For the most part, I’m an open book and feel comfortable sharing my thoughts and life experiences. But when it came to writing a blog post discussing my faith and spirituality, this gave me pause—not because I’m uncertain of my convictions, but because of the legacy and reputation attached to the terms “Christian” and “Christian counselling.”

I’ll be as clear as possible about what I believe and what I mean when I use the term “Christian counsellor” …

Parenting teenagers can be a tricky task, but also incredibly rewarding. In the previous article, we looked at two things parents of teenagers need to stop doing. In this post, we’ll focus on two things they need to start doing: start paying attention & start letting go.

It might not be an easy transition for you to make, but I’m confident that this change will significantly improve the health and wellbeing of your whole family…

Parenting teenagers is a wild ride… and I’m confident in saying that even the best parents have their communication and relationship skills stretched to max capacity when their kids hit the teen years.

Thankfully, it’s not all bad, and there is lots you can do to make these years enjoyable for both you and your child…

For those of you who are like me and don’t like conflict (I mean—really don’t like conflict), I want to share something with you that helped me become able to handle conflict situations better. It’s not “five easy steps” or some secret knowledge that came to me in a dream. It’s something that I gained from counselling, and something that I like to help my clients with too.

The issue with jargon is that it becomes common place language that loses it’s meaning over time. Or, in the case of the term “trauma-informed”, everyone adds the tag to their website or Psychology Today profile because it sounds good—even though both the therapist and client might not know what it actually means…

“Never let them see you sweat ,” is what I thought to myself. I could feel the weight of the stressful event clinging to me throughout the afternoon and into the evening, but I carried on—until I couldn’t carry on anymore…

“You mean, a ‘counsellor’? Heck no. I’ve tried that before and it didn’t work. They just gave me some dumb coping skills and sent me on my way.”

I operate with a simple principle for my health, and it translates into my work as a counsellor: don’t work at coping with the issue harder than you are willing to work to resolve it. In other words, don’t waste your time and energy getting a temporary fix, if you could instead experience true and lasting relief…

I’ve recommended tons of people to different counsellors around Saskatoon over the years. But the common objection I hear in response is, “Why? How could that help?”

I must admit—I’m only ‘slightly’ biased... but please hear me out.

Before I was a counsellor, I was a client…