Another Chapter Counselling

There's a Japanese art form called kintsugi — the practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. The cracks aren't hidden. They're highlighted. The philosophy is that the break is part of the object's history, and the repair is what makes it remarkable.

I think about this a lot in the context of healing.

So many people come into therapy wanting to get back to who they were before. Before the trauma, before the loss, before the burnout took hold. But healing rarely works that way. You don't return to before. You become someone who has been through something and carries it differently — integrated rather than avoided, present rather than buried.

That's not a consolation prize. That's often where real strength comes from.

The parts of you that you think make you broken? They're the ones worth understanding.

Free 15-minute consultation at anotherchapter.ca

Ready to rock some more comedy, hosting and talks!

Links are in my bio if you wanna join any of the events and shows! 🥰

There are COUNTLESS times I have been in front of audiences ✨

My happy place is being in front of people creating and entertaining experience!

These days I am mostly doing educational speaking, laughter ceremony, comedy and hosting 🎤

I often hear that my life has been incredibly random…
And they would be right!

I truly believe all of it was aligned to help me help others through joy, laughter and trauma-informed care!

If you want me at your next event, reach out! I’d love to chat details on making your day magical!

Have I been living my dreams?
100% YES

Overworking until collapse. Putting everyone else's needs first. Saying yes when you mean no. Shutting down when things get too hard.

If you recognize any of these, you're probably not proud of them. You might have tried to change them more than once and been frustrated when they came back.

Here's something that tends to shift things: these patterns aren't personality defects. They're adaptations. They developed because at some point, in some context, they worked. They kept you safe, kept the peace, kept things functional.

The problem is that strategies can outlive their usefulness. And when they do, they stop being protective and start being the thing you need protection from.

Noticing the pattern without judgment is the first step. Understanding where it came from is the next. Therapy is for the step after that.

Free 15-minute consultation at anotherchapter.ca

There's a word a lot of my clients use: stuck.

Stuck in a pattern they can see but can't seem to change. Stuck in grief that should be moving but isn't. Stuck between knowing what they want and being unable to do it.

From the outside, and often from the inside too, stuck can look a lot like failure. Like weakness. Like not trying hard enough.

But from a nervous system perspective, stuck is protection. The freeze response is a biological state the nervous system activates when fight or flight aren't available options. It's the body pressing pause on forward movement because, at some level, it doesn't yet register that it's safe to go.

You can't think your way out of freeze, and you can't willpower through it. But you can work with it, slowly and safely, by helping your nervous system build the conditions for movement.

That's some of what therapy is for.

Free 15-minute consultation at anotherchapter.ca.

The body keeps score. You may have heard this phrase. but what does it actually mean?

It means that the nervous system stores experience. Not as memory in the way we usually think of memory, but as a felt, physical residue. A bracing. A holding. A pattern of tension or numbness or hyperactivation that lives in the body long after the conscious mind has moved on.

This is why you can know something is in the past and still feel it in the present. Why knowing you're safe doesn't always make you feel safe. Why some things land harder than they logically should.

This carousel breaks down five ways the body tends to store what we've been through. not to pathologize, but to help you start reading your own signals with a little more compassion and a little less judgment.

Book a free 15-minute consult with Paige at anotherchapter.ca

Most people I work with are incredibly kind to other people.

They're patient. They give the benefit of the doubt. They wouldn't dream of saying to a friend what they say to themselves on a regular basis.

That gap. between how we treat others and how we treat ourselves. is one of the most common things I see in the therapy room. And it's one of the most exhausting things to carry.

Self-criticism isn't a character flaw. For many people, it developed as a strategy: if I'm hard on myself first, no one else can use it against me. If I stay small and vigilant, I won't be caught off guard.

But that vigilance costs something. And over time, it stops being protective and starts being the source of the pain.

If your inner critic has been working overtime, there's another way.

Free 15-minute consultation at anotherchapter.ca

Depression lies.

It tells you that reaching out won't help. That you're too much, or not enough, or that people have bigger problems than yours. It tells you to wait until you're doing better before you ask for help. which is exactly backwards.

Reaching out when you're in the grip of depression is not easy. It asks something of you that you may feel you have nothing left to give. Which is why it's one of the more courageous things a person can do.

You don't have to be at rock bottom. You don't have to have the right words. You just have to be willing to take one small step toward something different.

If you've been putting off reaching out, this might be the nudge you needed.

Free 15-minute consultation at anotherchapter.ca. virtual across BC, in-person in Kelowna.