Building Stability in an Unstable World – An Exclusive Interview with Therapist Cheryl Donaldson
- Mar 7
- 9 min read
Cheryl Donaldson is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 25 years of clinical experience working across the United States and Europe. Through her cross-border therapy and consulting practice, she supports adolescents, families, organisations and executives navigating transition and adversity. For more than two decades, Cheryl has equipped individuals with the emotional education and tools to face the unknown. Whether working with a struggling teenager, a relocating family, or an executive team under pressure, her work rests on one conviction: when the system is stable, the people within it can thrive.
Growing up with learning disabilities in an academically rigorous family, Cheryl learned early that systems are not always aligned with individual strengths. She developed emotional intelligence as a survival tool and later turned that insight into her clinical superpower. As Director of Young Life in Austria, she witnessed the strain relocation places on marriages and adolescents navigating identity across cultures. That experience led her to pursue her master’s in clinical psychology and start her own private practice. Today, her work integrates psychology with philosophical and spiritual inquiry, creating space for clients to define the internal anchor that sustains them through uncertainty.
Now, Cheryl is bringing that same systemic lens into boardrooms. In her guided journal Lead From the Soul, she argues that leadership begins with self-leadership. Every system, whether a family, a team, or an organisation, relies on three core qualities to create stability and growth: connection, clear structure, and aligned expectations. When these elements are in place, the system can hold steady, even in times of change. It’s Cheryl’s mission to strengthen the systems we inhabit so individuals can navigate the unknown with confidence.
Cheryl, you’ve spent over 25 years as a therapist working with kids, families, organizations and executives across the globe. What first drew you into this work?
There are two foundational parts of my story that really shaped what I do today. The first is that I grew up with a lot of learning disabilities in an academically rigorous family. My academic self-esteem was incredibly vulnerable as an adolescent. I believed I wasn’t intelligent because I was in a school system that didn’t reflect my strengths. As a result of this struggle, I developed emotional intelligence to navigate the system, and that experience became central to how I work as a therapist. I wanted to help families and kids build systemic self-esteem, to remind young people that they are capable, even if they find themselves in systems that don’t reflect their strengths.
The second is that I started travelling from a really young age. I was five years old when I first went abroad. My parents bought a big, orange Volkswagen camper van, and we spent six weeks travelling across Europe in it. I remember watching my mom in the passenger seat of the van, holding these big maps, guiding us all over the world. I watched her navigate new languages and situations without stress. I never felt lost with them, even though we were so far from home. My mom was the foundational model for me of how to be thrown into the unknown and still land on your feet.
Human behaviour has always fascinated me, and I loved travelling. Growing up in DC and my exposure to travel led me to study Government and International Studies. After graduation, I moved to Vienna, Austria and worked on the Young Life staff at The American International School Vienna. I began a Masters in Theology in Leadership Development and started to take psychology courses. I realised what I loved about traveling was watching how people lived and engaged with one another. We all create an individual operating system that guides and shapes us. We also live in a larger system that impacts us; our families, communities, cultures. It was the intersection of these systems and their impact on our self-esteem that led me to return to graduate school to earn my Master's in Clinical Psychology.
How did you start working with the EXPAT community?
When I was at YoungLife, I was supporting adolescent girls in international schools. I helped them build community and create spaces for connection. But I began to see the deeper struggles of children being moved abroad up close. These young women were in transition. They hadn’t chosen to leave their home country; they were forced to move for their parents’ work. They didn’t want to be there. They were thrown into new systems, into the unknown. At the same time, I saw how the stress of relocation was impacting marriages. I was able to support these girls individually, but I couldn’t make the impact I knew I was capable of because I didn’t have the education to understand the systemic impact on development. I needed to understand the whole family, not just one individual child. How do we strengthen that system? How do we work with the whole family? That observation and experience inspired me to get my master's and eventually launch my private practice, which supports individuals and families at home and abroad, called Helping Families Flourish.
You’ve worked with hundreds of families relocating across borders. What actually happens to a family psychologically when they move to a new country?
When a family moves to another country, they are in an extremely vulnerable place. Oftentimes, they can’t speak the language. If they lose communication, they quickly lose a sense of connection to the world around them. They don’t know how to build community or make friends. Something as simple as reading the labels at the grocery store becomes challenging. We are social beings; we need other people to thrive. When that fundamental human need is tested, people quickly become isolated and unstable.
You have to create a structure and sense of normalcy where there isn’t any. If a family is already going through challenges, you’re moving an unstable system into an unknown system. That is why it’s so important that we prepare.
What does that preparation look like? (add a couple tips/tricks here)
When I moved my family from Chicago to the Netherlands, I had three boys under the age of five. I did little things to create a sense of continuity for my kids. I brought their bedding and sheets over, their favourite toys. I brought things they’d recognise with us. But the most important thing I did was tell them that my husband and I were their home. Home is family. Home is where we’re together. We were the stable base for the kids.
We need to remind kids over and over again that they are capable. We need to encourage them to try new things. I told them that this is an opportunity for learning and growth. That there was nothing to be afraid of. When they were really little, they rolled with it. When kids are older, preparation is different. My husband and I never chose to move for fun; we had to for work. It was important for us to communicate that to them and to reinforce that we are teaching them a new skill set. Now, my kids are extremely international. They’ve lived in Britain, Spain, Italy, and Africa. They trust themselves to navigate the unknown, and that is what I always wanted for them as their parent.
Beyond moving, what are some of the biggest challenges modern families face today that you are seeing in your clinical practice?
The world has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Parents today are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information about how they should, and shouldn't, raise their children. That constant input has created so much anxiety. They are so worried about doing it wrong that they become avoidant. They avoid leading the family; they avoid structure and expectations. If you don’t have expectations of your child, you are communicating to them that they aren’t capable of achieving anything. Parents have handed over the power to their children because they are afraid of harming them emotionally. We are seeing an epidemic of avoidant parents. Not because they don’t care, but because they care too much.
The rising visibility of suicide and self-harm in adolescents has intensified that fear. Parents worry that enforcing boundaries could push their child away or cause harm. But children are actually less safe in environments without structure. Human beings need frameworks to feel secure. And it’s never too late for parents to implement this. We have to shift the focus from the “perfect” or “right” structure to developing one that works for their family. Parents will get pushback at first. That discomfort is part of resetting the system. We can’t be afraid of our kids’ responses. It’s our job as parents to keep our kids safe, and we can’t do that without limits.
Your work integrates psychology with deeper philosophical and spiritual questions. Why is that important in therapy?
Traditional psychology can be incredibly powerful. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, for example, can be life-changing. Sometimes simply recognising a cognitive distortion is enough to shift how someone sees themselves and the world. But what about when people experience trauma and have much deeper, philosophical questions? This is missing from current therapeutic techniques and is not taught in training.
I once worked with a seventh-grade girl who had cancer. This young girl had to process this experience on a very deep level. She felt spiritually let down. ‘Why did this happen to me? Why did God do this to me? What does this all mean?’ These are philosophical and spiritual questions, not psychological. Her battle with cancer reshaped her faith and how she found meaning in her life. We had to make sense of the suffering together in a way that allowed her to evolve her own belief systems. Everyone operates under their own spiritual framework, whether they name it that way or not. My role as a therapist is to create a safe space for us to explore these questions and to guide the client in defining that for themselves.
How do you help someone define their spiritual framework? Why is this important?
When a storm is coming, sailors have to drop their anchor and take shelter. The anchor is what keeps the ship grounded. If it wasn’t dropped, the ship would be dragged all over the place or destroyed. For people, the anchor is their spiritual framework; it’s the thing deep inside themselves that they draw from to remain steady through storms. It’s what grounds them in times of adversity. When I became a mother, and I was operating on two hours of sleep, I had to draw on something much stronger and deeper within myself to remain steady. We need to acknowledge this part of us in the therapy space. We are more than brain and body. Each of us has a soul, a source, a centre point. People need to define what that means for them so they know where their inner strength lies.
You’ve recently begun working with leaders and corporate teams. What inspired that expansion?
An organisation or company is a system, no different from a family. They need the same things to thrive. It felt like a natural evolution of my work. When someone isn’t at home, school, or in their community, they’re at work. Most people spend the majority of their waking lives inside organisational systems. It’s estimated that up to 50-55% of our lives we spend in the workforce. If those systems aren’t healthy, it affects everything. The impact ripples out. If we create healthy work systems, we create healthier people. This is what my clinical work, and three decades of systemic observations, has called me to do.
What does good leadership look like?
Good leadership begins with connection. That doesn’t mean that we’re soft and social all the time, but we know how to connect with others because we are connected to ourselves. There has to be a human quality to leadership. No one will follow someone they aren’t connected to. A good leader will also provide structure. Without a clear framework, people feel uncertain and unsafe. It can’t be a free-for-all, or people have no direction. A good leader needs to know how to set expectations and manage those when someone isn’t meeting them. They will come alongside you, listen to your challenges, and problem-solve with you. They will be invested in your growth. That is what a good leader does.
You are the author of “Lead from the Soul.” Tell us about this book and who it is for?
Everybody leads. You lead yourself. You lead your family. You lead your community. You lead your company. We have influence on both the micro and macro levels in so many ways. I created Lead from the Soul as a guided journal to help people reflect on the kind of leader they want to be. It walks readers through identifying what anchors them, the spiritual framework or inner convictions they draw from when life becomes challenging. Self-leadership is the foundation. If you’re disconnected from yourself, it’s difficult to lead anyone else with clarity or steadiness. This book is for people who want to reconnect with their centre and lead from that grounded place, whether at home, at work, or anywhere they have influence.
