Value Yourself Counseling LLC
Amanda Ferrat
Advanced EFT Tapping Practitioner, Certified Wellness Counseling, Professional Speaker
You Belong Here if…
You are a woman or gender expansive person, age 30-60, that is stuck in fight/flight/freeze/fawn that would like to be able to access a more restful state of existence and respond to difficult emotions instead of react. You want to navigate relationships and situations in a way that honors your needs, boundaries, and core values first and foremost, without shame. You seek improved relationships, communication, and self-care. Then you are in the right place.
“Amanda is fabulous! I had such a profound experience with her on just the first session. She really puts her heart into her work to ensure you feel understood and safely guided. She certainly has a beautiful gift. I am forever grateful!”
Courtney H.
EFT Tapping
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and is often referred to as tapping. As an advanced practitioner, I focus on reworking trauma (specifically inherited, generational, or emotional trauma), parts of self work(including inner child and shadow work), reframing and moving through difficult emotions, and reprogramming limiting thought patterns and old beliefs that feed grief, shame, depression or anxiety.
Wellness Counseling
I have a certificate in wellness counseling, this does not mean I am a licensed therapist. I focus on helping clients with emotional intelligence, grief, and whole person self-care. I use client directed counseling approaches to meet clients where they are and guide them in achieving their goals. These services are for someone that does not want EFT yet wants support around their emotional wellness, grief, or self-care planning.
Professional Speaking
I am a professional speaker that has been limited to online platforms due to Covid-19 yet I’ve been featured on international platforms. I am ready to bring my voice to in person events as well as continue online opportunities to share my voice. I have a lot of wisdom and value to bring to your event or audience and can speak on a variety of topics. I’d love to chat about speaking at your event, on your podcast, or in your community.
Get to Know Me
Hello! I am so glad you are here!
I am passionate about mental health, emotional wellness, whole person self-care and community care, suicide prevention, and helping others heal deep grief, wounds and trauma. My education and professional background is in mental health, wellness, human development, and social services. I received my undergraduate degree in Family Science from Montana State University and later pursued a Master of Social Work.
My path changed when I needed to attend to my own mental and emotional health needs after facing a great number of losses in a short span of time. I tried a variety of things like traditional talk therapy, EMDR, hypnosis… then I found EFT Tapping.
EFT Tapping is a healing tool and modality that time and again I have witnessed change peoples’ lives dynamically. I value being able to meet my clients where they are in a way that honors their past, present, and future needs, emotions, and experiences.
Although my personal healing journey has not been easy, I have learned a lot about myself and what it takes to put ourselves in the driver seat of healing our whole Self, especially the parts we don’t usually want to explore. It is one of my greatest joys to be able to utilize my education, experience, skills, and passion to help others heal from trauma, loss and grief, particularly around shifts in identity/roles or internalized oppression.
I identify as a fat, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, Pagan woman with chronic and mental illness. I strive to be an ally, advocate, and accomplice, working to create a world more accessible, just, equitable, and compassionate for all.
When I am not tapping or doing things to support my business, I can be found hanging out with my Akita named Ludo (Labyrinth is my favorite movie) or my cat Esme. I also like to explore nature, watch the moon and stars, dabble in magic with my crystals or oracle cards, swim at my local YMCA, and nourish my soul with good food. I also like to volunteer and give back to my communities. I am the lead for the Tillamook County Suicide Prevention Coalition, the co-founder of EDJI Collaborative, and the social chair for the Big Sky Alumnae Chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta. Thank you for taking the time to get to know more about me!
Are you ready to learn to trust, love and heal yourself?
Want to learn more about what I do? Click below to watch a short interview.
EFT Tapping
EFT, or emotional freedom techniques, which is also known as tapping, is a highly effective somatic and energetic tool that combines traditional talk therapy, acupressure, and energy work. It can be applied to a multitude of challenges or problems yet is most often used for difficult emotions, trauma, self-limiting beliefs, and non optimal behaviors. It is a powerful tool for building new neural pathways for more desired emotional states, expansive beliefs, and desired behaviors. EFT allows you to move through complex and difficult emotions, beliefs, memories, and physical sensations. It honors both what is and what you would rather have.
Nervous System Regulation
EFT Tapping accesses our acupressure meridians through the tapping points. By tapping on the points, you begin to calm the sympathetic nervous system in the body and the limbic system in the brain. This moves the body from a heightened state to a more restful, repose state. All the primal systems we have had in place since the dawn of our existence are calmed and soothed by tapping on the meridians at the tapping points. This allows us to access the more developed parts of the brain and make connections to the subconscious mind that are often locked away to keep us safe and functioning in our society. We are also able to move the trapped energy that accompanies our emotions out or through our bodies, specifically through the chakras.
Honoring Your Emotions
EFT has us tune into where in our bodies we are feeling our most intense and difficult emotions and then uses corresponding therapeutic language to move us through them. In EFT, affirmations are the end goal and help us rewire limiting beliefs and solidify our more desired states of being after we have vented out and honored the emotions. We do not arrive at affirmations though until we have spent time honoring our most intense emotions, meaning we do not bypass our emotions. Instead we honor what is wanting and needing to be felt. You have to feel it to heal it.
Parts of Self & Trauma Work
As an Advanced EFT Practitioner, I can do parts of self work, meaning I can help you connect to your inner child, warrior, wounded warrior, wise self, and Wholly Healed Self. This allows you to do healing of the past as well as the present while also honoring what you want for your future. I am also trained to deal with memories or events that the subconscious may bring to the surface while tapping that you are not ready to work with just yet. I do this in a way that creates safety and keeps you from being re-traumatized. I make tapping a comfortable and safe modality for you to achieve the deeper healing you desire.
Tapping With Me
I will help create and hold the safer, braver space you need to do the hard and messy work that comes with trusting, loving, and healing yourself. I will ask the questions you wouldn’t be able, or know, to ask yourself if you were to tap alone. I am also trained in ways to help you move through multiple difficult emotions at once. I can address any resistance or trauma that surfaces as well. These are things that you cannot do when tapping on your own. And they all facilitate deeper, continued healing and personal growth.
Wellness Counseling
Wellness counseling is the practice of helping clients elicit change and reach their personal goals in regard to their health and well-being. Wellness counseling typically utilizes a variety of tools and best practices to support clients in taking actionable steps. It is not mental health therapy as it does not diagnose or treat mental illness and I am not a licensed therapist. I can help supplement therapy by giving extra support and tools for navigating struggles in the present.
Emotional Wellness
How you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities, your relationships, and your overall well being. How you react to your experiences and feelings can change with increased emotional intelligence and decreased reactivity. Emotional wellness is the ability to successfully respond to our emotions instead of reacting when we have a strong emotion show up. People who are emotionally well, experts say, have fewer negative emotions and are able to bounce back from difficulties faster. This quality is called resilience. Learning healthy ways to cope and how to draw from resources in your community can help you build resilience.
Whole Person Self-Care
Whole person self-care uses the Wellness Wheel. The Wellness Wheel is composed of eight mutually codependent dimensions: emotional, physical, occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, and financial. If any one of these dimensions is neglected over time, it will adversely affect one’s health, well-being, and quality of life. Whole person self-care ensures that you are not neglecting any one area of your wellness and therefore, have a greater sense of balance and wellbeing in your life. I also help you develop community care as self-care can only happen when we have a community that supports us in caring for ourselves.
Grief Work
When someone you love dies or you experience a significant loss, your world changes. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Yet it can be hard to grieve in a society that does not always know how to respond or hold space for grief and all that comes with it. I help you learn healthy ways to move through your grief that honors all the emotions that grieving brings. I am especially passionate about doing grief work around identity, parts of self, and generational trauma.
My Approach & Tools
I have experience using a variety of wellness counseling tools and modalities, including Motivational Interviewing, SMART goals, meditation and mindfulness, and more. I do my best to meet my counseling clients where they are and walk with them towards the change they want for themselves. My focus is on emotional wellness, grief, self and community care. I am not a therapist, nutritionist, personal trainer, or medical professional. Yet I can help you develop goals and healthier practices that support your mind, body, and spirit.
Approach & Philosophy
I believe those who hold marginalized or oppressed identities have to navigate difficult obstacles and barriers in their lives, unique to their identities, and deserve to be supported and witnessed in their healing journey so they can become their most authentic and sovereign selves. This allows them to then feel safe enough to show up 100% themselves in more spaces. We all deserve to be safe to be our true selves, wherever we are.
While I am not a licensed therapist, therefore I cannot diagnose mental illness or practice mental health therapy, I call what I do counseling because it is more than coaching. I can address past, present, and future emotions, issues, needs, desires, and goals. Counseling, as I practice it, focuses on understanding, resolving and healing emotional trauma and pain carried through from the past that is causing issues with the present and interfering with what you want for your future.
Coaching is focused on the present and future only. Coaches typically help you to identify goals, leverage personal strengths and take action in one or two specific areas. EFT and counseling, as I practice them, can help you look at multiple areas, memories, events, emotions, and parts of self. It is a way to do deep healing. It also gives you a tool you can use immediately to help regulate emotions and your nervous system when experiencing a heightened state.
My services are a great supplement to therapy, or in place of therapy if traditional therapy has not worked for you in the past. I work with women, gender expansive folks, and teens. I do have limited sliding fee scale spots available as I believe healing should be accessible.
Over the last two and a half decades, I’ve supported others to meet various needs in the field of human development and social services; including helping those in crisis, grieving, or healing from trauma. I believe in what I do now because it supports my clients in loving and valuing themselves, advocating for their needs, and responding to life’s challenges with empowered authority. I am passionate about this work because I know what it is like to struggle to trust, love and heal myself with little to no support. Therefore, I do all I can to help others learn how to trust, love, and heal themselves, free from shame and oppression.
I do not work with cisgender, heterosexual men. If that is you and you still want to receive EFT tapping, I can refer you to one of my fellow practitioners.
Get In Touch
https://www.facebook.com/valueyourselfcounseling
https://www.instagram.com/valueyourselfcounseling
Hours Vary
Typically See Clients M-F, afternoons and evenings, some late morning appts
Weekends: Special Exceptions Only