Your body holds the key to your healing

Temple of Belonging

It’s time to stop turning away from the precious world within your body, which has housed the unwanted, unloved parts of you. A temple of immutable silence, so alive and so spacious, unconditionally loving every bit of your real, lived experience. It’s time to stop the suffering that continues with self-abandonment and honor the house of belonging within which these parts have found true refuge long ago. Within which, your innermost truths have been resting in the shadows.  Let yourself endeavor to explore this sacred terrain with courage, curiosity and reverence for the truth. And meet what lies dormant in the caverns of your unconscious-- only ever to enliven that which has always been worthy, loveable and deserving--but not been treated as such. Bestow radical acceptance, regard and awe to unlock the mystery and power that’s held within the somatic terrain of your whole being and body. Let every inch of your soma be a doorway to this temple of remembrance. Home. Where every emotion, a beloved kin, is offered their rightful seat at the table of an awake heart - written by Marijana Jozic

Body-Centered Psychotherapy - An integrative, holistic approach

My integrative and body-centered approach combines the latest advances in trauma focused therapies with the best in evidenced-based care and a holistic, integrated approach to help clients experience whole-being healing. My integrative method is tailored to what works and resonates for you at this time to help you shed the shame of the past, heal core wounds of unworthiness and make direct contact with your wholeness. 

So you can take on the potential of a future Self that is more whole, more authentically expressed, alive in your heart and awake in your body-mind.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing), Compassionate inquiry, somatic attachment therapy, and realization process embodied meditation work at the somatic level and are approaches that facilitate deeper contact, release of trauma within the fascia and 

Sessions are focused on expanding the body-mind connection.

  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapeutic technique that uses bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements, to process and alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. This approach helps reduce the emotional intensity of past experiences, enabling the brain to reprocess trauma. EMDR is recognized for its ability to accelerate the healing process from psychological stress and trauma.

  • Compassionate Inquiry is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Maté that focuses on uncovering the hidden origins of trauma and chronic conditions. This method guides clients through a process of self-discovery by gently questioning and exploring painful emotional territories, facilitating deep personal insight. The technique emphasizes a non-judgmental and accepting atmosphere, encouraging profound healing and connection with one's authentic self.

  • Somatic Attachment Therapy is a holistic, body-centered approach to attachment based therapy, including a deeper understanding of the body’s relationship with developmental and relational wounding and healing. SAT guides you into the wisdom of your body to restore the innate capacity to bond, form healthy and adaptive boundaries, and flourish in all aspects of relationships.
    SAT helps:

    • Restore the body as a place of safety and as a conduit for love

    • Feel an embodied core sense of self

    • Compassionately renew a felt sense of connection and security

    • Release stored tensions in the body that contribute  to defensiveness, avoidance, or anxiety

    • Expand the capacity to process body (preverbal and nonverbal) memory

    • Metabolize unprocessed emotions

    • Create deep and sustaining intimate relationships

    • Break the cycle of reenacting protective attachments patterns in relationships

    • Create the internal and external conditions for attachment repatterning versus merely working with symptom reduction.

    • Restore your optimal relationship to yourself and the world around you

    • Enhances the capacity for joy, trust, managing disappointments and rejections

  • The Realization Process is an innovative system of meditation practices that facilitate embodied nondual awakening, uncovering an ever-present spacious stillness pervading your whole body and environment. Developed by psychotherapist and nondual teacher Judith Blackstone, Ph.D., these sitting, standing, lying, and gentle movement exercises help you become more present in the whole internal space of your body. 

    Being more embodied allows you to come into deeper contact with yourself, others, and your environment. The Realization Process helps refine your human capacities, such as physical sensation, emotional responsiveness, understanding, and perception. Using precise techniques to open the subtle energy centres and channels, you will also cultivate your essential qualities of being, such as awareness, self-expression, love, power, and vitality.

Research shows that the relationship between client and therapist outweighs any modality-no matter how ‘effective’ it’s purported to be. Its effectiveness falls short without a secure connection with one’s therapist.  

When I worked as an addictions therapist fresh out of graduate school, some clients would tell me how important it was for them to work with a therapist that experienced and overcame addiction in order to feel deeply understood. I could not offer that level of understanding to my clients. I could offer compassion, because I was able to see their true essence, and that went a long way but it wasn’t enough for them to feel secure to continue therapy with me. I was able to support clients affected by addiction because I understood that. Those encounters as an addictions therapist altered me and how I do therapy today.

I am not a traditional therapist.

I share this with  you because the suffering I have experienced in my lifetime has been relationship-based, which is why the therapy I provide is relational and holistic, including the body and spirit - because we cannot relate wholly if the body is not included.

You may feel more understood, more received, more inspired and encouraged by knowing …

I have walked the path from...distrusting to discerning; resentment to understanding; powerlessness to inner freedom and conscious embodied action; self-hatred to self-compassion; unworthy to worthy; fragmented to more whole. 

So as effective and powerful as any of the above modalities may be, I know that they are empowered by my integrity along with our capacity to connect in a way that feels safe and honoring of what you need now.

Relational wounding is healed in safe relationship – which is why creating a safe container for my clients to courageously explore unchartered territory within their body-mind is foundational to our work together.  

My goal is for my clients to leave feeling more empowered and more in contact with who they really are, more whole.

And it would be my honor and joy to guide you on your whole-being journey.

Working with Me Privately

I am licensed to offer trauma therapy and clinical counselling in the province of British Columbia, Canada. 

Clients from other parts of the world can see me in my capacity as a consultant or mentor. Consulting and mentorship clients do not receive insurance reimbursement and is contingent upon you being mentally and behaviorally stable enough to not need more formal mental health treatment.

If my invitation to work together feels resonant, please reach out and book a consultation to explore the possibilities of working together.

  • A Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) in British Columbia, Canada, is a certified professional trained to provide therapeutic services to individuals, families and groups focusing on mental health and wellbeing. These counsellors hold a minimum of a Master’s degree in counselling psychology or a related field and are licensed by the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC). This certification assures adherence to rigorous ethical standards and ongoing professional development. RCC’s in BC utilize diverse psychotherapeutic techniques, customizing their approach to meeting the specific needs of their clients.

  • These rates apply to payment via paypal, credit card, cash or cheque. 

    45-minute session/$160

    60 minutes/$175

    75 minutes/$190

    2-hour/

    Contact me for information about mentorship packages and rates, and payment plans for EMDR intensives.

  • We can meet outdoors in the openness of nature, stay in the comfort of a cozy office, or you can stay in your house and we can meet online.