Women's Issues

Women’s Issues

Empower yourself and create greater self acceptance around your experience of life. Women’s issues include infertility, disordered eating, self-esteem and assertiveness, relationship issues, physical conditions, body image, family challenges, support for peri/menopause, anxiety, depression or life/career transitions.
Learn to better understand your thoughts and feelings so you can live a more balanced, joyful and happy life that inspires you for success.

Life Transitions Counselling

Do you feel out of control and confused?
Are you anxious and fearful of what’s next?
Do you feel stuck or hopeless about the future?

What are life transitions?

A major life transition puts us on a different pathway and can be hard to adjust to. Life transitions are exciting but can also be stressful and fraught with difficulties as we adjust to new pathways in our life. It’s natural to feel fear, doubt and uncertainty and to feel unsettled in the face of new stress. Whether it’s a new job or going back to school, life transitions aren’t easy and everyone goes through some kind of change at some point in their life.

Some examples of life transitions include:

• divorce, separation, break-ups
• marriage, remarriage and weddings
• career exploration, career change, promotions, workforce re-entry, unemployment or loss of career, retirement
  starting school or returning to educational pursuits, graduation
• family transitions like pregnancy, empty nest syndrome, caregiving for elderly parents
• illness, changes in health status or physical functioning, life-threatening illness, chronic pain, concerns over aging
  grief and loss, death of a loved one
• moving, immigration, relocation, cultural adjustments

Developing resilience in the face of life transitions

Change is inevitable – everyone experiences life transitions in one way or another and we can expect that we will undergo multiple opportunities to prepare for moments of evolution and growth. Transitions can trigger reactions from past experiences and activate latent emotions, amplifying and complicating the situation.

Transitions counselling is helpful in teaching you to deal with your emotions safely and proactively. As a result, you may find a stronger version of yourself – a new you that is more resilient and tougher for the experience. We learn to “roll with the punches” and find ourselves quicker to recover from stress and difficulties. With the help of transitions counselling, you will find yourself with greater clarity and self-confidence.

Out of the confusion

It can be helpful to have extra support and counselling is one option for supporting yourself through change and life’s ups and downs. Not every life transition is a positive one – some situations may seem hopeless or daunting, leaving you unable to find solutions or inept in facing challenges. Change can also be scary, and you may find yourself overwhelmed or confused through this process, forced to let go of what is familiar and routine to us and drawing us out of our comfort zone. Learning to be flexible in response to change and challenges can help us to bend or adapt to a multitude of experiences that are just part of normal living.

How counselling can help life transitions

Counselling and art therapy can offer an opportunity for review and reflection, and opportunity to talk about things that are important to you. It can provide you with a space where you can disclose feelings and emotions that feel difficult to discuss. I can be your guidance and assistance in walking through challenging situations such as job loss or the death of a loved one. Counselling and art therapy can offer you the freedom to access resources so you can identify your strengths and move forward with your life.

Therapy offers the opportunity to speak with someone who offers a non-judgemental, and objective perspective so you can reconnect to yourself and see your future with greater ease, hope and peace. Through contemplation and consideration, you can begin to reflect upon what you want to transform and where you want to go.

Infertility Counselling

• Do you feel like you’ll never get pregnant?
• Do you feel like everyone is a mother but you?
• Do you wonder if you’ll ever be a parent?
• Do you feel like your body is a failure?
• Could you benefit from fertility counselling?

Dealing with fertility issues can be very stressful and impact your mental health, daily life, your relationship with your partner and sense of self. The infertility journey may involve the difficulty getting pregnant, miscarriages, or terminations for genetic abnormalities. It can make you feel out of control, constantly searching for answers to why you can’t conceive.

It can be difficult to feel a range of emotions such as grief, sadness, anger, envy and even shame when you hear about other’s pregnancies. The sight of a pregnant woman or newborn can shift you into such deep dark grief, sadness – you may feel like you are going crazy, one minute having hope for the future and the next feeling depressed and low because your monthly cycle arrived. This emotional exhaustion is normal under the circumstances. You may feel alone and isolated. It can help to have someone guide you through the process of pursuing fertility and natural treatments, so you don’t feel so overwhelmed by all the decisions and options available to you.

It may feel like infertility is taking over your life:

• disturbed relationships and difficulty relating to others
• anxiety, racing thoughts and panic attacks
• insomnia and stress, emotional exhaustion
• depression, sadness, grief
• envy, jealousy, resentment towards others

The emotional pain that women experience in the face of infertility has the potential to be intense and traumatic. It is normal to need help with this process, and seeing a therapist can help you cope with the emotional struggle involved with infertility. You don’t have to wait until you are having anxiety attacks and feeling depressed – counselling can be a good choice when you need some extra help.

How I can help

I help provide emotional support on your journey as you work through the process of finding coping skills to manage stress associated with infertility and decisions about reproductive technologies (IUI, IVF, ICSI). Together we will explore the underlying feelings and your fertility experience so that you can manage your life and process unresolved issues, with the goal of feeling more connected to possibility, yourself and others. You are not alone – you can seek help and reach out for extra support if needed.

Disordered Eating

Do you feel like your relationship with food is out of control?

Do you use food to cope with emotions that feel uncomfortable?

Do you exercise to excess and are unable to find a balance?

Could you Benefit from Eating Disorders Therapy?

You may battle disordered eating and feel out of control in relationship to food, your weight or your body. Eating disorders involve a range of behaviors related to body image and can involve Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia and Eating Disorders where food is heavily restricted or controlled. Individuals with eating disorders are out of harmony in terms of eating and feeling their bodies’ needs. Compensation for overeating like severe fasting or exercising can feel like the world is spinning and chaotic. Obsessive focus on food, exercise or dieting is linked to poor body image and the inability to accept compliments or criticism.

Find freedom from the chaos and overwhelm – heal your relationship with food through art therapy. In a supportive and compassionate manner, I work with clients to shift ways of thinking around food to healthier options. I invite clients to somatically be in the body, to connect with the body and accept and love your body. You can heal your relationship with food and your obsession with the scale.

Eating Disorder counselling is about letting go of your destructive habits and developing new healthy behaviours that help you nourish your body and your life in a more fulfilling way.