Laura Carr, LMFT, Center for Mindful Relationships

Laura Carr, LMFT, Center for Mindful Relationships Center for Mindful Relationships offers affordable & skilled counseling services for Individuals, Families, Couples.

All individuals long for similar things: to feel loved, to be connected, to contribute to life and to receive acknowledgement for those contributions. At CFMR, we work with you to reach a place where you are able to identify what you truly want from life, recognize what obstacles stand in your way and see an opportunity to make different choices in the future. This process can take many forms, som

e of which are best suited for individual, couples, family and group therapy. In an effort to provide an integrated approach to therapy, we also offer additional resources and/or referrals based on the specific needs of the client.

These words by Hafiz point us to what healing offers. The process of socialization leads us to believe that we are separ...
08/06/2026

These words by Hafiz point us to what healing offers. The process of socialization leads us to believe that we are separate from life, because socialization requires self-abandonment. Not knowing who we are, not knowing our own goodness, is the root of anxiety, depression, addiction…suffering.

In my role as therapist, I’m blessed to be able to reflect for my clients the ‘light of their own being’ until they can sense that for themselves.

For those suffering right now, may you allow yourself to consider the truth of Hafiz’s words.

Blessings,
Laura

Center for Mindful Relationships

Exciting News! We now have five groups running at CFMR! Healing is enhanced in safe connections. What we carry, the bel...
08/03/2026

Exciting News! We now have five groups running at CFMR!

Healing is enhanced in safe connections. What we carry, the beliefs, the patterns, the not-enoughness, the bracing, was learned in relationship. Healing requires a “safe enough” space to explore and deconstruct how all of these are tied together.

Each group is therapist-led and rooted in our Compassion Based Awareness Therapy (CBAT) approach, a slow, compassionate way of turning toward what we usually try to fix, repress, or outrun.

✨ Coming Home to the Body, a somatic group for reconnecting with yourself from the inside out.

✨ Navigating Dating & Relationships, for women longing for something real without abandoning themselves to find it.

✨ Common Ground, for parents raising their children without losing themselves.

✨ Unlearning “Not Enough,” for women tired of hustling for their worth.

✨ And The Work of Us, for couples ready to turn toward each other, together.

You do not have to arrive polished or figured out. Come as you are. If one of these speaks to you check out the link in the bio.

In lovingkindness,
Laura

Center for Mindful Relationships

**CBAT integrates somatics, neuroscience (brain & the nervous system), attachment and more**

A new group is beginning this summer at CFMR, and there’s still time to join.Coming Home to the Body is a 6-week somatic...
06/10/2026

A new group is beginning this summer at CFMR, and there’s still time to join.

Coming Home to the Body is a 6-week somatic process group for anyone ready to slow down, listen inward, and reconnect with themselves, without pressure or performance.

In person | Wednesdays 5–6:30pm | $70 per group
Center for Mindful Relationships, San Diego

Facilitated by Amy Freeman, AMFT, supervised by Laura Carr, LMFT

Nothing is ever just one thing. can mean many things. It can be both simple and complicated. Life includes beauty and ...
05/11/2026

Nothing is ever just one thing. can mean many things. It can be both simple and complicated. Life includes beauty and angst and everything in between. All can be honored.

Healing requires learning how to witness our own experience because no one can do that completely for us. No one knows the exact words or sensations we experience, the stories and memories that haunt and hold us captive. And until we make our way back to the essence that we are, we yearn for external witnessing.

Healing is a life long journey. It often feels painfully slow because we are taught that healing should be fast and behavioral. It’s not. It is slow and relational.

It is the moment to moment connections we make with ourselves where we learn the power of our own witnessing. It is a presence that can only be felt, sensed and cannot be provided by another. From others it might feel temporarily nice but often feels incomplete because only we deeply know what we yearn for and only from the inner knowing can we begin to provide that to ourselves, in each moment.

Whatever Mother’s Day means for you, may you be able to honor your experience. I stumbled on this beautiful image created by that names 21 experiences. If yours is not represented in this image, feel free to comment with your experience so it is named.

If you do not yet know that you know the experience of the essence that you are, keep showing up. Because the truth is you do know, you just don’t know that you know. It’s a fun spiritual puzzle. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t know the experience. You just don’t know how to name it and live there…yet.

Happy Mother’s Day to you. We all have access to that maternal energy because it is in all of us. May you practice accessing the maternal for yourself today, even if just a tiny bit.

In lovingkindness,
Laura

We’re thrilled to announce a new group this summer. The body holds everything, what’s gone unseen, the breath, tension, ...
05/05/2026

We’re thrilled to announce a new group this summer. The body holds everything, what’s gone unseen, the breath, tension, the way we react, brace, freeze, fawn.

Coming Home to the Body is a 6-week in-person somatic process group offering a slow, compassionate space to listen and attend.

No pressure. No performance. This is an invitation in returning to your essence. If you’ve been curious about what it means to actually listen to your body, not manage it, not push through it, this group was created for you.

Facilitated by Amy Freeman, AMFT, supervised by Laura Carr, LMFT.

Swipe for details or visit the link in bio.

In healing we are introduced to listening for what is available to us all. This includes the process of discernment; lea...
04/22/2026

In healing we are introduced to listening for what is available to us all. This includes the process of discernment; learning to discern what is and what is not the still small voice.

What we are programmed to be run by is survival, conditioning, egocentricity. Other language for this is habit energy, beliefs, shoulds, “right/wrong,” all of which constitute unconsciousness.

Instead of regulating ourselves, which is a popular concept these days, I suggest attunement. Attunement is relationally based. It implies listening, curiosity, care and allows for intimacy.

Connection and intimacy is what we all crave. We are conditioned to look for that externally and tend to have resistance to meeting that need internally. Yet until we can reconnect with the essence that we are, even when we get connection externally, it won’t satiate that desire.

We must go through the many layers of resistance created in the process of socialization and survival to work our way back to the essence that we are.

A place to practice
In my experience, the still small voice doesn’t come in the form of full sentences. It might be a word, a sense of being pulled toward or away from something, or a feeling that quietly surfaces. Allow curiosity to guide you.

In lovingkindness,
Laura

Laura Carr, LMFT | Center for Mindful Relationships

You are not the thoughts in your head.You are the awareness that notices the thoughts.This distinction is CRITICAL. That...
04/16/2026

You are not the thoughts in your head.

You are the awareness that notices the thoughts.

This distinction is CRITICAL. That voice in the head is NOT you. It is the Socialization you have been exposed to your entire life, now internalized. Because it sounds like you, you think it is you. But it is NOT. It is programming. Until you learn to dis-identify with it, you will be controlled by it.

I call the practice Notice and Name. Notice the thought and name it: “The mind is saying I’m stupid and will never learn.” When you stop owning those thoughts, space is created, and you can begin to explore who you actually are, underneath the conditioned survival system. Then we layer in awareness of the body and emotions. One step at a time.

Try it and let me know what you notice.

In lovingkindness,
Laura

Laura Carr, LMFT | Center for Mindful Relationships

We are not the thinking mind. Not the stories it creates. Not the sensations the body feels. We are what notices. That a...
04/16/2026

We are not the thinking mind. Not the stories it creates. Not the sensations the body feels. We are what notices. That awareness is what we call Self.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

What if the most healing thing you could do today (and always) was practice curiousity?Not the faux curiosity where we’r...
03/24/2026

What if the most healing thing you could do today (and always) was practice curiousity?

Not the faux curiosity where we’re taught to analyze or fix, but genuine curiosity in the way a child notices a bug on a leaf. Open. Unhurried. Without judgment.

The science tells us that curiosity activates the brain’s reward system, releasing dopamine and priming us to learn, connect, and grow. It literally shifts our neurological state, moving us out of threat and into exploration.

Curiosity can also help with:
* Reducing anxiety, making room for openness
* Promoting emotional resilience
* Deeper, less reactive listening
* A more flexible, adaptive brain
* Decreasing spiraling thoughts, allowing more presence

And here’s what curiosity does for emotional safety.

When we approach our inner world with curiosity instead of criticism, a profound shift occurs. We stop being at war with our experience. We start to witness it. In Compassion Based Awareness (CBAT), we understand that suffering comes from the ways socialization has taught us to judge, suppress, or override what we feel.

Curiosity is the antidote. It’s how the Self (essence) begins to turn toward what has been repressed, not to fix it, but to finally see it. That seeing is the beginning of Unconditional Love.

Curiosity doesn’t ask “what’s wrong with me?” It asks “what’s here, and what is needed?”
Shifting to curiosity can change everything.

Enjoying practicing !

Blessings,
Laura ✨

Address

2333 1st Avenue, Ste 203
San Diego, CA
92101

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 7pm
Tuesday 8am - 7pm
Wednesday 8am - 7pm
Thursday 8am - 7pm
Friday 8am - 3pm
Saturday 9am - 1pm

Telephone

+16193541005

Website

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