Guiding You Through Growth Towards Living a Meaningful Life
My own healing journey began at a young age. My approach has been experimental, try anything that feels resonant and see what works and what does not. After years of staying open to learning and integrating I have been able to see the benefit of healing through holistic and integrative approaches.
Over the past few years, my practice has grown and changed. My work focuses on existential issues of freedom, responsibility, the meaning of life and death. I help people connect with their experiences in their bodies as well as catching and helping reframe the negative stories we tell ourselves to help them work towards connecting to personal meaning and living a more mindful, connected, and integrated life.
Couples Counselling
My practice has expanded over the past year to include couples work. I was trained in the Gottman Method of couples therapy Level 1 through The Gottman Institute, which focuses on helping partners work toward improving communication through understanding each other’s triggers, learning how to communicate in ways that their partner can receive, and focusing on ways they can strengthen the relationship and enhance feelings of connectedness. I would say my work with couples is Gottman informed, but borrows from a wide variety of modalities.
Mindfulness
“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” mindful.org
If we are not aware of what is happening within or around us, it can be very hard to make shifts in our lives. Through bringing conscious attention to our experience we can begin to learn how to meet the experiences of life from a receptive as opposed to a reactive state. My training in mindfulness at University of Toronto includes a foundational knowledge as well as advanced specialization of Mindfulness in the Workplace and Mindfully Informed End of Life Care.
Education
I attended Santa Clara University and earned a B.Sc. in Psychology. The bulk of my education focused on theories in psychology, it was very research based which I knew was not my path, however it sparked my desire to put these theories into practice with a dream of someday having my own clinical practice. I knew I had found my next step after discovering a training program in the heart of Toronto teaching an existential integrative approach to counselling with a focus on clinical skills.
After taking my first cognitive science course back in 2009 my fascination with how our brain works has not slowed down. I have focused much time and attention over the years on learning about neuroscience, with specific focus on perceptual systems, attention and memory. It is a joy to use this knowledge, that has been so helpful to me, to teach my clients on how our nervous systems work so that they can work towards living a more integrated and holistic life.
In chasing my love of knowledge I have continued my training, completing Level 1 Sensorimotor Training in Trauma Themes through the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. This has been transformational in how I work with clients, helping to connect their experiences to the body facilitating understanding in how we hold unhealthy patterns in our body and how we can work to release them.
I completed my certificate in Foundations of Applied Mindfulness Meditation at the University of Toronto in late 2020 and continue my studies in this field doing an Applied Specialization in Mindfulness Meditation focusing on mindfulness in the workplace, and completing the Mindfully Informed End of Life Care certificate program, which has shown me how important it is to bring intentional awareness into our everyday lives as a way of creating resilience.
