”I met Goumah during a very difficult time in my life. I had just lost my husband of 25 years. We were in the middle of the Pandemic and I was in the middle of a very painful and difficult season in my life. I don’t know how I could have possibly moved forward without my “grief group”, lead by Goumah. She is professional and very, very knowledgeable in her field. Her love for what she does and her compassion for others is truly a gift. She would let me express my feelings, without judgement, she would listen and always had wise and caring advise, for me. I was introduced to ways and tools which I will continue to use in the “harder days”. I would not be where I am without this therapy and it is what got me through. I will never stop grieving the loss of my husband but I learned to understand how to cope with the pain. I am glad I made the decision to seek professional help and I couldn’t have been in a better place. Goumah was God sent.
”I was just rejoicing in this past weekend when my husband and I went away for 3 nights for our anniversary trip.
This is the first anniversary in 27 years when I have not had a PTSD event that clouded our time away with each other!!!! We are doing well, I am learning to bring my real, broken self to the table of our marriage and allowing my husband to love on that person. It also provides a context where he is also safe to not be perfect or feeling performance.
Thank you for your hours of counseling me during the tough times of Covid and much despair.
I just wanted to touch base with you and let you know how I am doing. My husband and I will be doing some marriage seminar talks with local pastors and their wives at the end of the month. I am happy that I have a treasure in a clay pot to give to others.
”Prior to my husband and I getting married, while we were dating he asked if I would like to join Goumah's couple ministry at the church. I had mixed emotions thinking these were his friends and how comfortable I would be. It was one of the best decisions I made to become apart of this couple group. Having you as an impartial third party helped identify areas where we needed to improve. I recall a few times we shared our stories and it was refreshing you explained through your expertise how we both could show up for each other, and that we are on the same side.
Those short, funny, yet real life experience videos you would start out our lessons with makes us warm up and ready to open up. Most times I thought to myself "how did you know that was what we were going through this week". I was always impressed by how your vast and knowledgeable services somehow came so natural.
This not being our first marriage we knew we needed to work on ourselves. Our relationship required dedication from both of us, a new perspective, and a new way to frame some of the problems that arrived, which led us to premarital counseling before we got married. For me, Goumah you helped bring forth unresolved arguments, helped us get our point across and be heard while realizing things we've overlooked that hurt, yet never knew we were hurting. Your sessions provided us a platform to discuss our problems. Each session was so natural and we trusted you Goumah and we knew we were safe sharing anything as a group as well as individually.
For my husband and I, neither of us had great childhoods while growing up in a strict Christian household, and we both are complicated people, and we had gotten ourselves into a state where our issues were reacting from other past traumas in our past relationships. Goumah you helped us learn to be there and to show up and support each other. I dont think you knew how you helped me learn to love myself. I later learned it stemmed from my childhood triggers from not feeling loved, and seeking acceptance from my dad.
We also learned not to allow our traumas to hold us back, and to communicate more effectively, listening more often, and finding empathy. Our meetings helped us overcome almost any problem in our relationship. We would say to each other sometimes "remember what we learned during our session? let's apply it". After leaving our sessions we couldn't even stay mad at each other even when we had tough discussions about each other.
You being so unbiased made us both feel comfortable to discuss our issues and couples counseling gave us both a platform to discuss our problems also with our blended family. I can't thank you enough for reminding us to talk about the things we love about each other that made us believe in each other as a life partner. Neither of us are very effusive people in general, so it was really moving to hear my husband say a bunch of nice things to me about how he feels about me and where our relationship is going.
We later learned we were often saying the same things but going about it in an entirely different way. We learned how to communicate effectively through active listening: Listen to the other person, without being defensive, then repeat back what we heard them say. I'd say it made us believe in each other and our marriage. As it turns out, we were often saying the same thing. The other thing that was very valuable was how to give an effective apology by admitting fault, without excuses, acknowledging what exactly we did wrong, followed by a promise to not repeat the mistake and if needed a course of action to back up the words spoken.
You truly helped us become a team where we are able to feel comfortable to say how we feel and accepting mistakes and wanting to work on things. Thanks for those tools and we are still using them each day. I learned we both win...It helped me back down and feel less defensive/angry/resentful. This probably sounds terrible, but for me what was most effective is how your sessions helped my husband and I gain insight into our own actions and what we should be doing differently if he wanted our marriage to thrive. We love the exercises you ask us to do daily or weekly by sharing what we love about each other and what we need to work on.
I enjoyed everything about your couple therapy sessions and have recommended your services to many couples. I have already been sharing your YouTube videos as well as your business with everyone. This is what God has in store for you. Thank you for your dedication and sacrifices to stay true and committed to marriage. It truly takes a village.