back to summer 2025 newsletter
by Ursula Jorgensen, ATR-BC, LMFT
It feels like it was just last week when I was writing my first President's Message to our SCV community. And now I am sitting here trying to find the words for my last President’s Message. You, the chapter, our board, have been such a critically important part of my year. You have allowed me to share my Art Therapy as presenter again, Coffee Talks to get me out of the office, IFS yoga to get me out of my therapist chair, support groups to wrestle with the latest complex case and ever-changing developments shaping our country.
The most beautiful and complicated part of life is its temporary nature. It just keeps moving, evolving, growing, dying, and transforming into newness. I both revel in that freedom to live in the moment and feel overcome by grief of loss that accompanies it. This is when I return to two of my great loves in life…... time with SCV friends and caffeine! Maybe this is why I am doing back-to-back Coffee Talks this August. I don’t need a double shot of espresso, but I do need a double playdate with my colleagues! This has only become truer as the year has unfolded with political and social uncertainty around the world.
In January I wrote, “I find myself looking forward to more chapter events and knowing that beyond my concern for clients and recent disasters like the LA wildfires, injustices, and the rapidly changing world, that I have a community that welcomes me, affirms me, holds me, and keeps me accountable from living too far in the past or too far into a future that I have no way to accurately predict.”
I followed up with a poem called “We Are a Tribe” by Alberto Rios.
These ideas, albeit meant to be welcoming and to foster accountability, were called to question around our listserv posting guidelines. We, as a Board, had to decide whether we should keep on taking down from our listserv what we felt were political posts or challenge the boundaries we had inherited from previous Boards – boundaries created to keep our listserv as neutral as possible from politics to anything that felt too controversial. It was not an easy decision to make, to protect my own personal identity married to someone of the same gender as I am, or my own professional community who I love dearly and may have voted differently than I.
But we decided as the Board of your representatives, that while we are NOT here to be political, we are NOT neutral either and that is the new guideline for posting. We are 100% for our clients, families, colleagues, clinics, communities, and immigrants we serve. We will not be silent or silence others who are directly trying to support our client communities with resources to assist them, or us, as mental health care providers. We choose to live, work, and post in a spirit of love and affirmation rather than hate and separation. Which is perhaps how some members felt our silent neutrality meant. We have therefore decided that standing for something is part of our DEI journey, and feels inclusive.
I welcome any and all feedback to this topic. My once divided heart is now at ease that my legacy as President is not just to honor our chapter’s history or prior guidelines but to wrestle with them, change with the times, and make space for all that would follow in love and light over hate and discrimination to the best of what our frail human experience allows.
I Choose…
To live by choice, not by chance
To be motivated, not manipulated
To be useful, not used
To make changes, not excuses
To excel, not compete
I choose self-esteem, not self pity
I choose to listen to my inner voice, not to the random opinion of others.
A Poem by Lauren
May you wrap up this year with the power to choose. The passion to be brave. The permission to post resources. And the patience or wisdom to choose love.
