I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) practicing for more than 20 years after earning a Master of Education. I chose an educational approach because I was not comfortable with pathologizing or labelling people, nor with a problem-oriented focus. I was drawn toward teaching people what could help them become who they wanted to be in order to create the lives they wanted to have. In essence, I wanted to teach people how to be happy.  My advanced Bachelor of Arts degree included double majors in Psychology and Sociology because I believed one could not separate the individual from the profound influence of the family or society.

Since completing my Master’s Degree in 2000, I have continued with my training in a variety of areas including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (with David Burns), Positive Psychology, Clinical Hypnosis and Strategic Psychotherapy (with Michael Yapko),  Conscious Loving (with Kathlyn Hendricks), as well as Couples’ Imago Therapy.

The foundation of successful therapy, from my perspective, is Cognitive Behavioural principles: our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings create our mood. Our chronic moods can have a huge impact on our experience of life–particularly if we’re gathering evidence for our worthiness or what’s possible while in a low mood. Until we can relate differently to our thinking, our experience of our lives can be very conditional.

Another important element of our experience of life, in my perspective, is the meaning we attach to choices, events, experiences, and life itself. A life devoid of meaning, mistakes with no inherent value, and regrets we cannot let go of can torture us.  Letting go of regret, forgiving ourselves and others, and turning suffering into opportunity can be learned.

I have also had much formal experience outside the therapeutic realm while training with organizations such as Abraham-Hicks (the law of attraction) and Landmark Education. Big take home messages included: we decide and create  what’s possible for our lives, and the notion that what we focus on gets bigger.

What I have since noted, however, is that spending our lives working on being deliberate creators can leave us feeling–yet again– like we’re not good enough, and that it can seem we are surrounded by messages that we really aren’t enough and that we need to keep trying harder. This constant striving to be more can be demoralizing. Finding that balance between ‘working on ourselves’ and ‘being here now’ can be challenging. Let’s find that balance together.

Through all of my training, although my specialty has been treating depression and anxiety and on improving relationships– both with ourselves and others–my focus has really been on personal growth. I teach people the perspectives, tools, skills and structures to help people become more peaceful, joyful, empowered versions of themselves–in the face of whatever they’re dealing with.