Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Kosim.
Hi Mike, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born on the equator – in Jakarta, Indonesia – and landed in (what I thought was frigid at the time) Detroit, Michigan when I was 4 years old. I’m a generation 1.5 immigrant, which means I wasn’t born here, but my childhood was very American. I was always “the different kid” in school growing up in small towns in Michigan and Wisconsin. From the very beginning, this forced me to really understand how cultural differences impact relationships.
I also grew up watching my immigrant parents struggle with their relationship. They were isolated without much help and without a good template for relationships from their families of origin. Adults in my family were often either actively fighting or actively giving the silent treatment. I yearned to understand a different way of being in relationship.
Here’s the thing though – I went the complete opposite direction at first. I got a BS in Electrical Engineering, focusing on microprocessor design, and worked for 7 years for the world’s largest semiconductor company at the time. I traveled to 13 different countries and had a lot of fun. But my true curiosity was always about how human relationships worked.
In my 20s, I explored “how to” and “how not to” do relationships. In the meantime, I entered therapy of my own because I was feeling depressed, anxious and lost. What I found was my calling. In my second week of training at a methadone clinic, I remember driving home and thinking, “This is what I was built for.”
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not. But I was very intentional about making it hard. Early in my career I knew that I had to get really good at two things: empathizing with people and maintaining non-judgment. Sometimes people think of those things as a trait, like brown eyes. But I knew you could exercise it, just like a muscle.
So I decided to work in the hardest of milieus so I could exercise those tools and help almost anyone I came across. I worked in a therapeutic San Francisco jail. I worked in a group home for violent teens – the orphanage of our time. I worked in a city clinic that drew from a list of the 300 most expensive citizens of San Francisco due to drug use, hospitalizations, emergency services. Finally, I volunteered in hospice work so I could learn what letting go really meant. And I saw that people carried relationship hurts till the day they died. I wanted to change that for people.
The transition from engineering to therapy wasn’t easy either. I had to overcome my own trauma and figure out my own relationships before I could understand how valuable I could be to others. Then came the hard work of training to become a useful tool in other people’s transformations. But I like to root for the underdog, the one that others think would never win the big game. That includes myself.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and my calling is to help people heal their relationships. Like a bad 80’s love ballad, I believe in the power of love. I feel its power every day through my relationship with my wife and also know how painful it can be when things are not right between us.
I specialize in trauma work and couples counseling. I trained in both Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy and Gottman method. I’m so passionate about couples work because I’ve seen the dramatic difference in people before and after. I’ve seen the change in people’s faces when they are now aligned with their loved one and able to count on them. Everyone will have different conflicts, but I want them to feel the difference when they can repair their own relationship.
As a generation 1.5 immigrant, I am especially tuned to how differences in cultures can create conflict. In my practice now, I love working with individuals who are looking at their past and realizing there may be a different – and better – way of being. I’ve worked with people from all backgrounds, all ethnicities, all faith traditions. I absolutely love working with LGBTQ folks too. I lived for 16 years in the San Francisco Bay area, and 10-30% of my clients identify as LGBTQ depending on when you ask.
I wanted to give the gift of a better future to other folks. I found I was good at two things: helping people repair their relationships and heal their trauma. The relationship I have with my wife is the most important adult relationship I have. There are times when we fight too, and I have to use the same skills I help my clients develop during those times. It’s difficult, but I can feel the difference those skills make.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
People come to me to win a different future. They’ve experienced hardship either in their childhoods or their relationships and they want to do the hard work and create a more fulfilling future for themselves and for the people that love them. When people do this, they leave my office with greater confidence in themselves, a more grounded feeling in life, and a greater confidence in their partners. How many people
Pricing:
- Individual Therapy (50 min) 230.00
- Couples Therapy (80 min) 345.00
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.heartfeltcounselingmn.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikekosim/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mike.kosim/
- Youtube: UCEnkpmOdGr6u_9e2eDvmBCg
