evolve Psychotherapy and Consulting Group Inc.

12/16/2025

Please never forget
How brave it is
To continue to show up
In a story
that looks so
Different than what
You thought it’d be.

Please never forget
How brave it is
To dream up next chapters
While honoring the ones
That closed so painfully.

Please never forget
How brave it is,
To continue
To explore next pages
Despite feeling
Fear and anxiety.

Please never forget
How brave it is,
To hope and dream
Amidst the uncertainty.

-Liz Newman

12/15/2025

The holidays don’t pause grief.
If anything, they often wake up what hurts.

Maybe it’s an empty chair.
A song you can’t listen to.
A memory that suddenly feels close again.

For some of us, this time of year is tender. I feel that too — I lost my dad in 2016, and twin boys at birth over twenty years ago. They are still with me, and some holidays are harder than others.

If you’re:

holding it together on the outside and aching on the inside

feeling pressure to be “festive” when your heart just isn’t there

wondering if it’s okay that grief is showing up now

…I wrote something for you.

🕯️ New on the blog: “When the Holidays Wake Up What Hurts”
It’s a gentle read on why this season can be so activating, how grief can look and feel, and some ways to care for yourself (and those you love) when the holidays are hard.

👉 You can read it on our website in the Articles and Insights section:

https://evolvegroupinc.net/blog/when-the-holidays-wake-up-what-hurts

You’re not broken for finding this season difficult.
I see you. Your grief is yours, and it is real.

12/13/2025

If your peace only exists when everything aligns perfectly, then what you’re holding onto isn’t peace at all — it’s control.

Real peace is deeper than ideal circumstances. It’s the ability to stay grounded even when plans shift, answers delay, and life feels uncertain. Growth happens when you learn to breathe through discomfort, trust yourself in the unknown, and choose calm without needing everything to make sense first.

Life will always bring change. People will change. Seasons will change. What truly matters is who you become in the middle of it all. When you stop fighting uncertainty and start flowing with it, you discover a stronger, wiser, more emotionally mature version of yourself.

That steadiness — the kind that doesn’t shake at every disruption — is the real evidence of inner work. And that, my dear, is true growth.

12/08/2025

🤍

12/08/2025

Holiday gatherings can feel like emotional minefields for anyone struggling with food or their body.

If you love someone who struggles with food, body image, or their weight — in any body size — please read the following for ways you can genuinely help:

It’s not just people who are very underweight. It’s the person who also:
• is constantly dieting or “making up for” what they ate
• feels out of control around certain foods
• skips meals or hides how little they’re eating
• secretly binges or purges
• avoids eating in front of others
• works out to “earn” or “burn off” food
• hates how they look in photos and avoids being in them, or can’t stop checking their body in mirrors, reflections, or by pinching, weighing, or measuring themselves

Please avoid body comments and food policing this season.

Even “positive” comments can hurt:
🚫 “You look so well!”
🚫 “You look better now.”
🚫 “You’re so thin / you look amazing.”
🚫 “You don’t even look sick.”

For many people with an eating disorder,
“you look well/better” can be translated as:

“You’ve gained weight.”
“You’re fat.”

And food comments can be just as harmful:
🚫 “Are you getting seconds?”
🚫 “Do you really need that?”
🚫 “Wow, you’ve eaten a lot.”
🚫 “I wish I could eat like that.”
🚫 “Be good… you can work it off tomorrow.”

These kinds of comments can fuel restriction, bingeing, purging, obsessive guilt and shame — regardless of someone’s body size.

Instead of focusing on what they eat or how they look, try focusing on them:

✨ “It’s really good to see you.”
✨ “I’m really glad you’re here.”
✨ “How have you been feeling lately?”
✨ “Is there anything that would make today easier for you?”

Small shifts in language can make holiday spaces feel safer and softer for the people you love. 💛

If you’re supporting someone with eating struggles and it feels like a lot to carry, you are not alone.
Reach out. We are here to help.

W: evolvegroupinc.net
E: therapy@evolvegroupinc.net
P: 519-639-4698

12/05/2025

So often, we treat anger like something shameful - especially in children.
We tell them to calm down, quiet down, go to their room, or “stop overreacting.”
And sometimes, we do it with the best of intentions — because we were never taught what to do with our own anger, either.

But anger isn’t the problem.
It’s a signal.
A sign that something feels unfair, unsafe, or out of control.

So no — the goal isn’t to teach our children NEVER to feel angry.
That just teaches them to suppress it, to disconnect from themselves, and to carry it in their bodies in ways that show up later — in anxiety, in self-doubt, in passive aggression, or explosive outbursts.

The goal is to teach them how to be angry.
How to notice it.
Name it.
Move through it.
Express it without hurting others — or themselves.

Because when we help children understand their anger, we’re not just raising kids who behave well.
We’re raising emotionally intelligent humans.
People who can advocate for themselves, navigate conflict,
and stand up for what matters —
without causing harm.

Anger, when met with compassion and guided with care, becomes a tool for growth.
A pathway to understanding...

And that’s the kind of strength the world needs more of. ❤️

Quote Credit: Lyman Abbott ❣️

Follow for more

12/04/2025

Many of us learned early that staying connected meant disconnecting from ourselves — not because we wanted to, but because it felt like we had to. Those survival patterns still show up as going quiet, apologizing for needs, shrinking to keep the peace, and saying “it’s fine” when your body says otherwise.

If you still go quiet, shrink yourself, or disappear to keep the peace… this event is for you.

Awakening the Forgotten Self- Rediscover who you were before the world told you who to be.

A full-day, experiential space for the ones who go quiet, freeze, or over-function — to finally understand why you leave yourself and how to stay with you, even when it’s hard.

📅 Save the date: April 25, 2026

More details coming soon!

12/04/2025

Still time to vote!!

Official 2025 Community Voting Awards Platform for London, ON. Where the community votes for their favourites every year.

12/04/2025

🤎

12/04/2025

Here’s the part no one talks about:

1. Your attachment style was shaped before you knew what attachment even meant.

When a child reaches for emotional closeness and the parent doesn’t meet them there, the child doesn’t stop needing love…they stop expecting it.

2. Your nervous system learned to live in “freeze” or “fawn.”

Because in your childhood home:
• expressing feelings got you ignored
• needing comfort got you rejected
• showing pain made you “dramatic”
• seeking attention got you shamed

So you adapted, beautifully, painfully, silently.

3. You became self-reliant too early.

Not because you were “strong,”
but because no one was emotionally available to lean on. You learned to swallow tears, hide fears, and handle everything alone.

4. You internalized the idea that your feelings were inconvenient.

Your parent’s blank face became your blueprint for adulthood:

• you don’t know how to ask for help
• you apologize for having needs
• you choose people who are distant
• you confuse anxiety with love
• you stay where you are unseen

And here’s the most heartbreaking part:

Children don’t stop loving emotionally unavailable parents. They stop loving themselves.

That was the wound.
That was the beginning.

WHY YOU STRUGGLE TODAY (Psychology & Attachment)

This is why you:

• overthink every relationship
• feel emotionally disconnected but don’t know why
• shut down when things get too intimate
• attract partners who make you feel how your parents made you feel
• crave closeness but fear it at the same time
• look “strong” to everyone else but feel empty inside

You’re not broken.
You’re responding exactly how a child responds when emotional needs go unmet.

Everything goes back to the home that raised you. Everything.

If this feels painfully true…

📘 I Didn’t Choose to Be Born
will help you understand and heal the wounds caused by emotionally distant, neglectful, unsupportive, or narcissistic parents, so you can finally break the patterns they created.

📕 Chasing Love That Hurts
will help you unlearn the adult patterns that came from those wounds. like limerence, emotional fixation, trauma bonds, and choosing emotionally unavailable partners.

Choose the book your heart needs.
(Link here: https://linktr.ee/traumatorecovery)

12/03/2025

Babies cry because you’re their lifeline —
the one person they instinctively trust to meet their needs.

Toddlers fall apart because you’re the safest place for feelings too big for their bodies.

They don’t melt down because it’s easy — they melt down because they know you’ll help them come back to centre.

Teens push boundaries because they’re learning who they are, and they argue with the person who feels steady enough to hold the tension without walking away.

None of this means you’re failing.

It means you’ve created a relationship where honesty — even messy honesty — is allowed.

That said, safety doesn’t mean simply tolerating everything. It means guiding, teaching, holding boundaries, and helping them learn how to navigate their inner world without shame or fear.

You’re not the cause of the hard moments.
You’re the one they trust to move through them.

And that trust?
It’s one of the most powerful things you’ll ever build. ❤️