We recently had the chance to connect with Will Kimmins and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Will, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
Currently my first 90 minutes is taken up with my personal fitness routine. As a working Husband and Father who owns my own business, time to myself cis always in short supply. I start the day between 5 and 6 am, and I’m usually in my garage gym for about 90 minutes or so. I carried this habit out of my military service, and I find that doing this both normalizes my body/brain chemistry and gives me some time to think about whatever comes to mind.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Will and day to day professionally I’m a therapist. I’m also a husband, a father, and most recently, a military retiree. I own and operate Overwatch Counseling Services. My practice is focused on long term trauma survivors. What separates my practice from others is really four concepts. First, my empathy for clients with chronic or complex trauma is born out of experience. I served in the US military for over 21 years, and for most of that time I was assigned to Special Operations Command. I have deep knowledge of trauma and how to deal with it. Next, I focus my approach around agency. The thing I have found most messes with folks recovering from traumatic stress is the loss of confidence and competence. Because intrusive thoughts rob us of the ability to trust our minds, which in turn makes us question if we can handle every day issues. Third, when appropriate I incorporate animals and nature into therapy. I’m certified for animal-assisted therapy, and I believe that it adds a special element for some clients. Finally, I carry the Overwatch metaphor forward from its military origins to meaning that I step in to become the overwatch element for my clients’ mental health.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What relationship most shaped how you see yourself?
That’s a pretty simple answer: my marriage. My wife and I have been together since the two of us were literal teenagers and have done our growing and maturing together. That relationship shapes how I see myself because she can speak to how I was as a very young man and how I am now. We share values and beliefs, but there’s enough difference to keep life interesting and allow us to disagree in a healthy way. This is why I know when she gives her opinion it will be honest and come from a place of love and wanting to see the best from me. It’s also why I will pay attention to her opinion and give it weight that other people’s opinions simply don’t have for me. That relationship has been there for my entire adult life, and I’m very happy that it is still there.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
My grandfather was the one who taught me most about what it means to be a man. A lot of his wisdom could be generalized into what it means to be an adult, but for a boy trying to figure out who he was going to be when he grew up, having someone who had done the thing correctly to learn from was priceless.
One of his statements that has stuck with me was “you learn more about yourself by getting back up than you do from never falling down.” Failure teaches us a few really key lessons (that we would likely prefer not to learn), and the first of those is that sometimes things don’t work. It’s important to learn that lesson because simple fact is that sometimes it doesn’t matter how well prepared you thought you were, no matter how flawless you thought the plan was, sometimes things don’t succeed. Learning this allows us to build contingencies, plan for if things don’t go our way, and recognize that we will have to get back up.
Suffering, on the other hand, is about the process of getting back up. Ask anyone who has experienced real and significant failure in their life, and the process of putting the pieces back together is an exercise in productive suffering. Suffering can show us what our tolerances are, in other words, to steal Rocky Balboa’s line “how much can you take and keep moving forward”. It can also show us just what we are willing to do to deal with setbacks in our lives. Ask anyone who has been through real physical suffering, and it teaches you the meaning of “this is not so bad,” VERY quickly. A final key point here is that if you’re going to suffer, you had best make sure it’s productive. Everybody in the military has heard the phrase “embrace the suck” at some point, but I only encourage that attitude if you can see a positive result coming from your suffering. If you’re just stuck in a place where you’re miserable and you can’t even identify what good might come out of it I recommend you address how to stop the suffering. That’s where I come in for a lot of my clients when they can’t figure out how to stop suffering.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
I like to think that these days, what you see is what you get with me. For years while I was in the military I very much had different versions of myself depending on the situation in which I found myself. I think that’s pretty common among special operators, but it doesn’t fit well in the therapy world. In the mental health sphere it’s all about congruence, living your inner self outwardly.
These days it’s actually much easier to live genuinely as I am because the people who resonate with my approach to therapy are often similar to me. Other veterans, trauma survivors, people who value acting over talking about action. There is a piece of me that all of these groups click with, and that makes it easier to be myself even in public.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. When do you feel most at peace?
I spend a lot of time outdoors and the simple answer is I feel most at peace when I’m out in nature. I hunt, fish, camp, and share all of these activities with my family. Sometimes the peace I feel comes from solitude while I am sitting up a tree or in a duck blind on my own. Often in those situations the peace I find is from simply existing as part of the world, even if I don’t see anything and go home with nothing but a contented smile to show for my efforts. Sometimes, your social connection battery simply runs out and you need to recharge on your own. This is true of extroverts and introverts alike, it’s a matter of when you hit that point.
Other times it comes from having conversations sitting on a dock or on a river bank with companions like my wife, our children, or friends who share my interests. Taking time where everyone is completely focused on being in the moment without an agenda makes for some of the best connection you will ever form with another person. Because it’s the joy of just casually being together that creates the bond.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.overwatchcounseling.com
- Instagram: overwatch_counseling
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557551446829
