BRIDGING MENTAL HEALTH & FAITH
A Passion for Helping Others
Hi, I’m Heidi!
I’m a professional coach pursuing Board Certification, and my perspective is informed by my background as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator (CDWF), with professional coaching credentials through the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Board Certification in progress (BCC).
I hold a Certificate in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota and a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Bethel University. I’ve also completed 60 hours of ICF-approved coaching training through BetterUp.
I’m certified in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), an effective trauma-informed technique, and I’m a Daring Way™ Trained Facilitator. My bachelor’s degree is in Entrepreneurship, and I believe my background in business has given me a unique and practical perspective within the counseling and coaching space.
My spiritual formation has also played a significant role in who I am today. I attended Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry online for three years and am ordained through Patricia King’s Women in Ministry Network. I’ve also completed Love Says Go Academy, where I learned how to pray for the sick, hear the voice of God, and live out my faith beyond the walls of the church.
I made the shift from therapy into professional coaching because coaching is forward-focused and deeply honoring of the client’s capacity to hear from God and discern their own path. I believe the answers are often already within us. Sometimes we simply need someone to help draw out the gold, reflect back what’s already there, and ask thoughtful questions that reveal what may be keeping us stuck.
In 2020, I started the Strong Tower Mental Health Podcast after witnessing how much pain people were carrying in silence. In 2022, I wrote The Brave Encourager as an extension of that same heart — to bring hope, courage, and healing language into difficult places.
In 2024, after 16 years of building and owning my mental health practice, I felt led to sell it. It was not an easy decision, but it was one I made prayerfully, with clarity, and with the support of my husband. I’ve learned that we can stay in cycles that feel familiar and safe, even when God is gently inviting us into something new. When we listen, He often has a different — and better — path prepared for us.
Services & Products Heidi offers
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
~2 Corinthians 5:17
Finding True Purpose
There is a lot of pain in this world but it’s not useful to us. Pain is okay for a period of time, but we don’t need to set up camp in hurt and pain. Instead, we need to process, move forward, and be transformed by it. Encouragement plays a big role in accomplishing this. Having others point out the obvious doesn’t help us. But hearing someone say “I know you are struggling right now and I believe in you. You are stronger than you think. I love you!” is empowering.
Heidi wrote the book The Brave Encourager because she has seen how much her encouragement of others has shifted their moods, days, and lives. She didn’t realize at first that she was encouraging others until she received feedback from them about how much it impacted them. She was just being herself.
When Heidi later went through a season lacking in encouragement of herself, she truly came to understand the significance of encouragement. A word of encouragement can literally save a life. If someone is depressed or suicidal, it can bring them out of that hole of despair. It can bring someone with dreams to action and make those dreams a reality.
The Wright Brothers dreamed of and pioneered the world’s first motor-operated airplane. They could have given up hundreds of times with each failure, but they had a golden dream inside. Most importantly, they had each other to encourage and offer encouragement to the other. Throughout their repetitive process of dreaming, inventing, building, and failing, encouragement kept them going.
A few years ago, Heidi saw an image of books in her dreams. She started to believe she could write a book. When she sat down to write, an outline of The Brave Encourager quickly came out on the computer. So during the middle of winter 2020, with the help of an amazing coach, Marcie, she began turning her learnings and discoveries in the chapters of her first book.
Now she is pursuing coaching and consulting, utilizing what God and others have shown her, to help bring others to the realization of their goals and dreams.
“Anyone who knows who God made them to be will never try to be someone else.”
– Bill Johnson