Sienna

About Sienna Forest

I specialize in marriage, family, and child counseling. As an avid adventurer and lover of the outdoors, I offer walk-and-talk therapy in natural spaces for individuals in Santa Cruz County and therapeutic climbing groups for teenage girls at Agility Boulders in Capitola, CA. I am passionate about providing alternative methods of therapy for folks who value a relational, non-hierarchical approach to therapy. Having worked in the restaurant industry for ten years, I have developed strong interpersonal skills which give me the ability to center kindness, compassion, and professionalism into my work ethic.

Climbing has Transformed my Mental Health

Flow: “a cognitive state where one is completely immersed in an activity…it involves intense focus, creative engagement, and the loss of awareness of time and self”- Psychology Today (2021). “I kind of entered a flow state. I’ve been there before while climbing. You are not thinking ahead. You are just thinking about what is in front of you each second.”- Aron Ralston According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (2017), over 40 million adults in [...]

Sienna Forest2024-09-10T22:11:00+00:00March 8, 2022|Tags: anxiety, climbing, community, exercise, flow state, insomnia, mental health, mindfulness, resiliency, therapeutic bouldering, transient hypofrontality|

Transient Hypofronta… what now? Why should I care?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my brain feels like it is whirring so fast with thoughts that I can’t even think straight. For years, I have struggled with an overactive mind that seems to laugh in the face of meditation then look at me with a smirk and hit me with a big dose of anxiety. The only times I have been able to truly calm my monkey mind have been while swimming, running [...]

Sienna Forest2024-09-10T22:34:18+00:00August 28, 2021|Tags: anxiety, climbing, flow state, here and now, monkey mind, overthinking, peaceful, present, running, therapy, transient hypofrontality, walking|