Our physical, emotional, and behavioral tendencies—both good and bad—aren't ours alone. They're often passed down from generation to generation.

At one point in my young life, I wanted to be a public defender. In my first criminal law class, my professor asked the question, “Are fairness and justice the same thing?” I raised my hand high, almost bouncing with excitement. After stating my argument as to why I believed, with my whole 21-year-old heart, that they were the same thing, I was asked to come to the front of the classroom. My professor slowly and deliberately spoke to me, for all to hear, in his deep Southern drawl, “My dear Kathryn, you are going to be the saddest lawyer in the land! Take yourself across the quad to social work school. That is where the belief that fairness and justice stand side by side, not in the American court system.”

This was a hard and humbling moment, for which I am eternally grateful. I have since made a career out of working with the human heart, mind, and soul, living in a world where fairness and justice are not always at the same table.

My work is in grief, trauma, and joy. While these may not seem a likely threesome, they are in fact deeply interwoven, and together they create a net, catching moments in our lives that inform how we see the world. As a trauma therapist, it is critical for me to be versed in working with grief of the heart, confusion of the mind, and feelings of disconnection from meaning and spirit.

[To read the rest of this article by Kathryn Templeton, click here.]