My initial inspiration for using a bee as my logo came to me in the middle of a play therapy session with a 5th grader. We were working on an art therapy project to assist with identity exploration. She started working with me shortly after I completed my doctorate and became Dr. Ballardo, or Dr. B, as she liked to call me. As we sat there and painted various symbols on our individual art pieces that were symbols of our identity, it came to me! What about using a bee to represent this professional part of my identity? I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I knew it felt “right”.

Intuition.

The development of my therapy logo speaks a lot to how I think and express myself.  Sometimes things “feel” right to me before understanding why.  I then use this intuition to search for deeper meaning and find this to be deeply satisfying.  I feel connected to myself and others when I have these “aha” moments that help me build insight.  This is something deeply important to me in my personal life and professional career.  I find it very rewarding to help clients access their own intuition to increase insight into their own lives in order to deeply connect to thoughts and feelings that drive behaviors and attitudes towards themselves and others. 

Acknowledging Fear.

So I had the intuitive, “gut feeling” about my logo.  Now what? I got really excited thinking about how Dr. B is easy for my child clients to say and remember using the symbol of the bee.  I also began to draw metaphors between the insect and common feelings people may have for beginning therapy.  What can be scarier than getting stung by a bee?! Seeing a therapist and feeling those feelings, of course! It certainly takes courage to make the decision to seek a therapist and talking about your feelings, especially with someone you do not know.  Speaking of intuition, I think it’s very natural to defend ourselves from emotional pain.  So why seek a therapist who will challenge you to sit with yours? The scary feelings that we, as humans, can easily feel when we see bees reminds me of what it can feel like to think about starting therapy.  However, I have seen many clients leave therapy sessions feel empowered, grow in a matter of weeks, and state that they feel less of the things that drove them to start therapy, whether that be feeling stuck, afraid, depressed, or anxious. 

Parts of Self.

Speaking of fear and anxiety, I felt both of these emotions when becoming more serious about using a bee as a logo.  What if this isn’t “warm enough”? What if people don’t like it or connect to the metaphor? Will people think it looks cool? After all, how do we articulate what’s in our gut? I decided to lead with intuition and figure out the other parts as they came.

So what do bees do aside from sting people, anyway? Turning to nature allowed me to feel more grounded in my decision to use the bee as a symbol of me in my practice.  Bees produce honey and are extremely important pollinators for flowers and other plants that provide us with food.  They also work really hard in dedication to the queen bee. I realized that my process of branding my business as Dr. Tracy Ballardo, Dr. B, Dr. Bee…. was a metaphor for various parts of me: I am a very active therapist who works really hard to help others to seek change in their lives and have been described by colleagues as highly motivated and high achieving, like the “worker bees” we find in nature.

I also strive to be a catalyst of change for my clients, assisting them “pollinate” and harvest parts of themselves that they do not tolerate or accept. Just like we may devalue bees as important because we fear their power to hurt us, rejecting parts of ourselves can be correlated to feeling unhappy, whether that shows up as dissatisfaction in our relationships with ourselves or others.  I believe tolerating and/or accepting ourselves is a key ingredient to feeling relief from whatever brought one to therapy in the first place.