In an article entitled, "Modern do's and don'ts for parents of gay kids coming out" by Ryan E. Thompson and featured on CBC Life , Thompson writes about the things to say (or not say) when your child comes out to you. Written with some cheeky wit, Thompson lists 5 key pieces of advice: Foster a positive LGBTQ atmosphere. "Create a sense of diversity/openness in your home where your kids can feel comfortable if they are questioning. Don't assume everyone in the world is stra

I recently finished a podcast series entitled "The Band Played On," hosted by journalist Julie Ireton and featured on CBC Radio. It was a 7 episode podcast which featured stories of historical, sexual abuse at the hands of three teachers, spanning four decades, involving forty-four identified victims. And it all happened from the 1970's - 1990's in an Ottawa high school. The podcast itself was very well done; there were many interviews with the victims, we were able to foll

I sat with a client recently who told me that she didn't like the word survivor. Having suffered through sexual abuse by an uncle for almost four years of her childhood, she noted that the word felt wrong to her. She also didn't particularly like the word victim; she felt that both defined her in a way that didn't fit her experience. From a therapist's perspective, when someone is victimized, they experience an event to which they had no control over. The traumatic experienc

Over the Canada Day weekend we spent some time at a cottage with friends. Beautiful weather, views of Georgian Bay, waterskiing and tubing (not for me...but I enjoyed the boat!), time spent relaxing and catching up, meals shared squished around a table, laughter and connection high on the priority list. Kim is a high school friend, which means we are going on 30 plus years of friendship. From high school on, we have been challenged by living 4 hours apart. During university,

There is something about this photo, captured on one of my walks, that fascinates me. In looking more closely, there are a couple of elements of interest to this picture. Firstly, you will notice that an evergreen tree has begun to grow out of an old stump; what is decayed and slowly returning to the earth is providing nutrients to what began as a fragile seedling. This new tree is now tied to the history of the stump; much like we are tied to the history of our ancestors.

I have just completed both a podcast and a book that feature what I would consider to be examples of intergenerational trauma. The first was a podcast called "Finding Cleo;" featuring Connie Walker, a journalist for CBC Radio , who explores cold cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Although the podcast is primarily about trying to find answers, and therefore closure, to Cleo's family, it also themes the damaging effects of both residential schools and the 60's Sc

We have just come back from a lovely long weekend visiting friends in Upper Economy, Nova Scotia. It was time to reconnect and relax; enjoy the beautiful views of the Bay of Fundy, while taking in the local sights and sounds of typical Nova Scotia life. The friends we visited are imports to Upper Economy and it has been two years since we have seen them last; they decided to move to the Bay of Fundy from our area when an opportunity presented itself to uproot and replant. It

In a recent podcast in Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations with Marie Forleo we hear from entrepreneur, Marie Forleo with the concept that "everything is figureoutable." Here is what she has to say: "What this is is a practical discipline. This is an approach to life that can make you virtually unstoppable. Not unstoppable in the sense that everything will go your way; cause you know that it won't. And not unstoppable in the way that you'll never get disappointed, or feel defe

In a recent article I read entitled "Isolation and Loneliness: What's the Difference?" featured on GoodTherapy , they explore these two concepts in a way to get to understand their differences. "Isolation occurs when a person has little or no contact with other people. It can occur over long or short periods of time and is a distinctly physical state. Isolation may be characterized by staying home most of the time, refusing interpersonal interaction and avoiding social...

Our body image is tied to our self image. When we don't feel good in our bodies, it affects our emotional health as well; we can feel grumpy when we pull on our two-tight jeans, or allow negative thoughts to influence our mind set when we walk past a mirror. Western society doesn't do food right; fast paced and a "more is better" focus has led the food industry to double and almost triple our portion sizes and calorie intake. Here are some interesting facts, then and now: I

In an article entitled "My Brother Tom's Schizophrenia" by Marin Sandy and featured in the New Yorker , we are given a bird's eye view of what one family's struggle was with schizophrenia. Defined as a chronic and severe mental illness, it is characterized by symptoms that include delusions and hallucinations, reduced social engagement, flat affect,and poor executive functioning. A fascinating, inside view of what living with someone who has schizophrenia is like, this stor

A client the other day started talking about Aristotle and the "Golden Mean." I asked her for greater clarification and remarked that it was a wonderful way to think about our own goals when it comes to dealing with extremes. This led me to finding out that Aristotle, of ancient Greek philosophy, defined "Golden Mean" as “the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.” For Aristotle, this was a call to virtue. When we are faced with e

Fear can be quite tenacious. When our fear response engages, it alerts us to danger; it cautions us against movement forward. Which, hey, works great if there is a bear in our path! But perceived fears will trigger the same type of response, which can make us feel stuck or in limbo. We often inherently know when a decision has to be made that will elicit some much needed movement but we hesitate. Perhaps it is a relationship we need to leave, perhaps we feel unsatisfied with

We had our first camping weekend of the season; surprisingly warmer than I anticipated (I had brought my winter hat to sleep in, just in case), and the rain mostly held off. We have been tent camping for about 20 years, two to three weekends in the summer season. It takes a lot of prep work and the car is full to the brim when we pull into our site, but there is just something about camping that draws us back to it every year. Perhaps it is the connection we feel with nature

When I was in high school (the late 80's in a small, rural town), no one in my graduating class was gay. CORRECTION : no one in my high school class would have felt supported enough to authentically identify and live as gay, bisexual or trans. Although I like to think that based on friendship, we would have been accepting, society at the time hardly encouraged it, and coming out would have been too frightening of a prospect. Let's face it; history has never been that straigh

In a recent article entitled "How Restrictive Diets Mess with Our Brains and Lead to Bingeing" by Roni Davis and featured on tinybuddha, Davis writes about her experience with restrictive dieting and subsequent development of an eating disorder. What I especially resonated with in this article is what she says about the overall process of restricting and how it affects us psychologically: "There are many reasons behind why we eat what we eat, when we eat, and even the quant

As my sister and I continue to prepare our parent's home to be sold, we have been blessed by the kindness of their neighbours. Since our mother's passing in November, the driveway was shoveled after every snowfall, mail taken in, and offers of coffee when we were there working. As we near the day that the house will be placed on the market, we continue to be grateful for a kind word or a hug from the people that they had formed connections with in the past 15 years. This pas

Ah, the online dating world! I can tell you that I came into it rather reluctantly as I was pretty sure that I was going to meet someone the old fashioned way. Ha! Two blind dates and then a 6 month lull convinced me I needed to bridge the waters of cyber-space dating. Being fairly introverted by nature, I had to gear myself up; I read a book about what to expect and then headed to my best friend's house where we set up my profile over a glass (or two) of wine. It was a fun w

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about the book "educated" by Tara Westover . I recently listened to Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations podcast in which Tara was being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. Two things that Tara spoke about I found to be quite introspective: "Thinking about the world from another person's point of view is incredibly difficult and I think it is what an education is really. And the thing we don't know is, or we don't acknowledge, is that respecting o

I came across the website "Hope Heals;" an initiative being led by the Public Relations class of Algonquin College . In one of their featured stories, a student named Ellen Grickites, speaks about her experience with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT is a fairly well known therapy and is often accompanied by other types of therapies as a practical approach to challenging some of our core beliefs and automatic thoughts. There is a natural link between our thoughts, our feeli