I didn’t always know I would become a counsellor, but looking back, I see a common thread. Across the many roles I’ve had over the years—as a coach, a camp counsellor, a tutor—I consistently found myself drawn to working with people, getting to know their stories, and helping them grow. At heart, I’m fascinated by human development: how people come to be who they are and where they might go next.

I’m especially interested in the experiences people carry and how those experiences shape the way they see themselves, relate to others, and move through the world. At the same time, I find great meaning in helping people feel safe enough to discover capacities they may not yet recognize in themselves. One of my favorite moments in counselling is seeing the slightly nervous but proud smile that appears when a client tells me about doing something they once thought they couldn’t.

Perhaps I love that nervous yet proud smile because it captures so much of what growth can feel like at once: scary, exciting, uncertain, and hopeful. As someone who grew up across different countries and cultures, I am quite familiar with change. I spent parts of my childhood in China and Canada before moving to the eastern United States for high school and later to the South for university and graduate school. Learning to find my footing in each new place brought wonderful experiences and relationships (and plenty of good food), but it also gave me a deep appreciation for the complicated mix of uncertainty, doubt, loss, and fear that often accompanies growth.

Over time, that curiosity about growth, change, and relationships became the focus of my education and clinical work. I have worked as a counsellor in both an outpatient clinic and a Montessori school, supporting adults, adolescents, couples, and families through concerns such as complex attachment trauma, interpersonal difficulties, codependency, breakups, complex grief, career transitions, recurring conflict within couples and families, and infidelity repair.