What do you do when the hardest thing that ever happened to you becomes the most important credential you have? For Geneva Walker, Licensed Professional Counselor and founder of Victorious Walk Counseling right here in Round Rock, the answer was to get her master’s degree, open a practice, and spend every session proving that grief and growth are not opposites. They show up together, all the time, whether we like it or not.
Geneva joined Bryan Eisenberg on this week’s episode of Rock Solid and did not hold back. She is a TEDxRound Rock Women speaker, an EMDR practitioner, a counselor at Southwestern University, and a mom of three boys who lost their dad unexpectedly. She built her entire professional identity out of that experience. Not because she had to. Because pain without purpose is suffering, and she refused to let it stay there.
The conversation covered grief as a form of love, the hidden cost of burying your emotions, and why the most dangerous thing you can do when someone you care about is struggling is to avoid the topic to protect them. She said something that will stick: most of us hold back from having the hard conversation because we do not want to make the other person sad. And in doing that, we lose the connection that would actually help both of us.
Geneva also talked about what she sees working with college students at Southwestern: young people who tie their entire self-worth to productivity and grades, and then beat themselves up even during their rest time. Her fix is simple and devastating. She asks them: would you talk to your little sister that way? The answer is always no. So why are you talking to yourself like that?
You do not have to be in crisis to benefit from a conversation like this one. But if you know someone who is carrying something heavy right now, share this episode. Connect with Geneva Walker on Facebook or visit victoriouswalk.com to learn more about her work.
What is one thing you are carrying right now that you have not said out loud to anyone?
