Leading up to your wedding day are feelings of excitement as you think about the romance and glamour of your special day. You’ve invested all this time and money into your dream wedding day, but what about your future married life? This blog post explains the role premarital counselling plays in building a strong foundation for your marriage.

As women, we are faced with unique challenges. Between your career and family responsibilities it can seem nearly impossible to still have time for yourself at the end of the day. Through all the expectations and responsibilities women manage, there’s no wonder you’re often left feeling exhausted and burnt out. This blog post will share insights on how therapy can offer you tools to manage your stress, learn to set boundaries and practice self-care as you create a work-life balance that’s effective for you. 

Any relationship can experience challenges. However, infidelity in your marriage can be a very damaging situation that leads to feelings of anger, confusion, and emotional pain for everyone involved. You may find it difficult to trust one another again; you may feel strong anger and betrayal; you may feel guilty for your actions in the affair. All of these feelings and challenges are expected following infidelity, and though it may feel hopeless there is still an opportunity for you and your spouse to heal together if you so choose. This blog post will explain how marriage counselling can help you and your spouse after experiencing an affair. Struggling after infidelity? Contact us for marriage counseling in the Durham Region to start your healing process today.

An anxious mind can create the most intricate and catastrophic worst-case scenarios. Though initially it may seem helpful to anticipate any future outcome, allowing anxiety to drive your behaviours can create overwhelming feelings and distress that are unmanageable. This blog post shares therapy techniques you can use to help manage your anxiety today, and how to find additional support through anxiety therapy in Oshawa.

Whether you tend to self-sabotage your relationships, fear rejection or intimacy we all have the need for love and relationships. It may seem as though you keep experiencing the same struggles over and over in your relationships, but why? The answer is often rooted in your attachment style. Through this blog post you’ll learn about the role your attachment style plays in your relationships and how it can be supported through couples therapy. As you come to understand your attachment style and the role you play in your relationship, you will be able to better navigate the ‘dance’ of attachments with your partner and foster a secure relationship together.

Negative thoughts, though a normal way to evaluate your experiences, can become an issue as they engrain themselves within your mind and form into your core beliefs. Having negative core beliefs impact how you view yourself, your relationships and the world around you. As these negative beliefs persist you can experience an array of harmful effects that can contribute to the experience of depression and anxiety. This blog post will give you some insight on what a negative belief is, how negative beliefs can undermine your quality of life, and how you can rewrite these negative beliefs to start living the fulfilling life you deserve.

Often when you think about childhood you think of how simple life was, before all of the work, bills, and stress. In comparison to the rustle and bustle of adult life this may feel true; however, childhood and adolescence can be a very stressful time to navigate. Youth can experience problems at school and home, with their friends or family, and struggle with academics all while just trying to learn about the world around them.

Oftentimes the term ‘couples therapy’ is surrounded by shame and embarrassment because people feel like they should be able to work through their relationship problems on their own. There can also be a lot of hesitancy around even admitting that you need to work on your relationship. Seeking out couples therapy shouldn’t be viewed as some type of social faux pas, but rather the opportunity to help your relationship flourish in a way that supports both you and your partner. With so many people avoiding the idea of couples therapy, it’s time to pull back the curtain and understand the true nature of couples therapy. This blog post will give you information on couples therapy, the benefits, and how you can prepare for your first session.

When you think of experiencing love typically your first thought is the love you have for and with others, like maybe a romantic partner, family member or friend. With this, often the most important form of love is forgotten - SELF-LOVE! This blog post will outline how to practice self-love to support your wellbeing while also fostering healthy relationships with others. 

Gender identity and sexual orientation can be important aspects of your identity. Being able to learn about your own identity can help you form a greater sense of self as you gain a better understanding of who you are. 2SLGBTQIA+ is an acronym commonly used in the queer community to represent the different gender identities and sexual orientations people hold. Over time you may learn new things about yourself and realize that your identity has changed. This blog post will give you information about gender identities, sexual orientations, and ways to learn about your identity as a whole

If you take a moment to think about it, most of your day-to-day life is created through habits and routines. You wake up, go to the washroom, shower, have breakfast, get ready for work, come home, make dinner, watch tv, go to sleep, and start your routine over again the next day. Majority of the day your brain functions on ‘autopilot,’ making it difficult to break away from the habits and routines your brain becomes so familiar with. However, it’s not impossible to change your habits and this blog post will give you some helpful tips on how to do so. 

The initial intention to make a goal is the first and often easiest step. The challenges then come along the pursuit towards your goal as you try to maintain the new habits you’ve worked so hard at. The most commonly known way to manage and track your goal progress is to break it down into smaller steps. However, through research we’ve come to learn that only focusing on the smaller subgoals won’t help you maintain and reach your overall goal. In fact, it’s just as important to reflect on your overall goal throughout your pursuit. 

Whether it’s at work, school, or in your daily life, pushing yourself towards your own success takes dedication and motivation. Though these are strong qualities to have, these same qualities can easily be overtaken by the downfall of perfectionist thinking. Of course we all want what’s best for ourselves and want to achieve every goal and task before us. However, when you constantly give yourself excessively high standards to reach you can experience the stress, frustration and depression that comes with a perfectionist mindset. This blog post will outline what perfectionism is and how you can reframe your mindset while supporting yourself towards success in a healthier way.

There’s a lot of suffering that comes from the time pressures and deadlines we place on ourselves. Whether it’s getting married by a certain age, or graduating from school at a certain time, these deadlines add unnecessary stress and anxiety to our life. It’s time to remove time pressures and feelings of urgency from the equation. Instead, take your time and give yourself the space to enjoy life at your own pace. 

Anger, like all emotions, is an automatic signal from your body that is trying to bring clarity to your needs. Though we all experience anger, you may feel you’ve reached a point where day after day you lead your life with anger and frustration, which is now impacting your relationships and wellbeing. Many people come to us for therapy, particularly couples therapy, feeling angry all the time and not knowing what to do about it. This blog post will help you identify why you may be feeling angry all the time and offer you some solutions to help you learn from your anger and support your wellbeing.

Without the proper support and self-care, constant caregiving duties can cause caregiver burnout. This post will share more information about what caregiver burnout is, and how you can support yourself to avoid physical and emotional exhaustion. 

Christian Counselling is a form of counselling that incorporates Christian practices and beliefs with common counselling techniques, such as psychotherapy or cognitive behavioural therapy. Similarly to non-Christian counselling, Christian counselling helps you explore everyday life and mental health concerns through the support of a trained therapist. This blog post will outline what Christian counselling is, what you can expect with this type of counselling, and the benefits of Christian counselling for individuals and couples.

I was in a 6am Hot Yoga class, lying in child’s pose, and crying. The realization came through loud and clear “I need to quit my job”. If this story sounds familiar, keep reading to learn about the common causes of burnout and signs to look out for, myths about burnout, and effective ways to cope through burnout and prevent it in the future.

We can’t deny it anymore. Dating apps are a part of life and it seems like they’re here to stay. As you swipe left and right through your potential matches, have you ever been curious about what might be guiding the choices you make? With an endless amount of potential matches at our fingertips, it’s time to learn about the role your attachment style plays in your relationships and online dating behaviours.

Whether you’re in a long-term relationship or still trying to find that special person, dating in general can be exhausting. Trying to keep it fresh and do something you’ll both enjoy, and not blow the bank - we get it, it’s stressful. If you live in Pickering, Ajax, Oshawa, Bowmanville and beyond here is our list of therapist recommended date spots, and some expert insight on why dating is important even for long term partners.