Welcome to Odd Truth

Have you ever taken a personality test? Myers-Briggs1, Big Five Personality Traits2, 16 PF3, enneagram4, attachment styles5, love languages6, emotional intelligence7…there are many ways to slap labels on ourselves8–and on others.

These tests can provide useful information, with clues about our internal world that offer signposts for living with ourselves and others. “Are you extraverted or introverted?” is a good get-to-know-you question (I’m ambiverted, in case you were interested). But people are more complex than labels.

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My name is Carmon Flanigan Conover, and I am a marriage and family therapist in northern California (LMFT #125149). In my private practice I work with individuals and couples on many mental health and relationship concerns, but my areas of special interest are human sexuality and issues of trauma and abuse. This is a late-in-life career after being a homeschooling mom to 10 kids (yes, they are all mine), living a life that I hardly recognize any more. The me of just 10 years ago would be very surprised at the life I now live.

I didn’t have a college degree until 2015. Amazingly, a few of my credits from my brief stint in college in 1980 transferred over. I had some LOTS of trepidation about returning to school after 30 years, but it wasn’t nearly as scary as I envisioned, and I managed to finish my Master’s degree in 2019, chosen by my classmates and teachers to be the speaker for the counseling students at our graduation ceremony.

This summer I taught a semester course on human sexuality to psychology grad students at a local university. I had to pinch myself a few times to believe I was being called “professor.”

I love learning, and I love talking about what I learn. My interests are wide-ranging, and I hope this space will give me a place to discuss all sorts of ideas with anyone who wants to join me on the journey of growing and learning and thinking and processing and integrating.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads. ~Mary Oliver

Scientists once believed you were born with a certain number of brain cells and that they died off as you aged. Bye, bye, brain. Thankfully, in 1962, the year after I was born (whew), Joseph Altman suggested that the brain may generate new neurons (neurogenesis). This growth of brain cells throughout the lifespan was confirmed as recently as 2013!

This is good news for me…and for you. It’s never too late to learn new things, and your brain can keep changing for the better. So can your soul, through sanctification. And your mind and emotions are also capable of great healing, even after significant trauma. The embodied, beautiful being that is YOU is an amazing creation. Let’s explore that together as we progress upward and onward, pondering all sorts of odd things along the way.

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