Finding a counsellor is like trying on shoes — you need to find a good fit.

The main healing element of counselling comes from the relationship — a special kind of relationship where it is safe to be you, however you show up in any given moment.

This page is about me, so you can get a sense of the fit. The details aren't important, except insofar as they show that I have lived the emotions — sorrow, grief, anger, anxiety, shame and failure, success, love, joy, attainment. Accepting the imperfections of being human, along with the potentials and gifts, is what Humaning is about. This is also what gives me the capacity to be with you on your journey — wherever you need to go.

Silhouette of horse and rider at winter sunset on a central BC cattle ranch

Near Vanderhoof BC

Growing up on the land

A ranch childhood in central BC taught me about showing up for what’s hard, and losing an eye to cancer before I was two gave me my own road to healing — which is what brought me to this work.

I grew up on a cattle ranch in central BC. Cattle drives, calving season, summers in the hay field, horseback riding through forests and open country. I learned that when there is a whole field of rocks, you have to just keep picking up one at a time. I learned about machines, animals and the land. I learned that birth and death were just part of things, and that you showed up for both.

That foundation was important, because before I was old enough for it all, just before I turned two, I lost my right eye to cancer. I have no memory of it, but the body keeps its own record. Following my own road to healing is what brought me to this work.

The wandering years

University, commercial fishing, forestry, India, meditation, marriage, children, divorce — a winding road that taught me awareness might be our thing to master, and that grief takes its own time.

I went to university, working summers in commercial fishing, forestry, and construction. Then couldn’t quite settle, and quit altogether to travel through India and Nepal. In Kathmandu I discovered Vipassana meditation for the first time, and had my first taste of deeper awareness. I finally had a clue: maybe awareness for humans is like flying for the seagull in the story. Our special gift to master.

I came back, went back to school, studied French in Quebec, met my first wife. I finished a teaching degree and worked for a while in a First Nations community in central BC.

Then the marriage ended. Nine years, two children, and a picture of how things were supposed to go — but didn’t. The grief, and anger, of that took years to work through.

Young Todd on a mountain path near Rishikesh, India

Above Rishikesh, India

Loss, and what it opened

After my second wife's illness and death, my grief took me to a monastery in Thailand. I came back not fixed but deepened, and eventually lighter for what the losses helped me release.

I went back to school, completed my master's in counselling, and eventually found my way to Joy.

Joy's illness and her death taught me about the depths of grief. After she died, I spent time as a monk in Thailand — living simply, learning that there is more to being human than I knew.

I had hoped to take a shortcut and avoid my feelings. It didn't turn out that way. I came back more open, more sensitive, more anxious. Not fixed, as I had hoped, but deepened.

It took more years to integrate what the monastery had cracked open. Part of the integration process was finishing the book I had started writing during Joy's illness: Falling Awake.

I'm now in my third marriage, to a wonderful woman who knows all of this and shares the path with me. I carry the losses. I am also lighter for what they helped me release.

What twenty-five years in a counselling chair teaches you

The pain people carry is not the problem. It’s the messenger.

I've been a counsellor for twenty-five years. School counselling, private practice, children, adults, men, couples, families. I've sat across from a lot of people in a lot of difficult places.

What keeps confirming itself: the pain people carry is not the problem. It's the messenger. What seems to be poison can become the medicine when we stop avoiding it and get curious about it instead.

“Less about mastery and perfection. More about stepping through.”

I also know what it's like when on the outside things seem to be going well, but on the inside you still feel like something is missing — like there must be something more. What I'm learning is that the something "more" is actually something less — it's unlearning all the defenses and separations we have learned that keep us from being who we are.

Over the years the search started by my grandmother's gift has shifted. It's less about mastery and perfection. More about acceptance, trust, unlearning — stepping through the pain and shame and anger and into the simplicity of just being with what is, as it is.

Rainbow Mountain, Peru

What I bring

I hold a Master's degree in Counselling and a Canadian Certified Counsellor designation. I have certifications in EMDR, Flash therapy, Play therapy, Integrative Body Psychotherapy, and TRE. I draw on Internal Family Systems, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Gestalt, Rogerian therapy, Somatic therapies, mindfulness, meditation, body awareness, Polyvagal Theory, nervous system retraining, Buddhist psychology and practice, energy awareness practices, and many of my own modalities from my own experience.

The qualifications are the floor, not the ceiling.

The art is staying present and alive with what is — weaving together what is needed in each moment. I work entirely online, throughout British Columbia and beyond.

Education

MA Counselling · Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC)

Advanced Training

EMDR · Flash Therapy · Play Therapy · Integrative Body Psychotherapy · TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises)

Modalities

IFS · CBT · Gestalt · Rogerian · Somatic · Polyvagal · Mindfulness · Buddhist Psychology · Energy Awareness

Practice

Online · British Columbia and beyond · 25 years experience

MA Counselling · CCC · 25 Years · Online Across BC

Todd standing in a stone Incan doorway looking out over Machu Picchu and the mountains

Machu Picchu, Peru

What this work is for

I can't help you fix what's broken. But I can help you discover the part of you that never was, and never can be broken — and then you will know that you were never broken in the first place.

That's what the journey taught me — the ranching, the wandering, the losses, the monastery, all of it. I've been asking the question since I was eight years old, and what I'm finding, I'm calling "Humaning." Just coming home to who we truly are.

If you're ready to start that journey, I'd be glad to walk beside you.

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