I believe in the desire and longing in each person’s heart to
live life fully, and to feel whole.

Just as we have physical scars and wounds from injuries, we can have emotional wounds and scars that impact our sense of self and wholeness. These wounds can leave us feeling confused, lacking in confidence, shattered, scattered, shaky, anxious and/or scared.

I believe we all have within us a great natural intelligence that when harnessed is designed to self-heal. This inner strength and desire to live wholeheartedly, is what makes us human. However, sometimes this natural healing system is interfered with, becomes maladaptive and needs to be “re-patterned” back to health. We can repattern the body-wide nervous system by first expanding awareness of feelings and thoughts, noticing what we resist experiencing and owning, and honestly ‘waking up’ to who we really are. I believe who you really are is an intelligence much greater than the present ‘contraction’ or despair you might be feeling.

I view therapy as essentially an education, as well as a process of “coming home” to yourself as a magnificent being…a creative, intelligent force of nature.
Through the process of therapy, you can learn to feel, think, and act differently. You will learn to transform what is, instead of resisting what is.

Our past experiences and emotional responses do influence our way of being in the present. By paying attention to what we feel and how we think in the present, we can repattern ourselves at any moment. We can move out of stuckness, and back into flow, move toward greater freedom and love.

Therapy as Gift
We can use anything we experience in life that we might term “negative” (aka feels not so good!) as a tool for developing ourselves. We can use our own self-growth and healing as gifts for not only our own self-development, but for the benefit of our families, friends, workplaces and communities. In this sense, seeking therapy is not a selfish or cowardly act, as it is sometimes still regarded by society, but a bold and courageous choice to make not only your individual life more rewarding but to also benefit others.

What do I believe about how therapy works and healing happens?
My faith is that anyone can return to a sense of wholeness through our innate capacity to self-heal. Paradoxically, we can more deeply activate this self-healing by coming into relationship with other human beings, as it is in relationship that we come to truly see and know ourselves.

Using integrative body-mind methods, I believe in holistically addressing the interconnections between physical, emotional, social (relationship) and/or mental well-being.  By connecting the threads in each area through therapy, together we weave a tapestry of wholeness, a lasting sense of which that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.

I believe we mainly heal by being willing to stay present and honest with what we are feeling, by having courage to feel vulnerable, to feel what hurts as well as feel what brings joy. We heal by acknowledging needs that we may not have learned how to meet for ourselves earlier on in life, and by learning how to meet those needs now. This is especially true if our developmental needs as children were not fully met, if we were neglected or were even in subtle ways injured psychologically.

We can become more present by making conscious contact with the felt sense of our bodies, our body being an ever-present tool for self-healing. My interest lies in teaching you the skills to self-heal. When we realize we can self-heal, this becomes incredibly empowering.

Past, present, future….
In therapy, I believe in revisiting and “re-visioning” (thinking anew about) the past only from the standpoint of what is working or not working in the present. If we do not heal from past wounds and unmet needs, we will repeat these in the future unconsciously in an effort to get our needs met and heal. The more we can become aware of ourselves, both our strengths, our weaknesses, our gifts and our ‘blind spots’ in relationship with others, we can heal. The more we can take risks in communication and self-expression, and develop the courage to take new actions in relationship, the more we can heal.

I believe people can heal anything (outside of genetic or bio-chemical derived long-term mental illness, and even in those cases, progress can always be made and learning can always take place). It may take some time, and that personal rhythm and motivation will be different for everyone, and yes, we can all heal and grow, no matter what our age or problem. The question then becomes, what is it to heal?

How would you define that for yourself? What would that feel like or look like, What do you imagine? What do you feel in your body as you imagine a new possibility for yourself? Are you ready for a shift? Do you feel both excitement and fear? Breathe with those feelings.

There will always be suffering in our lives. When this suffering becomes too much to have to ‘hold’ alone, when it interferes with our capacity to work, to sleep, to function, to be a contributing member of our family, to follow our heart, to be able to reach goals, fulfill dreams, then it is time to inquire through therapy about what aspects of ourselves need attention.

A positive, strengths-based approach
I believe in focusing attention not only on where you experience suffering and problems in your life, but also on your inherent goodness, your gifts, your humour, your inner beauty. When we are in pain, it is easy to only focus on the pain, and to forget what’s also working in our life. Shifting focus to remember inner and outer resources can help us heal, to expand beyond contracted, limited thinking.

Most of us tend to beat ourselves up, be somewhat critical and violent towards ourselves. Part of the process of therapy is seeing how we do that, and why, and shifting out of negative self-talk to more compassionate awareness of first, yourself and then another person either close to you or not well known.

In therapy, we can begin to become more curious than critical, more understanding and compassionate than judgmental.