Teaching skills and perspectives that Empower, Uplift and Connect

Why go to counselling?

• depression
• anxiety and panic
• stress and overwhelm
• addiction to screens, substances, gambling, gaming, shopping, porn
• personal growth and development
• couples counselling
• toxic or codependent relationships
• social anxiety and shyness
• can’t communicate
• low self esteem
• need healthy boundaries
• approval seeking
• anger and irritability
• have a vicious inner critic
• processing separation or divorce
• life transitions
• grief or loss
• finding meaning in life
• processing last six years
• poor sleep
• chronic pain or illness
• uniquely men’s issues
• uniquely women’s issues
• simply wanting more out of life

My Counselling Philosophy:

I believe that instead of being able to choose, most of us react—and often in very patterned ways. We are believing our stressful thoughts. We’re not present, and instead are focused on the future (worrying) or on the past (ruminating). We are often distracted, dysregulated, overwhelmed, and absorbed in what’s wrong, or in what-if’s.

We aren’t choosing. We’re reacting.

We’re surviving our lives.

but only because we don’t know how to do it any other way.

Short term Goals:

• Regulate your nervous system- -so you can stop living in Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn
• Look at what is and decide what you want to do with that information, instead of simply avoiding or resisting it
• Feel your feelings–understanding they’re just energy, and the problem isn’t feeling them, it’s avoiding them
• Be honest, and get in integrity with yourself and others. Stop pretending. Stop selling yourself and others out. Stop letting fear run your life. Reclaim the self esteem you have now earned
• Learn how to communicate your needs and boundaries–and deal effectively with the push-back
• Learn how to tolerate discomfort and stay true to you and what matters to you, instead of being buffeted about by fear

Longer term Goals:

• Well Being – to work towards functioning at your optimum level
• Freedom – to be yourself and to be positive even when those around you are not. Freedom to value and take care of yourself, understanding you cannot pour from an empty cup. Freedom from approval seeking. Freedom from believing your own catastrophic thoughts
•  Improved self confidence – more realistic expectations, Less significance attached to (transient) emotion and more commitment and follow through to desired outcomes
• Clarity about what really matters to you and how you’re actually living your life
• Empowerment– It’s true you cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it, and really, how you relate to it
• Compassion– for yourself and others. The greatest barrier to recovery is often cruelty towards ourself (and others!). When we understand the symptoms of depression and anxiety are often the very thing that keep us from taking the action we need to take, we can be kinder and more generous (which, conveniently, takes us out of a dysregulated state and allows us to actually learn new behaviours)
•  Connection – more fulfilling relationships and seeing others, sometimes, as an opportunity for growth, as opposed to feeling victimized by them, or superior to them (Byron Katie says “It’s not happening to me. It’s happening for me”). It is the realization that we make up stories about other people and gather evidence for them. It’s awareness that what we see in someone else is often a reflection of what we can’t see in ourselves. It’s understanding we are all doing the best we can with what we have.
• Joy – spending more time in this moment, as opposed to focusing on our (often stressful) thoughts. It means cultivating a habit of looking for, and finding, the good stuff.  
• Purpose –Choosing to live according to your values. Caring about your precious attention and focus. Knowing a reason why you are on this planet