Building & Becoming

Welcome back to the Undoing Toxic Blog! It’s been a month since my last entry, and I’m looking forward to stepping into this next season with you. As always, thank you for reading, reflecting, and coming along for the journey. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss another blog update.

September is known as “The Great Return.”

Especially in my work as a family therapist, I feel it every year. Summer gets a little lighter in the therapy room. People are traveling, spending time outside, taking vacations, visiting family, doing all the things that make summer feel like summer. Sessions get spaced out. There are more, “I'll see you in September,” conversations. And we prepare for it. We look forward to it.

September has always carried that feeling of returning: returning to routines, returning to school, returning to work, returning to the things we temporarily put down while we made room for something else.

I think I have always understood this feeling intuitively. When I was in school, I looked forward to my birthday every year. But I also knew my birthday meant something else was coming: school was starting again. August was the Sunday of the year. That feeling of I still have some time, mixed with the awareness that eventually the weekend ends and we have to return.

Funny enough, I think I have started treating this time of year differently as I've gotten older. I started taking my intentional break around this time, too. Maybe because after spending so much of the year caring, working, building, planning, holding space, and showing up, I needed my own version of summer. A pause before the Great Return. And now, I'm back.

What We Carry With Us

Recently, I was looking out over the land, taking in the view, and had one of those moments where time suddenly feels very close. I thought about how every moment of my life thus far had somehow carried me to that exact moment.

Every place I've lived, every person I've loved, every loss, every friendship, every classroom, every job, every risk, every version of myself I had to outgrow.

Even the experiences I didn't understand while I was living them had become part of what I was carrying.

I thought about all the places the view reminded me of and all the experiences I had collected along the way. And I was hit with gratitude. Because there was a time when I never imagined I would be the kind of woman who could catch a train on a whim just to walk around a historical city. There was a time when so many things I now consider ordinary would have felt completely outside the realm of possibility.

And I thought, Look at how far life has carried me. Not because I had a perfectly mapped-out plan. But because I kept going.

Six Years of @therapywithmo

I think about that same feeling when I think about my private practice, @therapywithmo. This Tuesday marks six years in business. Six years. And sometimes I still have to pause when I say that. Why do I pause you may ask When I started my private practice in 2020, the world was in the middle of a pandemic. It was a daunting time. And somehow, in the middle of all that uncertainty, I decided to start a business. I took a chance and bet on myself.

Do you want to know the truth? I did not have a line of therapy-seekers waiting for me.

It actually took months to get my first client.

I had a script for consultations. I practiced. I used to pull the script up on my computer before a call because I wanted to make sure I said the right things. My inner dialogue was like: “Monique, don’t be too saleswoman-y, don’t be dry, be brief but explain everything, answer their questions. Do it right and they’ll book. That’s the trick!” And then the calls would end with, “I'll think about it,” or “I'll get back to you.” Sometimes there was no response at all. I sent follow-up emails. Nothing.

I started thinking, what am I doing wrong? Then one day, someone said yes.

And I was so happy. And so surprised.

I had my first client.

And then I learned something that I think applies to so much more than business: getting the yes is not the end of the work. It's the beginning.

You still have to show up. You still have to learn. You still have to adapt. You still have to figure out what works. You still have to keep going when the excitement wears off.

Every Business Has Seasons

Six years in, I understand that a business has seasons, too. There are seasons of building, seasons of uncertainty, seasons of growth, seasons where you wonder if you're doing enough, and seasons where you're reminded that things take time.

There is so much conversation about overnight success, but very little about the quiet years of becoming. The years where you're learning how to do something while simultaneously learning how to trust yourself enough to keep doing it.

People sometimes say it can take years before a business becomes profitable or before you really know what it will become. I understand that differently now. Because success isn't only about a number. Sometimes success is realizing that you built something you once weren't sure you could. Sometimes it is having the courage to keep investing in yourself before anyone else understands the vision.

And that has been one of the greatest lessons of having my own business: investment in yourself has no price tag. If you want it, make it happen.

That doesn't mean you have to do everything alone. Community matters. Support matters. People who encourage you, refer people to you, share your work, answer your questions, celebrate your wins, sit with you through the uncertainty; those people matter tremendously. I am so grateful for my community.

But I've also learned that we have to be careful about waiting for everyone else to take interest in our assignment. They can't do our assignment. They can support it. They can encourage it. They can walk alongside us. But they cannot do the work that was given to us.

Sometimes you have to believe in the thing before anyone else sees it. Sometimes you have to keep sending the follow-up email. Sometimes you have to keep practicing the consultation. Sometimes you have to keep building when the room is quiet. And sometimes the first yes takes longer than you expected.

But eventually, you look up and realize: Oh. I built something.

Making Room for Imperfection

I also want to make room for something we don't always talk about when we celebrate milestones: imperfection.

As organized as I am in my business, the truth is that I have not always gotten it right.

There have been ideas I was excited about that never launched. Opportunities I missed. Things I started and realized weren't quite right. Times when I simply didn't have the capacity to do what I thought I should be doing. There have been moments when I had to press pause, change direction, or admit that something would have to wait.

And I'm learning that this is part of building, too.

Sometimes we want the finished product before we've given ourselves permission to go through the trial and error required to get there. We want the polished website, the perfect offer, the consistent content, the fully formed vision. But businesses, like people, often have to develop in stages.

I have had to learn to build what I can, when I can, with the capacity I have.

That doesn't mean I don't have big dreams for this business. Trust me, I do.

It means I've stopped believing that everything has to happen at once.

There is a difference between being committed to a vision and being committed to a timeline that may no longer make sense.

Sometimes the idea isn't wrong. The timing is. Sometimes the opportunity isn't gone. It's simply not yours right now.

And sometimes making space for imperfection is what allows you to keep creating instead of becoming so afraid of getting it wrong that you stop altogether. Six years in, I'm still learning how to build and I'm okay with that.

“…If You Want to Go Far, Go Together”

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Six years of @therapywithmo has made me understand the second half differently.

I am a solo practice owner but I have never built this alone.

There are the people who were there at the very beginning. I was gifted malpractice insurance on my birthday! If you know the story or were there, you know. The people who referred their first client to me. The colleagues who answered questions. The friends and family who encouraged me. The clients who trusted me with their stories. The people who read my writing, shared a post, sent someone my way, recommended my work, checked in, celebrated an accomplishment, or simply continued to show up.

And there is the community that has grown around Undoing Toxic.

This fall, the Undoing Toxic blog itself is also turning three. Three years of writing. Three years of conversations about relationships, family, boundaries, grief, love, healing, identity, and the complicated work of becoming ourselves.

When I started the blog, I wanted it to be personal. I wanted it to go deeper than the soundbite. I wanted to create a space where I could explore the things that don't always fit neatly into an Instagram caption or a therapy session.

And you came with me.

So to everyone who has supported the growth and evolution of this business over the last six years: thank you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for referring. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for giving feedback. Thank you for growing with me as the vision has evolved.

Thank you for allowing therapywithmo and Undoing Toxic to become more than I imagined when I started.

What's Next?

So what does year six going into year seven look like? My honest answer: more becoming.

There are things I've been working on behind the scenes that I'm excited to bring forward. There will be updates to the website as I continue working toward a relaunch. I'm continuing the Undoing Toxic book draft, which is a project that has grown and evolved right alongside me. And yes, I am getting back into Instagram content. I promise.

But I also want to return to something that mattered to me when I first started this blog: the writing.

When I created my Undoing Toxic Blog, I wanted it to be personal. I wanted it to be thoughtful. I wanted it to be in-depth. I wanted to make space for the stories and lessons that live underneath the things we casually call “toxic relationships,” “boundaries,” “healing,” and “growth.” As the blog enters its third year, I'm looking forward to bringing more of that back.

More reflection.

More vulnerability.

More stories.

More lessons I've learned along the way.

Not because I have everything figured out, but because I don't.

Maybe that's the beauty of becoming.

We get to share what we've learned while remaining open to what we still have to learn.

The Freedom of Returning

Maybe that's why this September’s Great Return feels different to me now.

I'm not returning to the person I was before summer. I'm returning with what summer gave me: rest, perspective, space, gratitude, and a reminder that my life is much bigger than whatever happens in one season.

And maybe that is the freedom I'm feeling.

The freedom to return without needing to return unchanged. The freedom to let the next season be new. The freedom to recognize that I don't have to have every answer before I begin. The freedom to look at where I am and appreciate that every version of me helped get me here.

Six years of @therapywithmo. Three years of writing and blogging. Six years of building and learning. Six years of trusting that something small can become something meaningful.

And I don't need to know exactly what year seven will hold. I don't need to. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

For now, I'm grateful for my return. Grateful for the life that carried me here. Grateful for the people who have carried pieces of it with me. Grateful for the woman who started a business in one of the most uncertain seasons of our lives. And grateful that she kept going.

Maybe that's what I want to carry into this next season: not pressure, not perfection, just possibility. The possibility that there is still so much life ahead. Still so much to create. Still so much to experience. Still so much to become.

The summer is ending. September is here. The Great Return has begun.

And this time, I'm returning with a little more freedom.

Six years of business and Undoing Toxic. And I'm still becoming.

Thank you for everything.

Let’s connect. Email me: moniqueevanstherapy@gmail.com

Accepting individual, couples, and family clients (self-pay and select insurance via headway.co- Monique Evans, LCSW)

For social work clinicians, I also offer clinical consultation meetings (Not to be confused with clinical supervision for licensure hours) at any level of practice.

Book me as your mental health presenter for speaking engagements, podcasts, panels, and presentations.

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• 988- National Suicide Prevention Hotline (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)

• Safe Horizon 24-hour Hotlines (se habla español):

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