Support Between Sessions: Why My Clients Can Call When It Matters Most
One of the things I love most about my work is being able to offer support outside of scheduled office hours, especially to my Gold Star clients and the adult children of military families. My clients know that if something comes up between appointments, they can reach out for a quick call rather than waiting weeks to talk it through. There is no cost for this. It is not billed to the client, and it is not billed to any foundation or program that may be supporting their care. It is free, and it always has been.
I want to explain why I do this, what a call actually looks like, and what we have seen happen because of it.
Who this is for
Many of my clients do not have someone in their life with the room to truly listen, and that is often true for Gold Star children and the adult children of service members. Most of them worry that if they go to their parents with their problems, they will only add to their parents' stress, so they keep it to themselves. Friends care, and they tend to offer the advice they would want for themselves, which is not always what the person asking needs. When something comes up on a Tuesday night, waiting two weeks for the next appointment can feel like being alone with it, and no one should have to be.
What a call actually is
These calls are never about me giving advice. They are about giving a client room to listen to themselves. We go through a short practice together so they can acknowledge what they are afraid of, get clear on what they really want, and take one healthier step toward it. The call is usually brief, and the client leaves it with their own answer rather than mine.
In all the time I have offered this, no one has ever overused it. People reach out when it matters and not otherwise. I think that is because the call is built around their own listening rather than around depending on me.
What we have seen
The change I notice most is hard to measure and impossible to miss. Clients who know they can reach out begin to feel that they count, and people who feel they count start treating themselves accordingly. They rest when they need to instead of pushing through. They notice what their body is asking for and respond to it instead of overriding it.
Psychologists have a name for this. Feeling significant to other people is called mattering, and decades of research, including recent meta-analyses, link it with higher wellbeing and fewer depressive symptoms, while feeling insignificant to others is one of the more reliable predictors of distress. Listening research points the same direction. When a person is listened to well, they become less defensive and clearer about what they actually want. Self-compassion research adds the last piece. People who treat themselves with compassion take better care of their own health.
Being heard when it matters tells the nervous system that you are worth hearing. Once that lands, self-care stops being a chore and becomes something you do because you count.
Why slowing down is part of it
I learned the value of this the hard way. When I slowed down to recover from burnout and adjust to a new normal for my body, I realized how much urgency I had taken on without noticing. In my old work environment, even the most trivial matters were treated as if they were life or death, and it took time to unwind from those patterns.
Now I see people come into the wellness space in their forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond looking for the same thing I was. After years of rushing and meeting everyone else's expectations, they are ready to care for their bodies and minds on purpose. A participant told me recently, "It's time to take care of myself." That is what a between-session call protects. It keeps a person from sliding back into urgency between the moments when they remember they are allowed to slow down.
Meeting yourself as you are
This is what I most want my wellness space to offer: the understanding that healing and growth are not a matter of constant improvement or living up to someone else's standards. They come from learning to meet ourselves exactly as we are, in this body, with all its humanness and imperfection. A ten-minute call on a hard night is one of the simplest ways I know to remind someone of that.
Victoria Duarte is a mindfulness and somatic coach and trauma-informed Reiki practitioner with more than fifteen years of practice, and co-founder of Healing Arts Center in Virginia Beach. She is not a therapist. Between-session calls are a coaching practice, not crisis support. Anyone in crisis should call or text 988, and clients working through a mental health condition are encouraged to work with a licensed clinician alongside this work.
FAQ
What is between-session support?
It is a brief call between scheduled appointments when something comes up that cannot wait. Victoria offers this to her clients, including Gold Star children and adult children of military families, at no cost. Nothing is billed to the client or to any supporting foundation. The call is a short guided practice that helps the client hear their own answer, rather than a session of advice.
Is between-session support the same as crisis support?
No. It is a coaching practice for everyday moments that feel too big to sit alone with. Anyone in crisis should call or text 988 or go to the nearest emergency room.
Why does feeling heard change how people treat themselves?
Psychologists call this mattering. Research consistently links the felt sense of being important to others with higher wellbeing, and links feeling unimportant with distress. People who feel they matter tend to take better care of themselves.
Do I need to be an existing client to use this?
Yes. Between-session support is offered to clients who are already working with Victoria, as part of that ongoing work.
Here is a closing section to add after "Meeting yourself as you are" and before the scope note.
A little about me and how to book
I am Victoria Duarte, a mindfulness and somatic coach and trauma-informed Reiki practitioner with more than fifteen years of practice. I co-founded Healing Arts Center in Virginia Beach with Mark Berry, a retired Navy SEAL, after the practices that supported him through his retirement showed us both what ethical, compassionate care can do for the military community. My work focuses on compassion and vagus nerve regulation, and I teach clients to tune into what their body is communicating and to find the cues of safety that let it settle. I learned self-trust myself before I taught it, and that is what lets me show clients how to trust their own bodies.
If you want to work together, you can book a session directly at vagaro.com/healingartscenter. You can also call the center at (757) 251-9301 or email info@healingartsvb.com with questions before you book. Between-session support is part of how I work with every client, so once we begin, you will have it too. https://www.vagaro.com/healingartscenter
