I look forward to connecting with you virtually, to give you a glimpse of who I am and my approach, I have answered some frequently asked questions below. If you have further questions or wish to book a complimentary, consultation phone call, please reach out.
An Interview with Jennifer:
Who are you and what do you do?
I have been a health and wellness professional all of my adult life. I entered nursing school after graduating high school and earned a Bachelor of Nursing Science degree from Queen’s University. I accepted my first nursing positions at The Hospital for Sick Children and Women’s College Hospital. At Sick Kids, I worked on the Cardiac and Surgical Specialties Units and at Women’s College, I took 24 hour call as a Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Nurse Examiner. I also spent time in various community clinics specializing in Adolescent Health and Women’s Health. I went on to earn my Master’s degree in Nursing at The University of Toronto and transitioned into leadership roles as a Clinical Nurse Specialist.
A cancer scare, multiple miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies, and divorce sent my life in a different direction. I became a yogi, a meditator, a Buddhist practitioner and set off on a quest to heal and recover.
Meditation practice became a place of refuge for me, a safe haven where I could explore my inner experience of the world. I noticed that I gradually became more skillful at meeting life’s challenges. I was able to more easily calm myself and to recover from adversity with a more positive outlook. I learned what compassion really meant, particularly self-compassion, and how to change my relationship to the old self-narrative.
Coming into awareness of the impacts of my personal and family trauma, led me to the field of psychotherapy. There, I learned that an attuned, compassionate relationship was essential for healing and growth.
I went on to earn a Diploma in Contemplative Psychotherapy – a unique blend of Interpersonal Neurobiology with traditional Buddhist psychological theory and practice, and I complemented this with trauma-informed trainings in EMDR, Structural Dissociation, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
I am a Certified Counsellor with The Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals (OAMHP).
I am also a Yoga and Meditation teacher, an Astrologer, a mother of four, a fitness enthusiast, a nature lover, and a survivor.
Who do you work with?
I support adult individuals with past trauma, recovery, and with finding meaning and purpose.
I lead trauma-informed groups offering meditation, yoga, psychoeducation and community.
What is Contemplative Therapy?
Contemplative Therapy is based on the view that all of us, no matter what our challenges, have fundamental basic goodness, a quality sometimes referred to as “Buddha Nature.” The premise being, that we already have what we need to connect with our inherent wisdom and compassion. Therefore, a Contemplative approach is concerned primarily with helping individuals reconnect with, and develop confidence in their own basic goodness. Sometimes we lose touch with this basic goodness due to many complex reasons such as chronic stress, traumatic events, abuse, neglect, grief, loss, etc. Yet the contemplative approach is an optimistic one, because it points to our capacity for wisdom and compassion. The earliest teachings of Buddhism are about how suffering arises and how it can be reduced. The Buddha taught that there is pain in simply being alive. But he also taught that we add unnecessary suffering by grasping at that which inevitably changes, such as our identity, our relationships and anything material that we think will bring us happiness. So Buddhist psychology makes a distinction between the inevitable pain of being alive – the pain of birth, aging, sickness and death – and the unnecessary suffering that results from our attempts to escape or deny reality (K Kissell Wegela, 2017). The Contemplative approach is interested in recognizing basic goodness in all its many forms, especially in seeing the wisdom within difficult emotions. Instead of regarding our emotions as problems to be fixed, the Buddhist view is that emotions, even those we regard as negative, contain wisdom that we can learn from. The Buddha taught that the way to ease the habits that cause unnecessary suffering are to bring mindfulness and compassion to our lives. A contemplative approach therefore involves helping individuals develop mindfulness – paying less attention to the content of our thoughts and more to what is happening in the present moment – and cultivating compassion – bringing kindness and acceptance to whatever we are feeling and thinking.