Teresa Gross, LPC, Senior Therapist, In-person (North Location), Enneagram-informed Therapy
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
– Carl Jung
Teresa Gross, LPC
Senior Therapist
Professional Profile
Teresa began her life’s work as a bereavement intern while earning a Master of Arts in Counseling from St. Edward's University. After graduating in 2015, she transitioned into a dual position where she counseled young adults with autism and directed outreach for an independent living program. Teresa joined the Austin Mindfulness Center in 2017.
Now a full-time mindfulness-based and Enneagram-informed counselor in her tenth year of practice, Teresa is deeply committed to supporting others on their paths to awakening, healing, and growth. Teresa got her start in marketing roles at Fortune 500 companies, but after 20 years made the bold decision to leave high-tech for the healing arts in response to her soul's clarion call for "something more". For the first several years during this career transition, she worked as a massage therapist and yoga teacher before settling into her most cherished role as a therapist.
In her free time, Teresa enjoys yoga, meditation, and spirituality as well as studying the Enneagram, spending time with family and friends, and being a devoted student of life.
Specialties
Anxiety
Depression
Grief and Loss
Life Transitions
Relationship Issues
Insurance
Aetna, Curative, EHN, Oscar, Optum, Oxford, Sana, United Healthcare, Private Pay / Self Pay
Welcome!
I'm glad you've reached out. Therapy can help you feel happier and more fulfilled, gain new understanding about yourself and others, and navigate life's biggest challenges. It can also lead you to discover your true self and empower you to create more freedom, flow, and vitality in your life. Naturally, I would feel privileged to join you on your journey towards healing and growth.
As your therapist, I can offer a calm presence, listening, empathy, acceptance, and sensitivity coupled with gentle guidance that draws on nearly six decades of my own life lessons and experiences as well what I’ve learned from others. Working together, you can count on a safe space to pause, reflect, and call forth your natural strengths, innate wisdom, and deep-rooted resilience in the pursuit of positive change, inner peace, and passionate living.
How I Work
In the beginning, we will build rapport and talk about what brought you in – your concerns, needs, and what you hope to get out of counseling. If you don’t know, that’s ok; we’ll uncover them together. I’m dedicated to helping you make sense of your thoughts, emotions, patterns of behavior, and life events by bringing a balance of comfort, curiosity, candor, compassion, and challenge to the therapeutic process.
As we go further into the work of therapy, you will be invited to slow down, turn inward, and dig deep. In doing so, we will contemplate your inner landscape, experiences, and relationships. We will invite wonder and the answers to some of life's most thought-provoking questions. Importantly, we will also consider practical tools and strategies for relieving symptoms as well as for coping with changes and uncertainties, alleviating stress, and negotiating everyday demands.
Using an existential approach to therapy that primarily integrates mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral interventions taken from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as well as insights from The Enneagram, we will mindfully connect with the present, seek insights, cultivate acceptance, ponder empowering perspectives, explore new possibilities, clarify what's important to you, and do what matters. Over time, you can trust your relationship with yourself, others, and life will begin to shift in purposeful and meaningful ways.
Full contact with life – its suffering, its joy, its mystery – and your journey to greater well- being, meaning, and fulfillment through therapy will summon your willingness, courage, and vulnerability coupled with an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of your true potential at a pace that’s just right for you.
If you’re open to it, therapy can not only be healing, but a powerful impetus for the gradual emergence of an authentic, wholehearted way of being and a gratifying experience of life despite its changes and challenges.
I treasure each and every opportunity to gently guide others to know, accept, and love themselves; live their lives full-on, full-out from the heart; and enjoy more peace, freedom, and vitality in their life, work, and relationships.
Therapist Spotlight
What made you decide to become a counselor?
I decided to become a counselor after a long-standing, heartfelt desire to turn my passion for personal growth, curiosity about personality, and fascination with human nature into a profession. While I started my transition from high tech to the healing arts with doing massage therapy and teaching yoga, I had known all along I wanted to be a therapist.
Now after years of facing my fears, learning to trust life, and having finally settled into my life’s work as a mindfulness-based and Enneagram-informed counselor, I cannot imagine doing anything else that could bring me greater joy. I treasure each and every opportunity to guide others to know, accept, and love themselves; live their lives full-on, full-out from the heart; and enjoy more peace, freedom, and vitality in their life, work, and relationships.
If you could teach the world one skill or technique to improve their lives, what would it be?
Although it’s certainly not easy at times and likely takes a lifetime for everyone, this skill is Self-acceptance.
What are the most common problems your clients bring to you?
Anxiety, depression, major life or career transitions, grief/loss, and relationship issues.
Have you personally been in counseling and if so, what did you learn about yourself?
Yes, a few times, off-and-on since my mid- 20s. More than anything else, what I have learned about myself is that I can trust and love although still difficult at times. What I have come to learn about life is that I am forever being guided by a loving Lifeforce even if it doesn’t feel that way and there is no greater privilege than to become who we truly are.
If you could recommend one book to all your clients, what would it be?
Way of Mastery by Shanti Christo Foundation
What inspires you to help others?
What inspires me to help others is the Hero’s Journey. It’s my own and others’ insatiable quest towards love, fulfillment, and a meaningful life. It is an experience that only comes with our willingness and ability to overcome the inevitable, and often unpredictable and painful, challenges brought on by the vicissitudes of life and the intentional pursuit of positive change and growth.
Who is your ideal client?
Individuals challenged by major transitions, struggling in their relationships, burdened by anxiety, derailed by depression, or grieving a loss and those who are willing to fully engage in therapy, committed to exploring their “growth edges”, and open to mindfulness.
How do you personally practice self-care?
Yoga, meditation, mindfulness and spiritual practices, studying the Enneagram, spending time with family and friends, squeezing in a good read or movie, settling into quiet solitude, and setting aside time for a wellness workshop or meditation retreat every now and again.
How do you relate to mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a “way of being”, an approach to living, an essential form of “inner strength training”, and an empowering practice. I embrace it in my own life and it’s an important part of my approach to therapy having a basis in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy.
ACT uniquely combines cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness interventions that are not only intended to relieve symptoms and facilitate positive change and growth, but also have the potential to expand and deepen one’s experience of life.
How do you incorporate Mindfulness into your sessions?
I incorporate mindfulness into my sessions by describing mindfulness as a concept, introducing the 9 Mindfulness Attitudes, describing different mindfulness practices, and creating experiences of present-moment mindfulness by way of breathwork, short meditations, or guided visualizations.
Your favorite quote?
"Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot. Seek the path that demands your whole being."
– Rumi
If you are hosting a dinner party, who are the 3 people you would invite and why?
Irvin Yalom – American existential psychiatrist and master therapist
Pema Chodron – Buddhist teacher of meditation, peace, and compassion
Ram Dass – Late American spiritual teacher, yogi, and psychologist