I am an advocate for people.

I’m a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor with the Association of Cooperative Counsellors of Canada. I’m also a husband. And a father to a really great kid.

Before that, I was a journalist, music festival director, cook, landscaper, and silviculture researcher among other things.

My path to becoming a counselling therapist has definitely been a bit of a meandering one. And yet, I’m pretty sure my clients and myself are better off for that journey. 

When I look at the thread that holds it all together for me, it is how much I love and believe in people. It is how much I love listening to, and celebrating people’s stories.

Whether it was the privilege of getting to tell stories on CBC Radio for over a decade, or later as a music festival Artistic Director, celebrating Canadian independent musicians, I love finding the unique and fascinating aspects that are a part of everyone’s personal stories. And I love finding the extraordinary in the seemingly mundane. I’ve always had a deep curiosity for what makes humans do the things we do. 

Entering the field of counselling feels like a deeper dive into uncovering what our stories mean to us. How they shape us. And how much our RELATIONSHIP to those stories matter. Studying at Clearmind International - a program on the leading edge of Systems and Transpersonal Psychology - has proven to be one of the most challenging & rewarding periods of learning and growth I have experienced in my life. 

My own therapeutic journey has seen me address intergenerational trauma in our family, depression, grappling with the effects of ADHD, and systemic shame. Along the way it became imperative that I look for and create new habits and healthy ways to deal with anxiety and grief, rather than reach for unhealthy patterns or substances.

I’ve enjoyed a pretty great life on so many levels, yet that doesn’t negate some of the experiences that I have struggled with. The Japanese side of my family was interned during the second world war and I have felt that trauma in a number of ways, despite not actually living through that experience myself. My father abandoned the family right at the time I was born, and though we would later reconnect, we never really got to have a relationship. And in my teen years I lost my parents, grandparents, and a few dear friends, all in very rapid succession.  

Not having the emotional vocabulary or understanding to process any of that in a healthy way, lead me towards a number of unhealthy behaviours. Primarily, I would stuff and suppress any and all feelings, which lead to a struggle with depression and substance use/abuse. Essentially I was numb, and deeply averse to anything that might trigger an actual feeling in myself. And while I presented to the world as a happy go-lucky type of person, I was fundamentally very lonely, and sad, and avoidant, and didn’t even really understand that things didn’t have to be that way. That numbness would cost me relationships and vitality, as well as physical well being and simply the ability to feel truly alive.  

And then, with support, I began to explore that which I had spent so much time and energy avoiding. I began to befriend the immense grief I had been sitting on. I began to learn to feel the anxiety that I thought I had been avoiding, along with a host of other feelings I didn’t even have names for at the time. And allowing that to just be, and to begin to accept and love myself in that place, opened the door to more love. Both for myself, and for the world. I was able to show up as a partner to my wife, and a father to our daughter, with a greater presence and solidity. I was able to reach out and start to be the kind of community member I had been deluding myself into thinking I already was. None of it changed fundamentally who I am at all. I was simply more able to actually BE myself, authentically, as opposed to the projection I thought people wanted to see.     

My own healing journey is very much still underway, as I continue to reveal, and heal, my own patterning in relationship to others, to myself, and to my experiences in life. It’s a journey I expect will never end, and that’s an idea I actually revel in now.  

The format of my inquiry might have changed over the years but the core of what drives me remains the same, that being a deep love, appreciation, and curiosity about my fellow humans, and why we do the things we do. 

The bottom line is that I really love people. I believe in our ability to heal, and grow and connect, even when that might occur as incredibly difficult, or even impossible some times. And I am honoured and privileged that I have the opportunity to walk along side my clients as they embark on, or continue their own healing journeys. 

My goal is to help you see the possibility of a life that truly inspires you, and to walk along side you as you take steps towards that.