Hi Friends,

My name is Tara Riggs and I am a Licensed Psychotherapist in the State of Florida, a wife, a mother, and a lifelong lover/wrestler of God and His Church. For me, therapy is a calling much more even than a career; a gifting more than a graduate degree; it is my passion and my purpose. In my years as a therapist, I have learned that my reach and influence are limited to my client load, but my mission is much larger; thus the genesis of this initiative. My mission in speaking and teaching is to provide an array of therapeutic concepts, frameworks, and practices for embodying the love of Christ and carrying out the Great Commission with a compassionate, trauma-informed lens.

Prior to becoming a therapist, I had a short career in education concurrent with a much longer career in youth ministry alongside my husband. After walking with teens, parents, and peers through the difficulties of life while battling my own demons, I became aware that the tools I was using were not working as I thought they should, and as I believed that Scripture promised they would. It was through the field of therapy, alongside my faith, that I found the most freedom.

While I was in graduate school to become a counselor I was also required to be in counseling myself, and for me this was a welcomed mandate. I had struggled with the shame of stuckness and perpetual patterns for years, but never reached out for the help I needed because I was convinced that through prayer, fasting, and white-knuckled righteousness, me and God could fix me. By the time I walked into my new counselor’s office for the first time, I was exhausted from defeat, full of self-loathing and hopeless for change. I was a far cry from the picture of abundant life that the light of the world is meant to be.

Through years of personal counseling, graduate education, professional training, an insatiable love of learning, and a flawed yet abiding faith in Christ, I have grown, transformed, and expanded into a person much closer to the image of God that I was created to be. I have shed and am shedding the striving, lonely, false self for a grounded, present, authentic, true Self. While this work never ends, I can look back and stand confident in the road I’ve traveled and the ground that the Enemy has lost along the way.

My desire is to pass on the tools, skills, and frameworks I have gained to the Church so that she can be the healthiest, brightest, most loving version of herself. My posture is that of a bridesmaid readying the Bride, preparing the Church for her highest calling: reflecting the love, grace, goodness, and truth of Christ to an embittered, exhausted, and isolated world.

My teaching is specifically for Christians who desire holistic discipleship which I define as wholeness and health in their social, emotional, relational, mental, and spiritual lives. Each talk includes insightful concepts, practical applications, and embodied practices integrated through a Christian worldview to help you understand how you are wired, how you heal, and how to help others do the same. All of this is in service of the hope that together, we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I look forward to working together.

Affectionately,

Tara