About Me
My life experiences and training make me aware of how past harms, certain decisions and obstacles can play a starring role in one’s story. When I was younger, I felt like my story was written before I even had the chance to live it. But I did not always follow the pathways that were expected of me and I began to write some new chapters. I bring this experience of re-imagining stories into the counselling relationship.
I’m incredibly humbled to meet and journey with amazing clients. I carry a deep care for people and compassion for human suffering. Being a counsellor is an expression of that care and compassion, and a desire to hold up the human spirit.
I am excited to work with people to find meaning in the messiness. I bring non-judgement and a deep thoughtfulness to the more unpleasant parts of human experience, and I encourage coming into relationship with these aspects, and exploring ways to create a more meaningful, fulfilling life. I am interested in supporting connection, community, ritual and expression.
I like to work in the in-between and engage with the unknown. I honour the spiritual aspect of the human experience, especially if that is of importance to the people I am working with.
As a practicing artist, I enjoy exploring creative responses to life challenges and opportunities. Humour is also essential in my life. I enjoy a good laugh and find humour offers a way to narrate problems and pain more creatively – and it just makes life more fun!
As a white settler living on the unceded, ancestral and traditional lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, I work to challenge and educate myself, and integrate this learning into my personal and professional life. Social justice and social connection are important to me. Attending university in Kenya and working in Sudan taught me so much and expanded my understanding of our interconnectedness.
I am sensitive to power dynamics and I seek to make space as I work alongside those who face societal barriers of gender, race, religion, disabilities, sexual orientation and gender expression. As well, I see gender as non-binary - and I welcome working with all expressions of relationship, including queer, heterosexual, non-monogamous and monogamous.
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Outside of my counselling practice, I have a 25-year professional career working in the fields of equity and diversity work in progressively senior leadership positions in the BC public sector, non-profit sector, and in higher education. I am both a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC), and hold a MA in Psychotherapy and Spirituality from St. Stephen’s College in Edmonton, Alberta. I am inclusive of all spiritual perspectives and traditions.