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Hi, I'm Paula
To me, all animate beings offer a message of love, our outer world is a mirror to our more real inner world, and ambiguity is of importance. Any dis-ease or suffering are but glitches in our mechanics that we have the power to resolve. We are more capable and magnificent than we have been taught to believe. It is inside our wounds and cracks that our gifts are hidden. Self-compassion is a giant leap in the direction of wellness. There is unending hope if we are courageous.
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All of that I learned in my 30s and 40s. However, growing up in my family of origin in St. John's, Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada had me holding a different belief system.
I thought this life was full of shoulds. That I was a burden. That I had to do everything alone. That only lack and scarcity were available to me. That I was unworthy of care and consistent love. That those long, heavy stretches of helplessness and hopelessness were my reality. I didn’t realize it wasn’t common to not have memories of childhood, or that a human could dissociate for survival.
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In efforts to ease my monthly chronic endometriosis pain of 15 years, I uncovered that it had manifested from ongoing childhood sexual abuse. I started to learn about neglect, narcissism, and attachment. As I write this I'm still integrating the truth that it's not betrayal or shameful to voice family secrets. For too long, my nervous system led me into abusive relationships and friendships, patterns that continued into my early 40s and culminated in a diagnosis of complex-ptsd.
I had an inkling that there was more to this life than mainstream consumer culture, the institutions we're told to trust, the systems and society we seemed to be a cog in, and the fences and walls that separate us. So after the mainstream medical system failed me over and over again, I went out exploring!
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​I devoted almost two decades of my life to a self-discovery journey where I encountered a vast array of alternative healing modalities:
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Perhaps it started with attending a Joanna Macy bridging conference in 2008, after taking her course on The Work that Reconnects, where I experienced that grief is not only sacred but necessary - it is a doorway between endings and beginnings, leading us back to what we care deeply for.
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In 2009 I became a Master Composter and completed my Permaculture Design certificate. I experienced first hand how nothing is wasted - how decay becomes fertile ground. I resonated with the whole systems lens of "earth care, people care, share of surplus". I delighted in how "happy little accidents and sad little failures" are valuable opportunities for growth and understanding, and how "stacking functions" model personal healing as collective healing.
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In 2011 I enrolled in courses in New Thought + Science of Mind at the Center for Spiritual Living recognizing that life does not happen to me, but through me, and that what I consistently think shapes my reality.
Through 12-step work and healing codependency I learned boundaries and came to see that I'm not responsible for the journey or wellness of others, to meddle in their business only harms them, and that being well myself is the best gift I can offer those I love. I know that gratitude generates more to be grateful for.
​In 2015 I sat my first 10-day silent vipassana meditation where I became intimate with the truth of "experience" is how I know, every sensation and associated feeling are a message moving through, and that this practice of embodiment and equanimity are a solid foundation upon which to build.
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Psilocybin and cannabis, used intentionally in ceremony have aided in me surrendering control, gaining perspective, and assisting deeper attunement with mystery. Peyote, while participating for 3 years in Native American Church ceremonies, helped me recognize how much fear lives in my system, how being gentle with our parts that do not serve is the answer rather than trying to cut them out or kill them off. In one overnight teepee ceremony near Kamloops, I encountered racism in a brevity that I am grateful for,
Plant medicines have not only accelerated my healing but brought about new ways of thinking and seeing this life as a human being. ​​
Sweatlodge, Peyote
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I literally walked through burning coals in a fire walking ceremony to prove to myself that I could do what once felt impossible. I moved through fear and pain, released limiting beliefs and stepped into my personal power with greater trust in myself.
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Equine Facilitated Learning
​The Medicine Wheel
Vision Questing
I dove deep into relationship dynamics with 2016 course on attachment styles at Esalen Institute, 2019 women's weekend at the Sterling Institute of Relationship,
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In 2016 discovered the Haven Institute and took their Coming Alive breathwork program, and their 25-day residential and comprehensive self-responsible relational living program Living Alive. Art Therapy. I attended holotropic breathwork sessions and later dove deep into Michael Brown's Presence Process.
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Process Painting
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Osteopathy
Chriopractic Network Spinal Analysis
Naturopathic, Herbal & Homeopathic Medicine
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Fascial Maneuvers
Reiki + Psychic Surgery
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Astrology, Human Design, Birth Order, Enneagram, Love Languages, Gene Keys, Myers-Briggs
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​Community Deathcare
​Ecstatic Dance
Dreamwork
​Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), The Journey Method, Peak States
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​​Through weekly sessions of Somatic Experiencing (SE) over two years I learned self-compassion and re-parented my inner child. I know that a foundation of nervous system safety must be achieved for a human to flourish. I've come to know that breath and interoception bring us to presence. I felt my emotions and read them as messages.​
Authentic Relating and Circling
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IFS Parts Work Getting stuck in survival mode is simply from our inner parts not knowing there's more available to us.
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I began to trust myself, experience safety, and practice healthy relating. I realized I always have options, I discovered that it's actually ok to do what I want, and I finally took full responsibility for my life. I began to heal generations of my bloodline.​
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ceremonies have helped me re-member that being present as much as possible is the goal, that connection to self/to other/to the divine are key, and that being of service is achieved through full expression of authenticity.
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All of this makes way for how I am of service to others in the world.
Wild Raven Woman
Back in 2009, I was gifted shamanic journeying sessions with Old Buffalo Manfred Lukas in Alberta, where I had a vision of Raven - and discovered it was my power animal. So much made sense.
Raven is a reflection of my essence as a shapeshifter, truth-teller, and mystic. Transformation is a way of being. Shadow is sacred territory. As a bridge between realms, I alchemize pain into wisdom, endings into beginnings, and emptiness into creation.
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Raven has taught me that I don’t need to explain myself, but rather honor myself. Raven's voice, vision, and presence carries the resonance of something ancient and otherworldly.
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I am here not to follow paths, but to forge them. To speak when others are silent. I am not afraid to go into the void. I know that from this space - the dark, fertile unknown - something sacred is being birthed.
