my clientele, and myself, and how to give back to my community.

Becoming a mother, for most mothers, is one of the most fulfilling experiences. It can also be a rewarding journey filled with growth and resilience but the journey of being a mother comes with many challenges and sacrifices.

However, despite these challenges, mothers continue to stand strong and provide love, nurture, and protection for their children. In today’s episode with Ruth Minnick, a mental health professional and artist, we’ll talk about how to navigate life and the depths of parenting.

Show Highlights:

Ruth’s journey of becoming a mother after a divorce.

After Ruth’s divorce, she started contemplating on life. She questioned herself, where she was heading towards, and especially how she feels about being a mother because it is a bit of a sore subject for Ruth since she lost her mother when she was in her early 20s.

She kept wondering what it was like becoming a mother without a mother. Ruth recalled being with her insecurity, ambivalence, and pain through the help of my doctoral work. Because of worries and other factors, she decided that if she were to become a mother, it would be later in life.

She had a realization that being a mother isn’t just limited to being a mother to a child but you could also be a mother in other aspects – to your business, to your passion, and to others.

How did Ruth navigate the world of dating?

Life comes with unexpected circumstances. Ruth was back in the scene of dating which she considers as a learning process because things didn’t work out in her marriage with her high school sweetheart.

The whole dating process involves learning to ask hard questions, putting yourself more authentically out there, and seeing who showed up at the end of it. You meet a lot of great people when you go out on dates and explore but it can’t be helped that there are those who aren’t.

Luckily, Ruth found someone who was her perfect match and who pushed her to continue growing as a person. In fact, they did couples therapy to strengthen their relationship. This helped Ruth become more open because she was more of a closed-off person before and so, it was quite difficult to get to know her.

How to have a masculine and feminine balance in your career.

As a woman looking at different spaces in her career and trying to fit in a corporate sales environment in a big global world, Ruth saw the trend of becoming more masculine to fit in. You have to have a voice to speak out but also develop a softer edge depending on the situation.

Ruth found herself not fitting in so well which prompted her to do more of what she really loves and so, it led her to becoming a therapist. She felt like she was in vulnerable spaces in her design career being in other people’s homes and interacting with people, some of whom just got married whereas some are divorced or grieving.

She realized she was more focused on the therapeutic perspective instead of doing business like being a mother and a psychological parent who cares for her own kid. Whenever she met up with clients for business, she thought about how they were doing in life or how they were navigating the depths of life.

Losing a child during pregnancy is yet another arena that women are supposed to be quiet about.

Ruth shared her pregnancy experience and how loss impacts everyone, especially mothers. The sad reality is that losing a child anywhere during a pregnancy is yet another arena that women are just supposed to be quiet about and are just supposed to get over it.

There isn't a huge space for mothers to mourn, grieve and express their feelings. Of course, the pain can lessen but that doesn't matter. It’s alright to be vulnerable and tender.

In line with this, Ruth was able to write her first book on her mother’s birthday for their three-year-old Evelyn. She also drew the pictures for the book. However, it was in the wake where she had all the creative energy she needed to create a space for something new. After reading it to her staff, they pushed her into publishing it.

At first, she was hesitant to publish it because it’s like putting all your emotions out there for everyone to read. After all, it was really personal as it tackles going on a journey with her daughter and what it’s like to be with the big feelings of a three-year-old.

What led Ruth to write a second book

According to Ruth, the second book about anxiety and worry is for herself. She was such a worrywart who was always anxious about things. She also had many fears so that explains why she gets worried a lot.

The second book, which is meant to be a guide or a workbook, is centered on having big anxiety or worries and how you can get out of control sometimes. And sometimes, all these worries may seem like a really big monster hovering over you. But in the book, the character learns to befriend and love the monster.

One of Ruth’s biggest hopes is for adults or parents to buy her book potentially for their children but also for themselves. As a therapist, she wants them to learn to love themselves and self-soothe all of these pieces of their life.

She has another book called My Partly Cloudy Day which is about depression or the blues. Having experienced the blues as a kid, Ruth knows what it’s like to not know how to talk about having the blues which can be considered as minimal depression.

It’s the same as having worries as you can have cloudy thinking that can really take you down. It can be really hard as a kid navigating school and navigating these feelings without a way to explain it.

Her fourth book entitled Trouble with the Capital T externalizes the part of getting in trouble. It dives into the parents’ and kids’ journey where the kid is getting into a lot of trouble but they're really just trying to get independence and explore.

What Rewriting the Mother Code Means to Ruth

For Ruth, rewriting the Mother Code is looking at motherhood in a new perspective. It’s a new way to be with emerging motherhood, letting that unfold and letting that be a process.

It also gives us more freedom for us to explore. It creates a space allowing everything to be there – all the fears, challenges, vulnerabilities, and everything else. It's a birthing process in and of itself.
Check out Living Well Psychotherapy (https://livingwellpsychotherapy.com/) for their professional services. And if you’re interested in purchasing Ruth’s books, which are available on Kindle and in paperback, you can visit her website (https://ruthminnick.com/).