About Me

Hi! My name is Barb Markway. In no particular order, I’m a wife, mother, owner of two fluffy white dogs (Bichons), a psychologist, writer, and a homebody. I’m overly serious, but working on it. That’s the short version.

I feel funny writing about myself (you wouldn’t know it because I do it all the time), but here’s a longer version: I’ve been married to my husband, Greg, for 23 years. We met in graduate school. We had both been counseled by our professors about being “too quiet.” (That’s a whole other blog). In meeting each other, we found acceptance of our more gentle dispositions. I actually got up the nerve to ask him out on our first date. It was the best leap-of-faith, courageous, daring greatly, non-shy thing I’ve ever done. He is a huge support to me, and that’s an understatement. We make a great team in so many ways. We’ve worked together in several settings, written books together, and in general, just enjoy spending time with each other. He takes a lot of the pictures for this blog. I’m hoping he’ll teach me some about photography Here’s a picture of him cooking, which he does better than I do.

We have a college-age son who brings me/us much joy. Although parenthood is a huge part of my life, he doesn’t like me to write about him, and I try to respect his privacy. We also have two Bichons, Lily and Larry, and I end up writing about them a lot. I’ve turned into a crazy middle-aged dog lady. You’ll see a lot of pictures of them around here.

I’ve spent over twenty years in direct clinical practice–mostly in outpatient counseling centers in hospitals and a few stints in private practice. I specialized in anxiety disorders and co-authored three books related to social anxiety and shyness. This is an area of personal interest, which you can read about here,  here and here. Greg and I also wrote a book on marriage called Illumnating the Heart: Steps Toward a More Spiritual Marriage. For the past two years, I’ve been in a transition mode. Chronic pain was making it difficult for me to work full-time, so I took a part-time position as a psychological consultant with Disability Determination Services for the State of Missouri. I’m trying to write some, as well. I miss working with people face-to-face, but I’m not sure what the future holds in that area.

I’ve ended up writing quite a bit about my health and chronic pain in this blog. I’ve had two back surgeries, one lumbar and one cervical. I’ve been told I have scar tissue from the surgeries.I’ve been diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome (famous baseball pitchers get this, most recently, Chris Carpenter of the Cardinals). I also have severe repetitive strain injuries from too much typing over the years.  I’m trying to learn a voice-activated dictation program, but I haven’t mastered it yet.

I love being creative and learning new things. I recently took an awesome e-course called Montage: A Guide to Creating Soulful Videos. Below are my first attempts. Both are short, two-minute pieces that will give you a sense for what I’m all about these days. I have a feeling you’ll be seeing more videos around here. It was very fun and addictive!

Leaving Worry Behind

Busy Be Gone

And if you want to smile big, watch this 30-second clip of Lily.

Okay, that’s it for this page. Again, thanks so much for dropping by. Hope you stay awhile and come back often.

You can contact me at barbmarkway@gmail.com.