GOLEM Expressive Arts

GOLEM Expressive Arts Registered Counsellor and Expressive Arts Therapist offering IFS and art-based sessions to help you re-create your life with presence and compassion.

Hi, there.One of the harder things to accept as a therapist is that no amount of care, training, insight, or good intent...
05/21/2026

Hi, there.

One of the harder things to accept as a therapist is that no amount of care, training, insight, or good intentions can remove another person’s pain for them.

I can’t make grief disappear.
I can’t undo trauma.
I can’t make life stop being painful or uncertain.

But I can be with someone in it.

And I think being deeply, compassionately accompanied through something difficult is much more powerful than we sometimes realize.

05/19/2026

I think solitude became possible for me only after I started building a different relationship with myself.

With therapy, parts work, and a lot of inner work, being alone stopped feeling like abandonment.

It started feeling like company.

Like I could actually sit with myself, my thoughts, my emotions, my different parts, without immediately needing to escape them.

And honestly, I think that’s one of the deepest forms of healing.

Learning how to stay.

Hi, there.I’m starting a small series here.Short reflections that come out of the therapy room, sometimes from my own wo...
04/28/2026

Hi, there.
I’m starting a small series here.

Short reflections that come out of the therapy room, sometimes from my own work, sometimes from what I witness.

If you’ve had a session and walked away without a big insight, or without the pain disappearing, it doesn’t mean nothing happened. We tend to expect something dramatic, but often the work is much simpler than that.

Sometimes it’s just slowing down, looking inside, connecting to a part of you, or making something and sitting with yourself for a bit. That alone is already a step.

Giving yourself that time and attention isn’t small. It’s something many of us are actually hungry for.

This is what I mean when I say healing is not the absence of pain. It’s the ability to be with yourself.

04/24/2026

Hi, there.
I stepped away for a bit.

Sometimes the work I talk about here… I also need to live it.

Slowing down, resetting, coming back to myself.

I’m here again. Thank you for staying.

Hi there,I often get asked what sessions with me actually look like, so I wanted to put it into a few words.We begin by ...
03/24/2026

Hi there,

I often get asked what sessions with me actually look like, so I wanted to put it into a few words.

We begin by noticing what’s already present — what needs attention, what wants to be heard and addressed. You don’t need to retell your story over and over again. I know how exhausting that can be. Instead, we follow what is alive and emerging, while staying anchored in a sense of safety.

At times this means talking things through and making sense of what’s been happening. At other times we slow down enough to notice and meet the different parts that are involved, especially the ones that have been working hard to protect. And when words reach their limit, I bring in clay or other creative processes, not as an activity, but as a way to access and work with experience differently. There is room for laughter too. And for tears.

If you’ve been wondering what it might be like to work with me, this is a glimpse into the process.

Thank you for being here.

How are you doing?!
03/06/2026

How are you doing?!

I hear “I’m tired” often. It makes sense. Life is full. Work, children, immigration, responsibility.What I hear less oft...
03/02/2026

I hear “I’m tired” often. It makes sense. Life is full. Work, children, immigration, responsibility.

What I hear less often, but feel underneath, is something quieter. Not just tired. Flat.

Nothing dramatic is wrong. But nothing feels particularly alive either.

That kind of boredom is hard to admit. It sounds ungrateful. It sounds selfish.

And yet sometimes it is simply a sign that something in you wants more depth.

I think we deserve to be honest about that.

Life without passion is life without depth.True passion is not spectacle or drastic reinvention. It’s the feeling of bei...
02/27/2026

Life without passion is life without depth.

True passion is not spectacle or drastic reinvention. It’s the feeling of being inwardly engaged with your own life. Many women I meet learned very early how to be strong, how to be useful, how to anticipate the needs of others before their own. Over time, desire can begin to feel impractical, even selfish. It becomes easier to function than to feel.

So, bit by bit, we lose our aliveness. Our world tightens around obligation. Nothing is visibly wrong, and yet something feels missing. Inner depth requires contact with what moves you, disturbs you, excites you, even unsettles you. Passion often appears as a subtle pull, a returning curiosity, a moment when your attention sharpens and you feel more present.

You do not discover passion by searching for a grand answer. You cultivate it by noticing where your energy shifts, where your body softens or leans forward, where something feels truly yours. That attention, practiced over time, restores dimension to life.

Passion and aliveness do not arrive through endurance. They grow from engagement.
❤️

02/23/2026

Resting Slavic face.
I promise I’m not judging you.
I’m feeling everything. It just doesn’t always travel to my eyebrows.
If I look intense, I’m probably translating, tracking, and trying to keep up with your story at the same time.
English is my second language. Therapy is not.
Have you ever had a Slavic therapist?

Recently, I asked a few clients why they chose me. I expected answers about therapy approaches or experience))Instead I ...
02/11/2026

Recently, I asked a few clients why they chose me. I expected answers about therapy approaches or experience))

Instead I heard:
• your hair
• you remind me of my grandma
• your accent

It made me smile, but it also reminded me of something important. People don’t choose a therapist only with their mind. They choose with their nervous system. Something in the room feels safe enough, familiar enough, human enough.

And that is often where the work really begins.

I’m curious, what helps you feel safe and connected when you meet someone new?

Address

Burnaby, BC

Opening Hours

Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm

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