About Us
Where people are seen and valued.
Awake and Aware, LLC was created as a place where people would feel seen, valued, and helped through adherent DBT delivery. From a tiny office on 4th street to a small house on Hermosa to a larger space on Carlisle to what is now our home on Montgomery, Awake and Aware has evolved to become a place where people can access hope and Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
We are an agency with passionate, diverse, mindfully-based clinicians that are committed to delivering DBT. We take training and continuing education seriously and believe in providing skilled supervision with passionate trainers. We care deeply about New Mexicans and strive to serve our community with professionalism, proven skillfulness, and deep compassion.
Note from Our Executive Director
When I founded Awake and Aware, LLC in 2009, I didn’t know that it would become the place it has become today. I was a single mom trying to build a life for herself and her son. I was committed and driven and completely on fire about helping other people heal and overcome. In large regard, its continued success is due to the clinical community that formed around my one-person mission. Over the last 14 years, Awake and Aware has persisted despite many obstacles. Its vision has expanded to include so many more than I would ever have hoped for and continues to serve the community in ways I could only imagine back then. What was once one person is now a large team of people. A deeply meaningful community committed to wholeness and healing.
-Natalie Smith, MFA, LCSW, SEP
Treatment at Awake and Aware
A lot of people ask what DBT is really all about and why it requires the kind of commitment it does. The things we do and the ways we think are created over time and in contexts that sometimes span decades and lifetimes. DBT is like a pool of water after walking around in a desert. It offers skills, new behaviors, new modes of thinking, and lots and lots of practice. It provides tools to get curious about why things are as they are and how they can be different and it provides acceptance of the way things are in an effort to consider how things could be.
DBT is an opportunity to build something within your own life to lean on and to remember on the days when nothing seems right and to build upon when life is hopeful. DBT guides families that want to support their children and help them navigate their way through difficult times and scary behaviors.
DBT requires commitment because change is hard. We know it’s hard. We also believe that with skills, insight, and awareness, other things become possible.
The Awake and Aware logo represents the emergence of newness within life. As the seed pods become aware of themselves, they can grow into the truth of their highest self ( becoming "awake") and are protected within the walls of a home that cares for them while they emerge and evolve.