How it Started
My motivation for starting my practice was twofold. I love counselling and I feel very passionate about supporting women through body image and peri-natal related issues; and I also enjoy being a stay at home mother so I wanted to find a way to be able to do this while also working in my career that I love. Starting this practice has been challenging in many ways but I’ve never been more excited than I am about this!
My main goal for my practice is to be able to support and empower women. I want to help women in learning how to trust themselves, their bodies, their intuition. I am passionate about working with women-specific issues because I believe that as women, we have a stronger ability to connect to our intuition than men (sorry guys!) and that when we allow ourselves to tap into this we can empower ourselves and each other. This means allowing ourselves to become vulnerable. It means looking beyond what meets the eye. It takes courage, it is hard work, but it builds strength and allows us to become open, develop self-awareness, and find healing.
Learning to trust myself through my intuition has been a big part of both my personal and professional journey. This began for me as a child with my parents always telling me to "trust my gut"; and this has been continuously reinforced for me throughout university, as well as various supervision and training I have done in my career that has taught the same message. Over and over again I've been reminded that my body never lies and my intuition is always right. It is so easy to disregard this inner sense of knowing, because it is intangible, and therefore undervalued in our society that celebrates numbers and things that come in square boxes!
Living in a culture that frequently disempowers women, there is no wonder why we experience so many issues during the vulnerable experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. As women, we also have a lot of pressure put on us for our external appearance. This seems to be highlighted during pregnancy and motherhood - our bodies are constantly under scrutiny by friends, family, acquaintances and health care professionals. We are so often being judged, criticized, and belittled… not to mention also holding ourselves to unreasonably high standards, doubting ourselves, and comparing ourselves. And all of this is often accepted and encouraged in our society.
After going through pregnancy, birth, and now motherhood myself, as well as being surrounded with pregnant women and mothers, I’ve really noticed the lack of HEALTHY support available and I'm hoping that my practice will help to shift this.
- Jen