About Us

I'm not exactly sure the first time I was exposed to character strengths. A few months into learning more about character strengths, I realized that I had a previous copy of my results from the VIA Character Strength Survey. I dug through a drawer and found that copy. I was so excited about character  strengths and the latest research I hadn't even remembered that I had been introduced to character strengths months previously. There was something very satisfying about realizing that character strengths were something that I had been curious about for much longer then I had realized. 

I started incorporating character strengths into my work with Master students in the Psychology  Department at Montana State University Billings (MSUB). I found that I could create a website were students could go to take the survey and then I would have their results. The class would take the 

survey at the beginning of the semester and get some attendance points. I didn't really do much with the information at first. However, I started learning more and more about what could be done with this information and the outcomes in relation to resilience, hope, life satisfaction, and flourishing. I got more and more excited about helping students leverage their strengths to help them in their life. 

I got an opportunity to teach a Therapy Techniques course and had the students retake the survey and then at least once a week we would define and describe a character strength, its optimal use, overuse, and underuse. There was also a list of music and movies that spoke to each of the strengths. Along with these resources, there were exercises that could be done to enhance use of strengths. I was hoping that students would see the value of introducing this concept to their clients someday. 

I had the students write a paper that semester about themselves and the theory that they were hoping to use once they had the opportunity to begin their licensure hours and start working as therapists in our community. Several of them took their results from the VIA Character Strengths Survey and the information provided in class to help them write their papers. It was fascinating reading about how they were exploring and applying their strengths in their lives.

I continued to read and study about how character strengths were being used across the globe in therapy, schools, families, workplaces, athletics, and the military. I became more and more excited about the possibility of taking these easily understood concepts and teaching more individuals and 

groups about how to apply them, so they too could be resilient, hopeful, and learn to flourish. 

The students were being given more opportunities in class to explore their strengths and I began to conceptualize an organization that could make an impact in my community and maybe, someday, the region. I started to speak about this organization and saw that students were excited about the idea and wanted to participate. 

I created a summer internship for a student, so she could finish her degree requirements and several other students volunteered to join in. We were able to get a foundational understanding of where we wanted to start and what we wanted to do. We developed Naturally Strong Families as our pilot program and began marketing it as a pilot to work out the snags and become more and more effective in delivering a tool that had meant so much to each of us. 

The team would meet regularly as we took home tasks to accomplish and then bring back to share as we developed Naturally Strong Families. We all started to talk more and more about the program and also to use character strengths in the work we were engaged in with our clients and in our families. 

As I was teaching and working with students, I was also in-my home trying to heighten awareness of strengths in myself and my children. I had my husband and children take the survey and we started to talk about strengths and spot strengths in each other and out in the world as well. It hasn't been a perfect road. I still fall back into deficit-based interactions at home, work, and in my personal life, but now I can catch myself more quickly and move back into a strengths-based frame and improve my life and the lives of those around me, especially the ones who mean the most to me. 

That is why I created The Center for Wellbeing, PLLC, so that my life and those who are important to me could have the benefits that were showing up in the research. I hope that The Center for Wellbeing, PLLC can be a part of helping you find resilience, hope, life satisfaction, and thriving for yourself and those that mean the most to you.