Building Stronger Relationships for a Better World
Meet Carolyn Sharp
The Relationship Expert Using Wisdom, Experience and Humor for Disconnected Couples
Are you a couple dying to revive and deepen your relationship? I’m so excited you are here!
You’re both killing it professionally and have the life on paper that you always wanted, but, it’s all lights-are-on-but-no-one’s-home in the romance and fun department. The relationship that used to light you up has become the awkward, old sweater you wear to bed. You are finally ready to ditch the domestic dull for fiery fun and are willing to put your relationship back on top! You have achieved success everywhere else and you’re determined to get fire going in your relationship.
Hey y’all, I am Carolyn, the Relationship Resuscitator Clini-Coach® and a working married mom who knows exactly what it takes to keep a relationship thriving long after the “I dos.” I help couples like you fire UP your relationship back to the place of passion and connection you once knew. If this sounds good, let’s light it up! I will help you blaze a new path together, using your love and commitment as the foundation for the joy and connection missing. We will find the buried interests, dormant desires and hidden dreams to ignite the process for a future filled with more of EVERYTHING that has taken second stage after all these years.
If you are still reading this, I know you want more for your relationship and are ready to work together to achieve your dreams. It’s time to reconnect to the parts of yourselves you abandoned in pursuit of other things, get to work and make your love story front and center. Are you ready?? Then apply to join the Fire It Up Marriage Accelerator and let's get it going!
I am Carolyn, I help busy, overwhelmed couples revive their relationship and go from blah to bliss!
"I marvel at the ways our brains wire together to create this incredible dance between our nervous systems. Watching couples learn to do so positively is one of the most satisfying experiences of my professional life.”
​
~ Carolyn Sharp
PROFESSIONAL WORK
Carolyn Sharp always knew she wanted a helping career. Like many people who grew up in challenging circumstances, Carolyn decided to channel her personal pain into a career supporting others. She wanted to make things different for children who lived with addiction, bullying, and loneliness. In college, she mentored young girls, worked to end homelessness and volunteered in a soup kitchen – all in an effort to make the world a better place. In graduate school for Social Work, she worked in her school’s research institute to assist in understanding the beginnings of mental health diagnoses for children.
Her first job after graduate school at the YMCA in Seattle gave Carolyn a real opportunity to make a difference for children. She worked with the most challenging youth in the State of Washington in treatment foster care as well as with children returning home after intensive treatment. These children were profoundly emotionally disturbed with childhood trauma and severe attachment disorders. After 4 years as a Child and Family Therapist helping these children develop more positive coping skills, Carolyn became the Clinical Director of the YMCA’s Mental Health programs. Here she supervised all the mental health professionals working across the YMCA. She was also a faculty member for several years teaching graduate students at the Washington School for Professional Psychology in counseling and human development.
The birth of her daughter brought an end to this chapter of Carolyn’s professional life as she sought more flexibility and time to focus on being a parent. In 2005, she opened her private practice and quickly developed a reputation for her work with challenging children and families.
Carolyn soon expanded her practice to include couples. After attending a training program offered by Stan Tatkin, Psy.D., the father of the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), Carolyn was hooked on this approach. This modality offered a radical new way to practice with couples in real-time, using the lens of attachment and neurobiology to create dramatic change in real-time. Carolyn adapted this approach to her work with children, families, and individuals, but found herself seeking out more and more couples as she sought to help shape the relationship which most profoundly influences children’s development. Today, her work is almost entirely focused on couples
Thanks to invitations by Dr.Tatkin to assist at two PACT retreats, Carolyn saw firsthand the profound change that can happen for couples over a weekend. This led her to include couples retreats and personal retreats to her professional offerings and she has created incredible results in these intensive settings.
Carolyn has trained extensively with Dr. Tatkin and contributes articles the PACT Institute newsletter and serves as an Ambassador to the PACT Institute.
​
Carolyn introduced coaching into her practice to expand the ways she offers support to couples and to be able to serve couples around the world who have sought out her help and Carolyn has not been able to support through therapy.
Who is Carolyn Sharp?
​
Finding the funny in serious situations at work and at home is second nature to Carolyn Sharp, and it is one of the things her clients find most refreshing. But behind this levity is a woman who cares very deeply about people and is passionate about using her creativity to help her clients build stronger and more vibrant relationships. She knows that she doesn’t have all the answers and is on a path of continuous learning to be a better therapist. Carolyn’s fierce commitment to social justice has not left since her career beginnings and she works to create a more fair, equitable and humane community in both work and personal relationships.
Personally, she knows the pain of a failed marriage and like her mentor, Dr, Tatkin, Carolyn uses this experience in helping couples succeed. Today she and her husband of 5 years (this is a second marriage for both) live in a blended household of teenage hormones thanks to 4 kids ranging from 14 to 20 plus a menagerie of dogs, cats, skis, bikes, lacrosse sticks, musical instruments, swim gear and oars. During the brief times when the children are with their other parents, Carolyn savors the joys of a temporarily empty house in alone time with her husband. When she has the time, she enjoys cooking, running, gardening, reading, hiking, skiing and spending time with friends.
