Individual, Child & Family Counselling

05/23/2025

05/23/2025

Great list of characteristics for sensory kiddos as well as ADHD - a lot of similarities. Great to use for teachers, coaches, family, friends.

Do these look familiar for your sensory kiddo?

03/01/2024

Training for Brainspotting Level 3 this weekend 🙏❤️

06/13/2023

The death of a loved one changes us. As Anne Lamott has written, you eventually learn how to dance again, but you now dance with a limp. Nothing is the same as it was before. We are forever changed.

Grief is a transformative experience that brings us to our knees. Some shut down for a few weeks, some for years or a lifetime. Either way, life demands we continue to live. It is up to us as to whether or not we will keep dancing.

In the early days of grieving, life with the book of our grief feels solitary. There is no room for anything else on our emotional shelves; it takes up all available space. Just breathing and existing during early grief can take up all the space we inhabit, all the energy we can muster.

Grief doesn’t go away. There’s no such thing as closure. Not really. But time does and will, if we will allow, soften our grief around the edges, gently dulling the sharp lines.

We learn to live around our grief. Grief stays on the shelf, remaining as we left it. Memories of love and beauty become the chapters we return to. At times we return to the more painful chapters, and discover continued healing and grace available to us as we go.

We remain mindful that the most loving way to honor our loved one is to honor ourselves and the life we are still living. Nothing brings them more peace.

Life grows around our grief, and we continue to grow around it. We never grow out of it. But we discover that we are capable of experiencing the joy and happiness of this life right alongside our deepest pain. They can and do exist together, as one.

🌱

©NikkiVelasquez2023

(Graphic: Cherie Altea, The Jar of Salt)

01/01/2020

This ❤️

10/27/2019

10/12/2019

Interesting read on what happens when we suppress feelings .

Our feelings aren’t problems. They are trying to move us into the direction of health and well-being on a physical, emotional, and mental level.

07/08/2019

Child Psychotherapist, Jeanette Yoffe, MFT explains the kid version of Daniel Siegel's HAND MODEL OF THE BRAIN. Share with children ages 3 and up, provide th...

06/26/2019

Don't miss out on this amazing conference. Early bird registration ends this week and spots are running out. Go to ottawacatt.com if you want to join us.

06/17/2019

We could have told them that.

04/04/2019

PLEO is a fabulous resource for parents who have children struggling with mental health issues .

Parenting a child who is struggling with emotional dysregulation, behavioural issues or addictive behaviours can be a very difficult and lonely place for parents. It can feel overwhelming and impossible to do it alone.

We've been there. We get it. And we can help.

Join us this week in Pembroke, Hawkesbury and at Crossroads Mental Health Children's Centre in Ottawa or our monthly Parent Support Groups. No need to register.

Call our Parents' Helpline at 613-321-3211 | 1-855-775-7005, or check out our website below to learn more about how our Family Peer Supporters - parents who have supported their own child facing mental health or addiction challenges - can help.
https://www.pleo.on.ca/support-services/parent-support-groups/