Professional Background

Registered Clinical Counsellor, RCC #20166
Canadian Clinical Counsellor, CCC #11246517

Education

Master of Counselling (MC) with honours, City University

Trainings/Workshops

Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS Stepping Stone course (IFSCA)
IFS Advanced Weekend - Mastering IFS (IFSCA)
Integrative Somatic Parts Work - Level 1-3 (Frances Booth, Embody Lab)
Informed IFS for Trauma and Dissociation (Joanne Twombly, IFSCA)
IFS Direct Access Workshop (Risa Adams & Elizabeth Parsons, IFS Connect)
Intimacy From the Inside Out (Toni Herbine-Blank, IFS Institute)
Relational Intelligence masterclass (blend of IFS + polyvagal theory; François Le Doze)
EMDR & Parts Work for Treating Complex Trauma (Arielle Schwartz)

Somatic
Hakomi workshops (Vancouver Hakomi Education Network)
Somatic Psychedelic Therapy Training (Ahimsa Community of Therapeutic Practice)

Attachment
Healing Broken Connections course (Diane Poole Heller & Thomas Hübl)

Neurodiversity
Neurodiversity Awareness Training (Dan Spring)

Grief
Finding Meaning in Loss: The Sixth Stage of Grief (David Kessler)

Personal Background

I grew up in the Lower Mainland, am of primarily English and Irish descent, and identify as a middle-class, suburban raised, queer person. I am comfortable being identified as a woman, yet I most fundamentally do not feel identification with gender.

I am lucky to live on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. I recommend Angela Sterritt’s CBC podcast for those who want to learn more about the Land Back movement and Indigenous land rights. I support and am in learning of decolonization.

I have come a long way to be here. For over two decades, I struggled with low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and suicidality. I was chronically stressed and lived in fear.

I had no understanding of what was happening for me, and the standard explanation was that my brain chemistry was off and that there was just something wrong with me. I was the problem. Bursting into tears in my doctor’s office as a teenager, I was handed an expired sample of antidepressants with no suggestion of therapy.

Over time, I engaged in various healing modalities (including lots of talk therapy), which all provided some help. However, the big breakthrough came for me by drinking ayahuasca. I began to see and trust that I was not broken, but was instead engaging in survival strategies in an attempt to adapt to, or protest, the unhealthy circumstances in which I found myself. As the popular Krishnamurti quote states, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

As I began to accept and trust what was unfolding in my life and what it was meant to teach me, I was more able to let go of shame and self-criticism. I began to see with greater clarity what needed to change rather than deciding that I was the problem.

Continuing on this path, I began to learn about somatic therapy and the wisdom of the body. I realized that I had not connected to or acknowledged my body’s sensations throughout my life. Once I started to listen to my nervous system’s communications, I developed an even deeper trust and honouring of my body’s expressions, sensations, and emotions.

My journey continues. I still experience milder waves of low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Yet, I am now able to honour these messages and be curious about what they are showing me. I view each of these emotional experiences as adaptive responses I learned early in life and am grateful to hold compassionate witness to how they are trying to help and protect me. In so doing, I am able to better understand and integrate my past and choose a safer, more nurturing future.

I now work with the Internal Family Systems model, which explains and teaches more of what I’ve intuitively learnt over these years. This model teaches that we are not broken, but the sum of many parts which are all trying to protect and help us. Many of them are younger parts which were forced to adapt to unhealthy circumstances. As I have gotten to know my own parts and learned to hold compassionate and curious presence for them, I have increasingly been able to sit in a place of compassionately witnessing all of my experience. This model also helps to unburden the parts of us that are holding extreme beliefs from childhood. I have found it immensely powerful.

It is my hope to provide the same experience for you. I want to help you honour and understand how your experience is trying to help you, so that you can have clarity for your path forward.