by admin | Jan 23, 2026 | EMDR, Mental Health, Positive, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma
We’re deeply honoured that S has chosen to share part of her healing journey and what EMDR has meant for her, even 70 years after a profoundly painful event in her life. It’s an incredible act of trust—and a privilege we don’t take lightly. Thank you, S!
In the Spring of 2022, I was diagnosed in a pain clinic with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the clinic’s Psychologist encouraged me that EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) would be worth pursuing.
I contacted Alongside You, and soon was paired with Kathryn Priest-Peries, a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Registered Social Worker who offered EMDR sessions.
Talk therapy was helpful in my past to deal with my mental health issues and abusive relationships, but having a skilled, experienced therapist use this light therapy (and talk therapy as well) was life-changing for me. Over time, it has explained so much of my life’s journey to me.
My first two appointments with this experienced, caring therapist at Alongside You were about reliving my life’s journey, in which she assessed me.
As a little 4-year-old girl, along with my 7-year-old sister, I was present at the scene where our 9-year-old brother had a tragic accident, which took his life. He was the oldest child in our family. Back then, as an adult, every time I talked about my brother, I cried, and after my EMDR sessions, I understood why. It was indeed PTSD. The memory of seeing him writhing in pain was just as vivid 70 years later.
The painful, hard work began weekly. I expected and was mentally prepared to accept it, but I learned far more than I could have imagined. New feelings I hadn’t been aware of were exposed. They were terrified and alone, and the tears came in abundance. Our family life had changed completely, and as a child, I thought I must have been at fault for something; for one thing, my mother was no longer affectionate. Since my father drove the farm machinery that caused the accident, I carried the guilt I thought he must have felt, or I thought he did. After all, I saw him carrying my brother in his arms and taking him to the hospital.
Fortunately, I escaped the substance abuse addiction of so many with a trauma history, but I had a different addiction. All my life, I tried to figure out how to make myself feel better when I felt others were hurting or sick. Thus, I may have learned to be compassionate and kind, but at times it was unwanted, and it also caused me to feel pain I didn’t need to carry. I suffered from anxiety disorder and depression off and on.
After working through the weeks of EMDR, it was clear to me what I had done, and all of a sudden, I felt much freer. Others noticed, including my daughter, how much I had changed in a short time.
I understand that EMDR is considered a very effective treatment for PTSD, and I agree. What I can say is that it possibly works well if you are willing to deal with mental pain and ready to work through it.
After a month of therapy, I told Kathryn the vision I now had of my brother was him lying at rest alongside my parents and grandparents, and I knew he was safe and not in pain. The scene of the cemetery I had of a dusty, windy place wasn’t the same. My visit to that place a few years before this therapy was to a green, serene, beautiful place, which is what I now see. He is lying safe and pain-free beside his family. My new memory of his last time with us changed thanks to the work of the EMDR sessions, and I do not cry every time I speak of Freddie*. Kathryn told me the therapy was working and doing what it is meant to do.
On occasion, I slip back to old habits. Now, I know that although my old thoughts are still there, my response can be and is different. I am grateful to access appointments with Kathryn because of the Step Forward Program. I still struggle, and the little girl surfaces, but help is available for my situation and is also affordable. EMDR has been a life-changing, invaluable experience, and I am forever grateful. In fact, we still use it in some sessions today.
– S
*Names have been modified to uphold the client’s privacy, as well as their family’s.
If you would like help on your own journey of healing, please connect with us. We’re here to help and it really can feel better, even decades later.
by Anna Hers | Jan 9, 2026 | Anxiety, Mindfulness, Neurodiversity, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma
We’ve all heard it – mindfulness is a mental health powerhouse. It can ease anxiety, depression, stress, and help us stay present.
But what happens if you sit down, relax your body and close your eyes, and instead of feeling amazing it feels… terrible?
It’s not your imagination. For some people, mindfulness can feel like it turns up the discomfort and chaos, instead of turning it down. You’re not doing it wrong—mindfulness can feel difficult for many people, and that’s okay. There are ways around this! Let’s talk about it.
Why Does Mindfulness Feel Worse for Me?
Some people are more likely to feel uncomfortable while trying mindfulness, at least at first.
If you:
- Have a history of trauma
- Grew up with chronic stress
- Have anxiety sensations that you usually try to avoid
- Have strong self-criticism or perfectionism
- Are neurodiverse or have sensory sensitivities
- OR have a condition like anxiety, depression, PTSD or OCD…
… then you might find that these things can pop up extra loud when you try to slow down.
For many people with these experiences, silence and stillness can feel instinctively unsafe. By sitting down and closing your eyes, your nervous system may be anticipating all sorts of threats. So why does this happen?
Why Does Slowing Down Feel Threatening?
Mindfulness uses something called interoception, which is the practice of noticing the sensations in our bodies and thoughts in our minds.
If you grew up with chaos or frequent threats, your brain may have learned to expect danger—even during calm moments. Over time, your baseline body sensations can become linked with a sense of threat, so paying closer attention to them now can sometimes trigger avoidance or panic.
Or if you struggle with negative or obsessive thinking, trying to observe your thoughts without any guidance might be a bit like standing in the middle of a mental hurricane, all while you’re supposed to be sitting still in peaceful bliss. “Well this is horrible,” you might be thinking.
People with neurodiverse brains can especially find long periods of stillness or focusing on the body difficult, even dysregulating. If you have attention challenges you might feel bored, restless, or frustrated when sitting still. If you have sensory sensitivities, you can find the experience of bringing more attention to your internal experience overwhelming. Most neurodiverse people have nervous systems designed for movement or stimulation, and sitting still and focusing quietly can feel unnatural.
And for people with histories of trauma, PTSD or significant anxiety, trying mindfulness on your own might feel like shining a giant spotlight on all your distressing emotions without any safety rails. Noticing uncomfortable feelings can trigger your brain’s alarm system (the amygdala) before your thinking brain (the prefrontal cortex) has a chance to calm it. This hyperarousal is normal for people with trauma, PTSD, or severe anxiety, and isn’t your fault.
The good news? All of this can be managed with practice and a thoughtful approach.
Is Mindfulness Still Worth It?
With all these challenges in mind – is mindfulness still worth it?
The answer is yes, absolutely.
In fact, the people who notice these difficulties the most might be the ones who can gain the most from practicing mindfulness. Even if it feels challenging at first, with guidance and structure, mindfulness can help you develop more awareness, self-compassion, and resilience.
Not convinced yet? That’s fair. Here are the effects we can see with practicing more mindfulness over time:
- Cortisol lowers in the body over time, softening anxiety and stress symptoms.
- Communication improves between your brain’s emotion center and thinking center, helping you tolerate distressing feelings without becoming overwhelmed.
- Your attention, memory and cognitive flexibility improve.
- You can develop more tolerance for the feelings inside your body, helping your nervous system feel safer over time.
- You can learn to be more curious and compassionate with yourself, turning down the volume on rumination and self-criticism.
Ways to Adapt Mindfulness for Your Nervous System
Not sure how to start? Here’s how you can make some changes to your mindfulness practice to better support your nervous system.
Anxiety / Anxiety Disorders
Focusing on your body right away might not be the best fit, so let’s start focusing externally first. Notice something outside of yourself, whether it’s something to look at, a texture to feel, or a sound to listen to. If movement helps, you can stretch or rock your body, or gently shift your weight in a chair.
Try for just 30-60 seconds to avoid flooding your system. If any internal feelings pop up, practice noticing and labelling them without judgement, saying to yourself, “that’s my heartbeat, it will slow down soon”, “my breathing feels shallow right now, but it’ll return to normal”.
Inner Critic or Rumination
Try shorter sessions to take some of the pressure off. Practice observing and labelling what is happening inside you without engaging with it, telling yourself: “that’s a thought” or “that’s a feeling”. If you struggle to stay in the moment, practice self-compassion and say “it’s okay if my mind wanders, noticing that is what I’m practicing”. Celebrate every time you notice your mind wandering. Then, come back to the present moment.
Neurodiverse Brains
Mindfulness doesn’t have to be still. You can practice mindfulness while walking, stretching, doing yoga or even while you do chores. Try doing 30 – 60 second stints, multiple times a day, and focus on external factors like textures, sounds and things you see. Choose your own posture, focus and timing. If it’s hard to stay engaged, try guided exercises with changing stimuli to stay interested. The key is finding what feels sustainable and safe for you.
Trauma / PTSD
Keep your mindfulness sessions short to avoid flooding your nervous system, and start with focusing on external sights, textures, smells and sounds before bringing more awareness to your body. Whenever you’re ready, you can slowly start bringing more awareness to your internal environment, keeping it tolerable.
Help! It Feels Terrible!
If at any point you feel overwhelmed or distressed by your mindfulness exercises, it’s completely okay to stop and take a break, or try again another time. You can also try these things to help with that overwhelmed feeling:
- Find something very cold to hold, like an ice cube or cold pack from the freezer, or splash cold water on your face
- If your body feels tense, do 10 vigorous jumping jacks
- Try the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise: identify 5 things you can see, 4 things you feel, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell, and 1 thing you taste
- While breathing, practice extra slow exhales
- Push your feet into the ground and notice how they feel
- Remind yourself that this feeling is temporary
- If you’ve tried these and still need a distraction, trying listening to music, reading, or doing a task until you’re feeling more relaxed.
There’s Always Help if You Need It
We hope this helps, and sheds some light on why mindfulness might feel extra challenging for you – at least at first – but also why it’s likely worth the effort in the long run.
If you’re not sure where to start and you’d like a safe and thoughtful plan for practicing, our team is here for you! Reach out to us today.
by Tracy Mortensen | Dec 22, 2025 | Children, Family, Mental Health, Parenting, Tips
When children struggle with big emotions like anger, anxiety, or frustration, our instinct as adults is to introduce strategies like deep breathing, distractions, calm-down corners, or mindfulness exercises.
These tools can be helpful, but tend to be more successful after something deeper develops first: awareness.
Awareness is the ability to notice what is happening in the current moment. This includes (and is not limited to) a child’s ability to name what they feel in the moment, where they feel it, and what might have triggered it. This awareness becomes the bridge between emotion and regulation.
Without a child’s awareness, using other strategies is a bit like giving them a toolbox but not teaching how to know when a particular tool should be used, and will keep these other strategies from being as effective.
Awareness Before Regulation
Developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld reminds us that children don’t learn regulation by being taught techniques, but that they develop it as their brains mature and they feel safe and connected. Emotional regulation grows from the inside out, not from external strategies.
Awareness, then, isn’t just a cognitive skill; it’s an emotional unfolding. When a child can feel and notice their emotions, the prefrontal cortex (the “thinking brain”) begins to integrate with the limbic system (the “feeling brain”), and this integration is what allows true self-regulation to form.
As Neufeld often says, children must first feel their emotions before they can manage them.
How Counselling Helps Build Awareness
Counselling provides a space for children to slow down, reflect, and notice – something they might not have access to in their everyday environments.
In counselling, awareness grows through gentle guidance and connection.
A counsellor helps a child:
- Name what they feel without judgment or shame.
- Build a language for their inner world, so they can communicate what they feel inside.
- Notice and discuss body signals, tightness, warmth, fidgeting. This shows how emotions live and show up in their body.
- Understand patterns, what situations spark certain feelings and what helps them settle.
For younger children, this often happens through play, storytelling or creative expression. Through therapeutic play counsellors can help children express what they can’t yet verbalize, and begin to see connections between thoughts, feelings, and actions.
For older children and teens, counselling can help make sense of confusing emotions and normalize that all feelings have a purpose – even anger or anxiety. Over time, awareness becomes the foundation for healthier coping and more confident emotional expression.
Ultimately, counselling isn’t about “fixing” behaviour; it’s about helping a child understand themselves. Counselling first provides a safe space to lay the foundation of awareness, building the scaffolding that later strategies will need to be effective.
Need parenting help when it comes to your child’s awareness of emotions? We can do that – connect with us today.
by Fiona Scott | Dec 15, 2025 | Communication, Family, holiday, Mental Health, Parenting, Seasonal, Self Care, Teens, Tips
Let’s face it: for every Hallmark movie and overly-sentimental advert on our tv showing happy families enjoying together time in peace and harmony – there’s a very stressed-out parent, grandparent or family member trying to figure out a way for a group of people with their own issues, needs, wants and opinions to all be in the same place, at the same time, without World War III erupting …
If you add in a 2SLGBTQIA+ family member into the mix, there are many opportunities for accidental (or deliberate) offense to be given, feelings to be hurt, and opinions to be shared (whether everyone wants to hear them or not). So, if you have a 2SLGBTQIA+ teen or young adult in your family, how can you make sure to be the support they need at this time of year?
Firstly, I think it’s important to recognize that, with the current state of the world as it is, being a young 2SLGBTQIA+ individual is an extremely vulnerable place to be. And so our kiddos need adults in their life who are willing to ensure that they are protected, supported and encouraged. That is one of the reasons that the Step Forward Society has financially enabled Alongside You to start a mental health support group for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, so that there are even more adults in these young peoples’ lives who are there to be part of their ‘team’.
In order to be the best ally you can for a young 2SLGBTQIA+ person, here are some hints, tips and suggestions. These are by no means the only things we can do – but it’s a start to the conversation.
Understand uniqueness
Please remember that every situation is different, every person is different, and every person on earth has their own set of needs to be met in order to thrive. So that’s the first tip – don’t assume! ASK. Here’s just a couple of examples: ask family members you haven’t seen for a while or don’t know well what pronouns they prefer – this normalizes the expectation that peoples’ pronouns will be respected, and makes it more likely that others in the family will follow suit. If you are organizing a family outing, ask if anyone will need access to universal/non-gendered bathroom. If you’re not sure, ask!
Help is only helpful if it’s helping!
Ask what YOUR 2SLGBTQIA+ young person would like help with – are they willing to stand up to homophobic Uncle Zebediah* when he goes on a rant or do they need you to intervene? Do they want you to engage in a stand-up fight for their rights, or would that make them want to melt into the carpet, and they’d rather just be rescued and avoid that particular discussion for another year? In our desire to be our kiddos’ dragon-slayer, and show our pride for them, it can be easy to lose track of the fact that what we’d like to do may be less important right now than what they need us to do.
‘My House, My Rules’
If you have family members who cannot be relied upon to ‘play nice in the sandbox’ around your 2SLGBTQIA+ young person, you can absolutely set the tone if you are hosting. Some families have rules around ‘no politics’, or ‘no religion’ at family gatherings – and if your kiddo is not in a good place to be questioned (or doesn’t feel like educating others, which is absolutely their right) then it is your right to set that expectation with guests in your home.
In order to save everyone embarrassment, and stop feelings running high, I would suggest that you gently and kindly bring this up prior to any large family gathering, so that the expectation is set. You could even have some allies in your family who are willing to spot any potential tinder-points and rush in to ‘deal’ with Uncle Zebediah (eg get him talking about his antique shoe polish collection).
The Great Escape
No, not the 1963 Steve McQueen movie (although that is a good flick!). I’m talking about giving the young 2SLGBTQIA+ person you are supporting options – this could look like asking them to help with younger family members (so that they’re simply not free to engage in a conversation with Uncle Zebediah). Obviously, if they enjoy kids, that’s great – but whatever plan you come up with (together with them, of course) – should be something that they enjoy, too.
Maybe this looks like a family hike, or trip to a Christmas village or lights installation, so that people are walking around, splitting into groups, having something else to focus on (and there is an opportunity for them to ‘disappear’ and gather themselves for a few minutes if they’re getting overwhelmed). Or a trip to the theatre or movies so that opportunities for conversation are naturally limited.
This could also look like making sure that your kiddo has opportunities to get out of the house and visit with their friends over the holiday, so that they have a pressure valve built in to their break. Same goes for you! Try to make sure you get opportunities to have a break, so that you can fully appreciate the holidays.
Comfort and Joy
Comfort clothing, comfort foods, comfort shows … there are many ways in which we use comfort items to help us regulate our emotions. You may have an expectation that the whole family dress up in matching Christmas PJs for photos and be frustrated if your kid doesn’t want to comply. But perhaps they’re experiencing body dysphoria and this make them feel worse about themselves, but their vintage Metallica hoody makes them feel OK.
Or perhaps you want everyone to watch ‘A Christmas Story’ and it’s frustrating that someone in your family wants to watch Brooklyn 99, or the Gilmore Girls, or a Studio Ghibli movie, again. Slaving for hours over the perfect holiday meal, only to have your kiddo rummage in the pantry for ramen noodles? I bet that raises some hackles!
My point is that we seek comfort because it helps us to cope with our emotions and, in higher stress times, the tendency is to look for the things we know well, so there are no surprises, and nothing new for our brains and nervous systems to have to adapt to. So, if you’re noticing these comfort-seeking behaviours in your 2SLGBTQIA+ child, it’s a sure sign that they’re feeling stress in some way. At this point, it’s worth asking yourself what your intention for the holiday is – do you want it all to ‘look’ the way you imagined in your mind, regardless of whether everyone is happy or not? Or do you want to make people feel at ease, encourage each member of the family to join in by meeting their needs – and in the process, have a chance to experience real joy.
Summary
There are as many options to support your young 2SLGBTQIA+ loved ones as there are colours in the Pride rainbow! But the take-away is that validating our kiddos’ feelings, paying attention to their needs and asking what truly would help them the most are all good ways to make sure that everyone has a peaceful, happy and fulfilling holiday.
All of us at Alongside You and Step Forward Society wish you a very happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season, whatever and however you celebrate.
*our apologies to anyone actually named Zebediah! No offense intended.
by Andrew Neufeld | Dec 15, 2025 | Grief, holiday, hope, Mental Health, Seasonal
It’s been a while since I wrote for our blog, and as usual, it’s motivated by what I’m noticing in my own experience leading up to the holidays. The title of the blog is a bit tongue-in-cheek – anyone who knows my reading habits well knows that I love C.S. Lewis, who has a particularly brilliant book called Surprised By Joy. Surprised By Grief, however, is my attempt at humanizing the holidays, with a nod to my own discoveries of grief this year.
There are many definitions of grief, and certainly, many definitions amongst professionals. We were fortunate to have a grief expert, Dena Moitoso, do a lunch-and-learn with our team this year and it was very helpful (and yes, she is in fact, the mother of our very own Marcia Moitoso!). She highlighted so many important things about grief, but one of the most important in my mind, is that the experience of grief by an individual is heavily influenced by how their grief comes to be, and how it’s treated by those around them. I have to admit that through the course of my life I haven’t really given my own grief a lot of attention, understanding, or even acknowledgement. Perhaps it’s that German-Ukrainian Mennonite upbringing again, perhaps it’s my personality, or likely all of the above that has lead to this. Perhaps it’s neurodivergence – I know my ADHD certainly impacts how I see, and process many things. Whatever the case may be, I’ve been intentional this year to pay attention, mainly because I haven’t really had much of a choice because it’s made itself known in ways that weren’t particularly considerate of my desire to engage.
How It Started
It started with the loss of our dog, Buttercup, this past May. She was 4 days short of her 15th birthday when she passed. Understandably, it was heartbreaking for our kids, and for my wife. My kids can’t remember a time without Buttercup, and Buttercup was a constant companion for Meg, particularly in the early years post-accident. Buttercup could always tell how Meg’s pain was each day without Meg ever having to say anything. What I didn’t expect was how hard it hit me. I wrote a couple of posts on LinkedIn about it here, and here. Don’t get me wrong, I loved our dog, but I’m very much a dog owner who differentiates between dogs and humans. I didn’t think it would hit me as hard as it did, but here we are. What was different this time around was that I let it. I shared openly about it, with people in my life, with clients (as it seemed appropriate to do so), and publicly. I let myself cry, and that does not come easily to me, though I’m getting better at it.
Then, I was confronted with the grief of my own mental health journey. It’s still something I’m unpacking, but between my therapist not letting me off the hook, and me intentionally creating some space in my own life to pay attention, I’m starting to understand just how impactful it’s been on my life. Long story very short, I’ve started to grieve for the kid who discovered what depression was at age 6. I’ve started to grieve the terror he felt for the next 20 years, and all of the things he felt he had to do or not do in dealing with it.
This was amplified recently when we lost a client to suicide at the clinic. It always hits therapists hard when they lose a client, and it’s why we work as a team here, not in isolation. What surprised me about this recent experience was that, while of course I was heartbroken for the family and for our therapist who had worked with them, I immediately connected with my own experience earlier in life where it very well could have been me. That’s when the grief hit like a freight train – for myself, and for the client, and for their family.
Most recently, grief hit while I was experiencing a lot of joy. My wife and I don’t give each other gifts really, we don’t want more stuff – so we give each other time. We do our best to get away for a night together and eat good food, do things we enjoy, all without the myriad of distractions that go on in our daily life. We ended up at the Good Noise gospel choir concert downtown, directed by our dear friend, Warren Dean Flandez. It was phenomenal, and full of so much joy. And the grief hit me big time in the middle of the concert, and surprise would be an understatement. And then it was book-ended by joy.
All this to say, grief is complicated. Joy can also be complicated in that it can co-occur with grief and often does (in my experience). The Christmas story and the holidays bring both front and centre to me, particularly this year, and it happens for so many. We recently collaborated with Heron Hospice Society, Estuary Church, and Ladner United Church to put on an event called Circle of Light for community members who have lost loved ones. It was a chance to acknowledge the dialectic that are the holidays – so much joy, and often, so much grief.
How It’s Going
Christmas is a time I’ve struggled with a lot over the years with my depression – feeling like we’re supposed to be happy, when sometimes we’re just not. Or maybe we are happy, but it’s complicated with sadness, or grief, or both. It struck me this week as I was reflecting on the Christmas story, that the first Christmas was likely full of these things too. If you’ve read the story, Mary and Joseph were travelling many miles, with a pregnant Mary riding a donkey, to comply with the Roman census. When we read that “there’s no room in the Inn,” it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t stay at the Four Seasons and had to settle for the Holiday Inn Express. No, it means they found a cave, full of dirty animals that smelled like something most of can’t even imagine, and gave birth to a baby that in the Christian tradition, was to be the saviour of the world. Not how I would have planned it, and I’m pretty sure there were some complicated emotions.
What often amplifies this for me (and this is my belief, not something I am trying to push on anyone else), is that according to the Bible, Jesus would grow up and become a sacrifice for humanity to restore the relationship between humanity and an all-knowing, all-powerful God. Those last bits are important. What this means is that God knew what would happen to this baby before it was born, and He chose to send Him anyways. The part that gets me, is that He made this choice, knowing who I am and all of my imperfections, and did it anyways. I can’t image the level of grief, and the level of joy He experienced in this part of the story.
I tell you all of this, not because I’m trying to preach in a non-religious blog for a non-religious mental health clinic. I’m telling you this because it’s necessary in order for you to understand my experience and what I’m trying to share with you – because my depression, my anxiety, some of the hard things I’ve experienced in life, some of the things I’ve done to try to deal with these things in unhealthy ways, have often led me to believe that I’m unworthy, that I’m a hopeless case, that I’ll never feel better, and many other things.
This is why this Christmas story is so important in my own journey of grief – it helps me know that I’m loved, that I’m worth it, and that there’s hope, and it can get better.
Hope For The Future
What I’m hoping for in sharing this with you, is that you’ll hear me saying, “However you’re feeling going into the holidays is ok.” If you’re grieving, I’m with you. If you’re experiencing joy, I’m with you. If you’re wondering how you’re going to survive the holiday mayhem, I’ve been there and I’m with you. If you’re looking forward to it, I’m with you.
Feelings are complicated. We don’t get to choose them, we just have them. If you’re human, you’ve experienced things that lead to grief and it’s ok to feel that too. The good news is that we’re capable of holding seemingly opposite feelings at the same time. We can experience joy, sadness, hope, and grief together. That’s not you being a mess, or a screwup, or “too much,” that’s you being human with the rest of us. You just don’t usually see it on a Christmas card.
If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate the effort and I hope it’s been worth it. Since this is my last chance to do so before the end of the year, I want to say thank you for letting us take care of you here at Alongside You. We’re far from perfect, and we’re human just like you, but we do always, and will always do our best to be both human, and helpful in caring for you.
My hope is that whatever traditions you have over these holidays, that you’ll be kind to yourself, that you’ll know that grief doesn’t take a holiday and if it shows up for you that you’re not alone, and that there’s hope. I appreciate every client who trusts us to take care of them, and I’m excited for what 2026 holds for all of us.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and Happy New Year to you and all of your loved ones.
