About Hive & Heart

Our eldest dog the first time she decided to brave stepping into moving water….

My Story

I am a visual, performance, and spoken/written word artist.

I am a social worker, focusing on clinical practice.

I am a skilled and experienced collaborator, ready to discover how best to help you achieve what you need.

I have seen major changes happen for people when they have someone who is informed, thoughtful, caring and effective as an ally in their healing.

Art and counselling saves lives.

I know this from my own experience and this is part of what makes me passionate about what I do. I took the risk to reach out in some of my darkest times, and was so fortunate to be met with understanding and compassion by really skilled counsellors. It took courage and frankly, exhaustion, for me to do so. I am a very independent person, and it felt like weakness to need help. Asking  for help actually showed strength. It made me so much stronger to accept my vulnerability, fear and trauma and intentionally connect with an ally in these struggles. I learned I was not alone, and that was a starting point towards an existence outside of merely surviving.

Arts of all kinds have been my constant companions throughout my life, from when I was a child onward. Having different ways to express and process connections, feelings, and the weights and joys of being in the world has been, and continues to be, vital. Creativity is a gift, and allows for communicating viscerally and instinctually, when words cannot completely convey the essence of our experiences.  

I have the ability to hold multiple stories about someone at the same time.

This sounds easy, but many people have trouble doing this. Life is not a tidy, linear journey. Sometimes this is what others might expect from you, or what you might expect from yourself. Often, our experiences show that we return numerous times to the same place, or same challenge, each time taking in more depth about how we got there and gaining more self-awareness about how we might shift our story. Finding a present that includes a more hopeful and successful future story is hard work.

Counselling helps you in this shift.