Veronica Harris Counselling

Postpartum Doulas- such a great resource in the essential support needed in the postpartum time

New space

Welcome to my new space!

I’ve moved my office, same building different entrance. Look for info in your booking email.

Looking forward to seeing you here, or out in forest 🌲

-Veronica

I have been in the season of learning this winter, looking forward to sharing it all with you💜

*All things nervous system and attachment

*How vital nourishment is to our’s and our babies physiology and development-specifically animal based foods

*Family systems and their constellations- the importance of these structures to a thriving family

New parents struggle with the decision to sleep train or not. The idea of getting your baby on a schedule and you getting more sleep is very appealing.

But developmental and attachment science has been suggesting it is not beneficial.

Here's what the research says:

Fifteen years of research shows that sleep training for babies can cause them more distress True responsive care means adjusting to what babies need

Postpartum mental health during COVID-19 pandemic | On The Coast with Gloria Macarenko | Live Radio | CBC Listen The CBC’s Jen Wilson tells us that more and more new parents are seeking extra mental health support during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Pacific Post Partum Society is struggling to keep up with the demand.

This has been showing up in sessions these days, people are struggling with how to feel about things "opening back up."

We need to turn and face our suffering and pain before we can learn and grow from it.

"So go ahead and feel. Let it get messy. Find your moments to prime your tears and allow them to fall. Scream into that pillow. REST into all of it. And along the way, be kind to you. Move your body. Feed it good food. Sleep. Find your people to lean into. And as a big person, also know that this is for you to own so your children aren’t left carrying it for you."

Today I was chatting with my assistant, Tara, when she made a comment, “You know, the world is opening up, but it seems like so many of us are actually having a tougher time now than when we were at the beginning of this pandemic madness. Is it that we’re not ready? What’s happening?”

I immediately thought of something that my very wise partner, David Loyst, said at one of our recent clinical team meetings. He likened our feelings to an ocean. He explained that for many of us, when we were children, our very well-meaning big people wanted us to be happy. If our feelings were the sea, they wanted the water to be still and shiny with reflecting sunlight. And so our big people promoted those feelings, and discouraged the opposite. Even as babies, we were “shh – shh – shh”ed, because those tears were uncomfortable. Stormy feelings, big tantrums, rocky waters? This did not fit the Narrative of Childhood Happiness, and so they were not embraced. This valuing of the appearance of contentment over all else continued into our adulthood and became a part of our story.

And were our parents and grandparents and teachers and coaches and aunts and uncles wrong for that? No! They wanted the best for us. They wanted our happiness. But developmentally and spiritually, we need to experience the downs alongside the ups.

Years and years later, we are thrown into a pandemic. And an infodemic at the same time. Social media explodes with mixed messaging, such as “feel your feelings”, but also, “bake bread!”, “learn a new skill!”, “figure out Zoom!”, and “why not try a Zoom Zumba class while you’re at it!?” The waves are starting to get bigger. Worry and uncertainty are rolling in. Grief and anger’s whitecaps are foaming. The waves move up and down, just as feelings are SUPPOSED to go. We are supposed to find ourselves in the trenches of the waves. In the low. In the hard parts. These feelings are natural and necessary. But as we roll over the wave and find ourselves slipping from the high to the low, our programming kicks in. Wait! No! We can’t sit in sadness! Get up! Swim! Swim!

And so we swim. We bake the bread. We declutter the closet. We buy the books. We keep going. And we don’t ever let ourselves sit in our feelings. They are uncomfortable. They feel out of control. They are frightening.

And 16 months later, we are left in in the choppy waters. A purgatory of feelings. We haven’t made peace with the waves, and so they continue to agitate us. We keep swimming – always swimming – but we don’t feel as though we’re getting anywhere. It is exhausting. We are stuck.

If this is how you are feeling right now, I want to tell you (and wrap my arms around you at the same time) and say, “You are NOT ALONE.”

This feeling is everywhere. The confusion is everywhere. Why aren’t we happier that the world is opening up? Why are we still feeling so stressed? Why aren’t we thriving?

Because we haven’t been able to rest into the depths of our lows. Because we feel like we have to keep swimming until we reach happiness again. Because we are so panicked that if we let the tears start they might just never stop. So we get stuck there. In that messy, complicated zone of emotional purgatory. And precisely because of that, we road block ourselves from the return to happiness.

The truth is, you cannot know that happiness without knowing your sad and your mad and all of your lows. You have the ride the wave right down to the verrrrrry bottom. You have to cry all the tears. You have to be submerged in the swells of grief. You have to wail into the dark depths of all that is uncomfortable.

So go ahead and feel. Let it get messy. Find your moments to prime your tears and allow them to fall. Scream into that pillow. REST into all of it. And along the way, be kind to you. Move your body. Feed it good food. Sleep. Find your people to lean into. And as a big person, also know that this is for you to own so your children aren’t left carrying it for you.

And then…and then you will come through it. You will never stay stuck in the dark if you can simply and fully surrender to it. The sun will rise. The waters will calm. They might even sparkle.

May 5th is World Maternal Mental Health Awareness Day

Our relationships really get tested once we become parents. Here are a few ways we can support each other and our relationship when the relationship is struggling.

To say a new baby changes a relationship is an understatement.

It’s easy to look up from the dirty diapers and burp cloths and hardly recognize each other anymore. You're most likely spending much of this time as new parents in a haze while focusing on your daily tasks. While this is all normal and nothing to be ashamed of, you can still make small adjustments in the way you engage with one another that will help support your partnership.

Read about ways to turn toward each other after having a new baby on the blog: http://bit.ly/3t7SViG