For Women
The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.
CARL JUNG
The World Has a Lot of Opinions
From the time we’re young, we’re surrounded by messages about who we’re supposed to be:
Be kind.
Be capable.
Be successful.
Be responsible.
Be productive.
Be accommodating.
Care deeply about other people, but don’t be difficult.
Have needs, but not inconvenient ones.
Speak up, but not so much that anyone feels uncomfortable.
Definitely don’t make anyone uncomfortable.
Some of these messages were told to us on purpose. Others were learned along the way by seeing what was praised, punished, ignored, or expected. Either way, when you hear them for long enough, it can be hard to tell the difference between what you genuinely think and what you’ve learned to expect of yourself.
So then a lot of women find themselves living according to a set of rules they never consciously chose: Rules about responsibility, about relationships, about success. Rules about what makes them valuable, lovable, competent, or worthy.
The trouble is that some of those rules fit who you are, and some don’t, but the ones with the most practice all feel true.
And when we don’t stop to examine them, they continue shaping our lives from behind the scenes whether we mean for them to or not.
When You Lose Touch With Yourself
For some women, this shows up as anxiety.
For others, it’s burnout, people pleasing, self-criticism, perfectionism, an overwhelming mental load, difficulty setting boundaries, or a persistent feeling that no matter how much they accomplish, it still never feels like enough.
The details are different for each person, but what many of these experiences all have in common is a gradual loss of connection with your own perspective.
You’re so drawn in to meeting expectations, managing responsibilities, anticipating reactions, or caring for the people around you that your own thoughts, feelings, needs, and preferences fade into the background. Sometimes it happens slowly enough that you don’t even notice it.
But you know what everyone else needs, what everyone else expects, and what everyone else wants.
And then when someone asks you what you need, what you want, or what feels right to you, the answer isn’t always easy. Sometimes nothing comes to mind. Other times, an answer does immediately occur to you, but is followed just as quickly by all the reasons you shouldn’t ask for it.
Learning to Hear Yourself Again
Therapy is about understanding yourself more clearly.
Together, we’ll explore the patterns that have been shaping your life, often beyond your awareness. We’ll look at how thoughts, emotions, nervous system responses, family experiences, and old assumptions continue to influence your daily life long after they stopped being useful.
We’ll be curious together about the stories you’ve inherited and the conclusions you’ve drawn about yourself over the years. We’ll identify the beliefs that have served you and the ones that might not be serving you anymore.
As those observations continue, something important begins to happen: you get more choices.
More choices about what you get to believe, how you get to respond, what belongs to you and what doesn’t, what feels good and what doesn’t, and what really makes the most sense for you and your life.
My work is grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness practice, and somatic therapy. Together, these approaches help us understand both why things feel the way they do and what can be done to change them. The goal is to help you build a relationship with yourself that feels steadier, more compassionate, and more trustworthy over time.
Making Room for Your Own Life
Many women spend years becoming exceptionally skilled at caring for others, managing responsibilities, anticipating needs, and keeping things running.
Those skills matter, but so do you.
Therapy helps you to notice and remember the cherished and interesting parts of yourself that might have gotten crowded out along the way: your interests, your preferences, your creativity, your curiosity, your values, your voice.
Not because you’re abandoning your responsibilities or because you’re becoming selfish.
Because your life deserves to include you, too.
Over time, many women discover that therapy isn’t only about reducing symptoms.
It’s about feeling more at home in your own life, making decisions that reflect your values rather than your fears, trusting yourself more deeply, and creating enough room for your heart and mind to work together.
And perhaps most importantly, it’s about no longer needing the world to tell you who you are.
Get started here
Complete the secure inquiry form below and I’ll personally respond within one business day. We’ll schedule a brief consultation call where you can share a general sense of what brings you to therapy, ask questions about my approach, and decide whether working together feels right for you.
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Even productive days can feel like you’re in a constant state of bracing yourself. Understanding what’s keeping your nervous system on high alert is the first step toward finally being able to exhale.
The thoughts that fuel anxiety, self-doubt, and stress often run so automatically you barely notice them, but they’re quietly shaping your experience. CBT gives you a practical, evidence-based way to identify those patterns to build and reinforce the fair, kind, and productive ones that serve you best.
When you’ve been running on empty for so long that exhausted has started to feel like your baseline, a day off barely makes a dent. There’s a way back to feeling fully charged, and it doesn’t require using yourself up to get there.
Licensed Professional Counselor
Cheryl Zandt
Telehealth Counseling in Washington DC and Virginia
Cheryl Zandt is a Licensed Professional Counselor providing online therapy for women in Virginia and Washington, DC. For more than 20 years, she has helped women navigate anxiety, burnout, panic, relationship challenges, and life transitions with greater understanding, self-trust, and choice.
Thoughtful, collaborative, and grounded in research, curiosity, and genuine human connection, her approach helps clients make sense of experiences that have felt confusing, frustrating, or overwhelming for far too long.
Your questions, answered
Why do I feel like I should be able to handle everything myself?
Many women carry an unspoken belief that being competent means being able to manage everything without support. Over time, that expectation can become exhausting and isolating. Therapy offers an opportunity to examine where that belief came from and whether it’s serving you as well as it once did.
Is it selfish to prioritize my own needs?
This is one of the most common fears women express in therapy. In reality, healthy self-care and healthy boundaries are not the same thing as selfishness. Caring about yourself and caring about others are not opposing goals. Therapy can help you build a relationship with yourself that includes both.
Can therapy help me feel more like myself again?
Yes. Many women come to therapy because they feel disconnected from parts of themselves that once felt important—curiosity, creativity, confidence, joy, purpose, or simply a sense of knowing who they are. Therapy creates space to reconnect with those parts of yourself and make room for them in your life again.
What issues do women commonly bring to therapy?
Every person’s experience is different, but common concerns include anxiety, burnout, self-criticism, perfectionism, people-pleasing, relationship challenges, life transitions, stress, difficulty setting boundaries, and feeling disconnected from themselves or their goals.
How do I know if my expectations of myself are realistic?
One clue is whether your expectations consistently leave you feeling inadequate, drained, or as though nothing you do is ever enough. Therapy can help you examine the rules you’re living by and determine whether they’re helping you grow or simply keeping you stuck in self-criticism.