Live Happy Counselling, Susan Guttridge BA MC CCC

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Live Happy Counselling, Susan Guttridge BA MC CCC Trauma-informed counselling by an EMDR certified therapist I believe that as humans, we are capable of self-growth, healing, and experiencing happiness.

My training and expertise is in working with post-traumatic stress, anxiety, panic, traumatic loss, depression, and life transitions. In addition to using the therapeutic approach EMDR, I've trained in narrative therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, mindfulness, and mind-body attunement therapy (a somatic approach to healing). I believe that the beginning of working through problems often needs to start with developing affect regulation skills (the ability to gain control over those strong emotions that come on like tidal waves and seem to hijack our rational brain). Once an individual develops the ability to regulate affect, working through their presenting problem becomes more tolerable, and emotional healing begins. I look forward to assisting you through your healing journey! http://www.livehappycounselling.com/

10/06/2026

There are so many powerful moments that happen in therapy, but this one involved my dog Nella, and it was pretty cool!

We know dogs can be remarkably attuned to humans. We see it in the work of service dogs and many of us have experienced it with our own dogs. Like the way they seem to sense when something has shifted and move a little closer, or follow us around the house.

But witnessing Nella do exactly that during an emotional moment in a therapy session really brought it home. No words, no prompting; just this sweet little dog offering her presence and connection, giving us a little glimpse of co-regulation in action 🥰

What an extraordinary gift dogs are to us💕





09/30/2026

Between total high alert and complete shutdown lies a flexible middle range, and our nervous system really is designed to find its way back there.

Regulation is about building the internal capacity to safely listen to what your emotions are trying to tell you and noticing how they show up in your body. And it’s about deepening your capacity to guide your nervous system back to baseline so that returning to safety becomes a more familiar path.

The challenge is that chronic stress and trauma turn the volume up on those emotional and somatic signals. When that’s your lived experience, trying to work on it in counselling before you’re ready can flood your nervous system, perhaps causing you to pull back or shut down completely.

Being “ready” for therapy is just as much a somatic decision as it is a cognitive one: You can feel cognitively ready to talk about something, while your nervous system still registers threat, alarm, or freeze at the thought of going there.

The preparation phase in EMDR is a paced space where your body can learn to anchor into that middle range, where it once lived at the extreme edges of activation or shutdown. From that grounded space, we can branch forward to do the heavier lifting of trauma work so that the past can finally be integrated and stop taking up so much energy in your present 😊

If okay, comment with something you learned during this phase (or in therapy overall) that helped soothe your nervous system.

It’s an honest concern people bring into therapy: “If I open up the past, I’m worried it’s going to flood me with emotio...
09/28/2026

It’s an honest concern people bring into therapy: “If I open up the past, I’m worried it’s going to flood me with emotion and that I won’t be able to tuck it way again”

When compartmentalization has been the survival mechanism that kept you functional through high-stress shifts, challenging times in life, or traumatic experiences, the thought of touching those memories can feel overwhelming. Even unsafe. It can feel like you’d be risking the stability you worked so hard to build.

And that concern makes complete sense because that survival strategy helped you to keep going.

That’s why in EMDR therapy, we don’t start by taking away what’s kept you safe. We start by building a solid foundation underneath you.

Before we work on the difficult experiences, time is spent building your emotional regulation by creating a Resource Library, a collection of mental and emotional tools that we develop and practice together.

I think of these resources as a lifeline. By strengthening them first, we ensure that when processing brings up intense emotion, you feel able to move through it alongside your therapist and have a clear, reliable way to steer yourself back to safety.

This preparation phase ensures that when you do look toward the past, you aren’t doing it unprepared. Even if old memories pull you off-centre, you’ve established a clear, practiced pathway back to the present moment faster and with far less distress.

Therapy doesn’t need to leave you feeling flooded or vulnerable. The goal of EMDR is to help your brain safely reprocess and desensitize those unresolved experiences with a trusted therapist and a toolkit built for your pacing, so that the box no longer needs to exist.





09/20/2026

Like so many, my family has been touched closely by cancer. And, over the years, participating in the Terry Fox events has become one of the ways we honour our loved ones.

So this past August, I took on the Mount Terry Fox Trek in Valemount, BC. Also, did you know we had a mountain in Canada named after Terry Fox??!

After a gazillion hours of steep mountain hiking, sore muscles, and seriously questioning my life choices, I came away hugely grateful for the experience, the friends hiking with me, and the accomplishment.

No worries if a 10+ hour hike isn’t in your near future: I wrote you a sleep story of it! (And yes, I did leave out all the steep cliffs and gruelling parts so your brain can peacefully relax for sleep!)

A huge thank you to the Terry Fox Foundation for organizing these events each year, and to all the volunteers keeping Terry’s vision going.

…to learn more about Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope, the mountain bearing his name, and the trek to it’s summit, fall asleep tonight listening to Hiking Mount Terry Fox | Sleep Story ☺️. It’s free on the Insight Timer app (link in bio





09/17/2026

How can simple eye movements or bilateral tapping help when it comes to emotional healing?
 
Bilateral stimulation (which refers to rhythmic stimulation that alternates from one side of the body to the other), plays a crucial role during EMDR therapy. It creates a tax on your working memory and can cause vivid, distressing memories to lose their intensity while keeping you grounded in the safety of the present moment. It’s like keeping one foot on the safe shore of today, while briefly dipping a toe into the stream of the past.
 
Bilateral stimulation on its own is not what heals trauma. EMDR therapy isn’t just about moving your eyes or tapping back and forth. Reprocessing happens because this bilateral movement is combined with specific clinical components like dual attention, targeted focus on memory networks, and a safe structured therapeutic container. So while bilateral stimulation may be the engine, the comprehensive therapy protocol is what drives the actual healing.
 
Have you ever wondered how EMDR works, or thought about trying it? Let me know in the comments below!





09/14/2026

Have you ever wondered why certain past experiences still feel like they’re happening right now? It may come down to how your brain stores information under stress.

On a normal day with normal situations, your brain takes in information, processes it, and stores it away in the past tense. But, when something overwhelming or highly stressful happens, there’s a lot of emotion attached to the experience and it causes your nervous system gets flooded.

Instead of that experience being filed away safely, you could say that the filing cabinet gets jammed. The memory sits right on the top of the desk, keeping your mind alert, your muscle tension high, and your sleep interrupted.

The process of EMDR therapy works to unjam that cabinet, allowing your brain to finish the natural healing work it already knows how to do.

To learn more about the process of EMDR, watch the full video on the Insight Timer app (it’s short, and it’s free!) ☺️





09/11/2026

It’s one of the more exhausting parts of anxiety, chronic stress, or trauma reactions: you can logically analyze the situation, know you are in a safe environment, and tell yourself “everything’s fine”. But, your heart rate stays elevated, your stomach knots up, and your nervous system acts like the threat is still right in front of you.

Please know this is a normal neurobiological response. Your body’s felt sense is running an automatic protection protocol on memory files that haven’t been fully stored in the past tense yet.

EMDR therapy works directly with this gap between the mind and body. It helps your brain reprocess those stuck moments so your physical response can finally match your present safety.

Want to learn about how EMDR therapy works? The full video is on Insight Timer (it’s short, and it’s free!) 😊





07/29/2026

When relaxing spikes anxiety, it could be that chronic stress has led to a more activated baseline reference pattern.

When our nervous system adapts to hypervigilance, internal stillness can trigger the amygdala’s match/mismatch detector. Your brain interprets the sudden drop in activation as an unfamiliar mismatch, interpreting it as danger and sounding the alarm.

So trying to relax, or trying to calm emotions by tuning inward (focusing on the breath or body sensations) can instantly feel overwhelming. Instead, considering starting by focusing outward. The external focus can send direct cues of safety back to your nervous system.

Try external orienting:
1️⃣ Notice & name 3 things you can see
2️⃣ Listen for 2 distinct sounds
3️⃣ Feel 1 point of support , like your feet rooted on the floor.

Scanning your environment with this intention can connect you with an external cue of safety, signaling safety directly to your brain without startling your inner alarm system.

Save this post and try external orientating if stillness feels challenging 🙂



References:
1. HeartMath Institute, The Resilient Heart Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath Course
2. McCraty, R. (2015). The Science of the Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance, Vol. 2
3. Dana, D. A. & Porges, S. W. (2018). Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation



Hi Friends! My website and email are temporarily down due to a technical issue. If you’ve tried to get in touch and your...
07/20/2026

Hi Friends! My website and email are temporarily down due to a technical issue. If you’ve tried to get in touch and your email has bounced back, please don’t worry. A very intelligent and capable technical person is on the case, and I’m hopeful everything will be back up and running soon!

In the meantime, you can still reach me by phone or text.

Thank you for your patience 🥰

We use our imagination every day. But so often, without even realizing it, we channel that creative energy into worry, s...
06/13/2026

We use our imagination every day. But so often, without even realizing it, we channel that creative energy into worry, scenario-planning, and apprehensive anticipation.

I believe that learning how to intentionally redirect that imagination in a way that feels grounding is one of the most practical, profound tools we can have in our mental health toolbelt for when life gets tough. Stress Relief Based on EMDR is a guided practice on Insight Timer and it’s designed to help you build exactly that.

This short practice uses an EMDR-informed resourcing framework. By pairing a calming mental image with slow, auditory bilateral stimulation (in this case, a sound that alternates from the left speaker to the right), we work with your nervous system to actively install and strengthen a true sense of physical ease. It acts as a biological anchor, connecting those soothing feelings directly to your nervous system so they are easier to reach when you feel overwhelmed.

🎧 Grab a pair of earbuds or headphones to fully experience the alternating left-to-right audio rhythm. If you don’t have headphones on hand, this practice also guides you through a simple, slow alternating tapping instead.

You deserve a mental space where you can feel secure, quiet your thoughts, and return to yourself. Cultivating this image is a resource that belongs entirely to you, and you can return to it whenever you need it most.

🔗 You can find the link to listen for free on the Insight Timer app (link in bio).

This practice is inspired by Dr. Laurel Parnell’s resource tapping (Parnell, L., Tapping In: A Step-by-Step Guide to Activating Your Healing Resources Through Bilateral Stimulation).

Please note: This guided practice is for educational purposes only and can supplement therapy but is not a substitute for therapy. If you are working through trauma or distress, please seek support from a qualified mental health professional.


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Located At Hands On Health Chiropractic, 2907 26 Street
Vernon, BC
V1T4T8

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