Lindsey K. Umstead, PhD, LPCA, NCC

Hiya from Ireland 🇮🇪

Nothing profound or serious or thought provoking. Just me and my husband pretending to be eaten by a trash dragon in Lisbon.

Happy Thursday! Hope you smile today. 😘

Anyone else have office mates that sleep on the job? 😴😂

Wrapping up for the week and seeing that it’s starting to snow ❄️Hope y’all stay warm and cozy this weekend 💜

Just wrapped up my last full week of clients for 2021. It’s been a long week and a really, really, really long, rough fu***ng year for me personally (whole lotta crud, too much to name here). And as exhausted and defeated and utterly hopeless as I have felt at times this year, my work has been a source of grounding and hope that truly has helped me through some of the toughest moments I’ve faced.
I was in the office late for a Friday night, but I’m feeling extra energized and immensely grateful that this is my job. Wowowow.
Pic #1: Snacking between sessions on some yummy challah bread shared with me by one of my brave rad clients. I am so touched when clients share their homemade goodies with me, and it feels immensely meaningful to break bread (ba dum tss 🥁) with clients healing their relationship with food.
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Pic #2: I got my third tattoo today!!!!! (Shout out to Ashley for this beauty on my shoulder). Ferns and tulips are meaningful to me for so many reasons. In particular, they remind me of the special women in my life who have lifted me up and helped me along my own healing journey. But, I also just love them and wanted them with me wherever I go 🌿🌷
Hoping your weekend (and the end of your year) is filled with joy and rest and release and comfort 💜 I’ll see ya in 2022 🥰

Popping in real quick to say hello 👋🏻 Happy weekend.
I hope you are getting whatever it is that you are needing today.
Rest. Release. Etc.
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✨New Office Update✨
Let me tell you about how jazzed I was to find a picture frame that matches my couch 😂😂😂

Morning! The Raleigh office is ready for you 🙌🏻 Sort of. We still have a lot of space to fill 😂 But my private office has places to sit, including this rosey velvet sofa that I am pretty obsessed with.
Can’t wait to start seeing some of my folks in this new space. Thank you, , for taking the leap to expand our services to the Triangle!

Grateful to have learned more about clinical applications of from Deb Dana herself alongside my fab colleagues (and old friends who are also doing the work!!). You are all my ventral vagal anchors 🥰😘
My recovery shifted in some incredible ways when I began learning how to tune into and use my nervous system as a source of information and healing.
Always thankful for this work 💜
Happy weekend to you! ✨

Got me all weepy 😭🥲 Thank you Maria for being my supervisor, mentor, and friend. I’m grateful for everything.
See y’all in Raleigh! (In a 😷🥰)

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We launched our Raleigh office a week before things shut down because of the Pandemic in March 2020 but never saw a single client in person in Raleigh bc we had to switch everything to telehealth. Fast forward through a hellish year working to keep the business afloat amidst a whole lotta crappity crap. So many things behind the scenes. This chica () has been through a lot herself during this time and still managed to provide me such caring and steadfast support. Filling in gaps when I couldn’t. Taking on supervision for me. Helping me sort through tough decisions. Checking in daily when I didn’t know what day it was. Reminding me of the facts (and of the fiction being peddled). Grounding me when I was spiraling or dissociated. And all the while, providing excellent, compassionate care to her clients. I’ve gotten to watch her grow from a first year master’s student to doctoral student to budding supervisee/mentee to confident provider, professor, supervisor, and friend.
Lindsey, I’m so happy for you. This has been a long time coming and I’m so proud of how you’ve grown and who you’ve become/are becoming. is lucky to have you!!
Now, let’s get that pink couch!!!!💗🛋💗

Finally back in the (physical) classroom for the first time since last Fall. Had so much fun diving back into my Counseling Theories class today with a new group of rad students. But forgot how much I sweat when I’m teaching 😂🥵😂. This semester I get to teach in the classroom where I had my very first master’s class 😭. It makes my eyes well up 🥲🥲🥲
I am ✨so grateful✨ to get to do this work. To sit with clients in their healing and pain. To meet and work with students eager to do same. And to do it all alongside amazing providers, educators, and colleagues.

But if you don’t, or you’re not there quite yet, that’s okay, too 💜
Your body is there for you when you’re ready to welcome it.
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It may be 90 degrees outside but that’s not stopping me from rockin’ my vest 😅🥵🙃
Saw some clients in person today for the first time since early March 2020 😦 I’ve missed it so much and am thankful af for science for allowing us to get back into the swing of things 🙏🏻💉
So stinkin’ proud to be a part of the amazing team of providers here and to get to do this work every day.
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but make it cute and cuddly 🐶
Say hello 👋🏻 to one of my office mates, Boomer. Conducting from my home office over the last year has had its ups and downs but I have certainly loved having my pups as coworkers (and my clients have, too).

🚨Research alert!🚨See more info below ⬇️ Link in bio.
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Research study recruitment alert!!! 🚨📢 Calling all HAES counselors and ED counselors!!! (Link is also in bio!)

Are you a practicing counselor who specializes in treating body image and disordered eating concerns? Would you like to share your experiences talking with clients about size, sizeism, fatphobia, and size difference? Your perspective can help inform how counselors are taught to broach these important conversations.

Please complete the screening survey linked below. We will review responses and make initial contacts to either schedule an interview or place you on a waitlist.
https://uncg.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eahG6SFVHbGfJxX

Thank you for your consideration!

Our fab intern is doing such great work! 🤗

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At a time when teens are just beginning to experience their bodies in fuller ways, sexual assault experiences can shut down important, developmentally normal embodiment exploration and can begin a trajectory of feeling unsafe in their own bodies and isolated from peers' bodies.
Affirming Group Support provides the safety and connection teens need to explore the consent, embodiment, and integration needed to pursue healing and meaning-making rooted in their own body autonomy and in their collective peer experience.
Our intern Christy Holdsclaw () will be leading this 8 week curriculum-based support group for teen survivors of sexual abuse & assault.
Focused on high school aged teens (14-18), this virtual group will offer an affirming space to learn practical skills & tools for coping with the aftermath of sexual abuse and/or assault, increased knowledge about sexual abuse/assault and how to reduce risk of revictimization, increased confidence in their ability to pursue recovery, decreased feelings of isolation, shame, guilt and stress, and opportunities to connect with peers who *get* it.
Christy brings her background as teacher and experience working with teens to her design of the group—with intentional structure built into each session as well as room for teens to do what they so crave: connect!
When: 3/7 to 4/25
Time: 7-8:15pm
Where: Zoom (HIPAA Compliant version)
Commitment: 8 Sundays
Cost: $20/session
Call (336-430-6694), email ([email protected]) or go to the link above to register.
Your teen does not have to suffer alone. 
Your teen does not have to be defined by experiences rooted outside of their own body consent and autonomy. 
Your teen does have to feel shame for what was done to them.
Your teen can access hope and
meaning-making.

Finding my way back to my voice and listening to how she wants to be heard. Allowing my thoughts to be visible feels scary (I was shaking when I shared this for the first time this morning, when it was freshly out in the open). I also feel relief moving through my body, which I think means that this is something I’ve needed to say for a long time.
I think a lot about nuance. About dialectics. About the harmfulness of extremes. I’m grateful to have meaningful conversations about these things with friends and colleagues. My clients and students (bless y’all) hear me say “and” so often that I wonder if it sometimes loses its meaning. I’m not sure it does, though. If anything, it seems that right now the world is craving reminders that there’s a lot of space to explore in between the extremities we hear and see and scream and feel compelled to choose from in order to be good. Accepted. Safe.
Leaning into shades of gray has been one of the most important parts of my recovery. Eating disorders thrive on rigidity and the illusion that all-or-nothingness is what makes us worthy and keeps us safe. There are times when I still feel my eating disorder working to convince me to enter into this confined space, not only specific to food and body but also with my work, relationships, trauma, emotions, opinions, and joys.
Recovery has taught me that while there may be temporary feelings of goodness and safety in the extremes and dichotomies, they mostly keep me stuck and spinning and hurting. They keep me calloused and restricted when what I yearn for are softness and expansion.
My hopes for you are softness and expansion and the courage and tenacity to explore the gray, even as others try to pull you into extremes.
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