Amani Therapy

09/11/2026

Keep knocking 🤍.

09/09/2026

Thank the wind. 🍃.

05/29/2024

State vs Story ✨

Differentiating state from story has been a theme lately in my sessions so ya girl is back on IG with what I hope is a helpful perspective.

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Let’s think of “state” as emotions and body sensations. As a human and a therapist, I try to approach “state” from a place of curiosity and compassion.

Our emotions and body sensations often make sense given our attachment history and ways we have learned to perceive threat/safety. Can we attend to these with understanding and patience? (Creating room for all the feels)

However, our “stories” or thoughts are not always the most useful to reread. We can restructure our thoughts and ask ourselves if these narratives or our actions in response to those scripts are helpful.

In other words - be kind to your state, balance your story. ❤️

06/21/2020

06/07/2020

"Ally is a verb, not a noun"

This powerful phrase has always been one to hit me hard. Recently, I have seen many folks identify themselves as allies. And it just doesn't sit right with me. Here’s why:

It is not a gold star, a credential or a badge.

An ally is not a descriptor of who you are.

Allyship is continuous conscious effort. It involves constantly asking yourself how you are showing up for marginalized groups. It is action. Over and over again.
I encourage folks to switch the narrative off of yourself, challenge that saviour complex, and focus on the communities you are supporting. Check in with yourself regularly. How as a therapist have you been practicing allyship?
Have you been self-reflecting on your own internalized biases?
Can you identify microaggressions in the therapy room? For example: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques (i.e. cognitive reframing/restructuring) can be incredibly dismissive and let’s be honest - a form of racial gaslighting in the context of race. How have you explored this?

Are you examining your whiteness in and out of the therapy room? Are you mindful of the prejudice that exists within your own internal dialogue? How do your actions align with allyship? -- So instead of focusing on the “being” - let’s shift our attention to the doing, the educating, the reflecting. Over, and over again.

06/03/2020

05/12/2020

Let’s talk about self-trust. I remember first hearing this term and sitting with it for a moment. Do I trust myself? What does that even mean?

Self-trust means:

Showing up & following through. It is being able to follow through on those internal commitments you make to yourself. What would happen if someone always made promises that were never followed by action? Would you trust this individual? Likely not. But we do this with ourselves quite often.

Self-trust is knowing that you are going to make space for your own needs.

Can you depend on yourself to show up for YOU?

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How to cultivate self-trust:

Get to Know Yourself - It’s quite hard to befriend someone we don’t know. Explore what your values are, your strengths and your NEEDS.

Practice Mindfulness - Move towards your emotions and the sensations in your body. Name the emotion and sensation. Note what it feels like when you don’t act according to your values or needs. Note what it feels like when you do. Practice checking in with yourself in this way!

Make Small Commitments to Yourself & Follow Through on Them - Be decisive. Pick something small and act on it. This may be a goal like staying hydrated throughout the day or it may be setting boundaries with loved ones. Whichever goal you pick, approach it gently and with self-kindness.

Practice Self-Compassion - You’re probably so sick of seeing this on my page, yet here we are again! The opposite of self-criticism is self-compassion. Self-criticism involves you dismissing your own needs or invalidating yourself. If we had a person following us around telling us that our needs don’t matter, that we need to “get over it”, or telling us that we don’t have a right to feel that way, we would likely tell them to get lost. Yet, we may speak to ourselves like this. Change your narrative and give yourself the same empathy that you would extend to a friend.

Celebrate - Gather all that self-trust goodness and remind yourself of the times where you listened to your body and what you needed in that moment. This is growth. This is healing. You are deserving of it all!

05/02/2020

Morning reflections 🌻

Codependency and enmeshment have been on my mind. In my work, I often see folks with a fear of being selfish, a fear of disconnection, and a fear that boundaries will threaten the stability of their relationships. And these fears make sense!

If you're someone who finds boundaries tough, what do your boundary fears look like? What would it be like to value your needs equal to others?

05/01/2020

Reparenting - let’s chat about it. What would it be like to give yourself what you did not receive (or didn’t receive enough of) as a child? Reparenting is learning to care for yourself. Sometimes this feels icky. Sometimes we feel a “push back”. We feel resistance. This resistance may sound like:

“You had it pretty good. You’re being ungrateful”
“This is selfish”
“This is weak”

Let’s challenge this. → Reparenting is self-kindness. It’s a daily practice. Reparenting is checking in and responding with self-love.

Sometimes the emotions and needs that were not acknowledged in childhood can become pushed down subconsciously as adults. What “handed down” patterns show up for you?

Suppressing your emotions?
Earning your worth?
Hyper-independence?
Self-punishment?
Poor boundaries?
Excessive pressure on yourself?

When these patterns come up for us, try turning towards yourself and acknowledging this experience. Respond to your inner child with compassion - you are safe, seen and heard.


@ Ottawa, Ontario

04/29/2020

The way we received love as a child can impact our relationship to ourselves and others as adults.

When did you receive love as a child? Many of us at a young age have learned that we receive love through the avoidance of pain. Some of us avoided pain when we remained small and did not take up space. Others grew up learning that being sensitive to their caregiver’s emotions kept them safe (walking on eggshells). Some folks may have had caregivers living with an addiction or severe mental health difficulties. We may have learned early on that we needed to be a caregiver. We needed to dismiss our own needs to receive love and avoid pain.

Did you receive love when you were parentified (role reversal, taking care of the adults in your life etc.)?
Did you receive love when you performed/produced?
Did you receive love when you were quiet?
Did you receive love when you were highly sensitive to the emotions of others?

Although these behaviours may no longer serve us as adults, these ways of showing up were adaptive and kept us safe as children. Do the emotions you feel as an adult make sense given your history? Can we acknowledge them gently - even if we don’t always like them?

Am I able to look at the behaviours that cause pain now (such as codependency, perfectionism etc.) from a lens of compassion? Can we witness them with understanding?