Vanya Laporte Counselling Connections

06/12/2026

I love my deep, intentional work with other therapists! Here are my summer and fall offerings– consultation, training & supervision spaces:

Depth, Dignity & Care in Exile Work

5-Week Consult Group for IFS Therapists

A small, experiential consultation group focused on working with exiles with greater presence, pacing, and care. Alongside clinical consultation, we’ll also attend to our own internal processes as therapists.

Starts June 29 | Every other Monday x5 | Online | 5–8 participants
More info: www.facebook.com/share/1EjWeJkLqz/

The Therapist Within: Befriending Our Parts in Practice

July 20 | 10:00 am – 3:30 pm PST

A live online training for therapists to turn toward their own inner system. This workshop offers space to slow down and meet the parts of ourselves that show up in clinical work—striving, protecting, holding uncertainty—with curiosity, compassion, and somatic awareness.

More info: https://www.facebook.com/share/18kAfBXRFM/

The Grounding Grove: Somatic Consult Group for Therapists

A longer-term monthly consult group for therapists integrating somatic approaches into their practice. An experiential, collaborative space for reflection, clinical dialogue, and deepening embodied work.

Sept 2026 – Feb 2027 | 6 monthly sessions | Tuesdays 10:00–12:00 pm PST
Schedule & details: https://www.thrivingroots.org/group-offerings/grounding-grove

Practising with Presence: 5-Week IFS Consultation Circle

A consultation group for IFS practitioners focused on strengthening confidence, pacing, and relational presence within the model. A space to slow down, deepen skill, and learn in community.

Sept 21 – Nov 16 | Every other Monday | 9:30–11:30 am PST | Online
More info: https://www.facebook.com/share/1EVZAzCnCR/

1:1 Supervision & Consultation

I also offer individual supervision and consultation for therapists. My 1:1 work is somatically grounded, relationally attuned, and supports therapists in staying connected to themselves while working with complex clinical material.

Book here: https://vanyalaporte.janeapp.com/

Counselling Services online and in Victoria, BC

06/12/2026

Wondering what you'd actually need for an outdoor session? Less than you'd think.

Comfortable shoes, layers for the weather, and a willingness to walk slowly. That's really it. We meet at an accessible trailhead, keep to gentle, well-groomed paths, and move at whatever pace feels right for you that day.

If it rains, we adapt. If you'd rather sit than walk, we sit. The natural world isn't a backdrop here, it's part of the support.

Curious whether it would suit you? A free Meet and Greet is a no-pressure place to ask anything. 🌿

www.vanyalaporte.com

06/10/2026

Some of the most restorative places near Victoria are closer than you think.

Elk/Beaver Lake, Summit Park, and Francis King each offers something a little different. A wide view to widen your perspective. A canopy of trees to slow your breathing. A familiar loop where your thoughts can settle into rhythm.

You don't need a destination or a goal. Sometimes the practice is simply arriving, noticing, and letting the land hold you for a while.

If you'd like to bring this kind of presence into your healing, outdoor sessions are one of the ways we can work together. Reach out for a free Meet and Greet.

www.vanyalaporte.com

06/06/2026

Have you ever noticed a part of you that works very hard to keep you safe?

Maybe it keeps you busy, keeps the peace, or stays alert for what might go wrong. In Internal Family Systems, we call this a protector and rather than trying to silence it, we get curious about it.

These parts aren't problems to fix. They're often doing their best with the role they took on long ago. When we meet them with kindness instead of frustration, something gentler becomes possible.

This is slow, compassionate work and you don't have to do it alone. A free Meet and Greet is a good first step.

www.vanyalaporte.com

06/04/2026

Curious about outdoor counselling, but not quite sure what it involves?

It's simpler than you might imagine. We meet on a public, well-groomed trail, walk at a gentle pace, and let the conversation unfold side by side. There's no pressure to perform, no clinical office, no constant eye contact, just presence, fresh air, and space to think.

For many people, something softens out here. The body settles. Words that felt stuck indoors begin to move.

If you've been wondering whether this kind of support might suit you, you're warmly invited to book a free Meet and Greet. 🌿

www.vanyalaporte.com

05/18/2026

How Animals Help Us Know Ourselves Better

There is something quietly profound about being in relationship with animals.

Whether it is a dog who senses our sadness before we say a word, a cat who curls beside us when we are overwhelmed, or even watching birds move through the trees on a difficult day — animals often invite us into a different kind of presence.

One that is slower, more honest, and less performative.

Animals do not ask us to explain ourselves. They are not concerned with productivity, image, or how well we are holding everything together. They respond to nervous systems, energy, tone, pacing, and authenticity. In many ways, they meet us beneath words.

And because of this, animals can help us notice parts of ourselves we might otherwise overlook.

A person who struggles to feel their own needs may suddenly become deeply attuned to the needs of their pet. Someone who has learned to stay emotionally guarded may discover tenderness emerging naturally while caring for an animal. Others begin noticing how calming touch, movement, playfulness, or quiet companionship affect their body and nervous system.

Animals can also gently mirror us.

Sometimes we notice our own anxiety reflected in a highly alert dog. Or we realize how much softness we carry when we witness the trust an animal places in us. Relationships with animals often reveal both our protective patterns and our capacity for connection.

For many people, animals offer a kind of relational safety that has been difficult to find elsewhere.

Not because animals replace human relationships, but because they remind us of something important: that connection does not always require performance. Sometimes healing begins in simple moments of co-regulation, companionship, and being accepted exactly as we are.

In a fast and often disconnected world, animals help bring us back into relationship with presence, care, instinct, play, grief, gentleness, and the living world around us.

And sometimes, through loving them, we slowly learn how to return to ourselves too.

Join Freida and I on our therapy sessions around the Victoria area! Reach out for more info on pet-assisted, nature-based therapy. www.vanyalaporte.com

05/18/2026

What Slowing Down in Therapy Actually Means

“Slowing down” is a phrase often used in therapy spaces, but many people are not entirely sure what it actually means.

It can sound vague, idealistic, or even frustrating when you are someone carrying anxiety, overwhelm, trauma, grief, or simply the pace of modern life inside your body. Sometimes clients hear the invitation to slow down and think: I don’t even know how to do that. Or: If I slow down, everything I’ve been holding back might catch up with me.

And honestly, that makes sense.

Many of us have learned to move quickly through our lives. To problem solve. To keep functioning. To stay productive. To care for others while quietly moving away from ourselves. Slowing down can feel unfamiliar, vulnerable, or even unsafe at first.

But in therapy, slowing down is rarely about becoming passive or “doing less.” It is about creating enough space to begin hearing ourselves again.

Slowing down helps us notice what has been living underneath

So much of our inner world gets missed when we move too quickly.

The body often speaks softly at first. A tightening in the chest. A subtle feeling of dread. A lump in the throat. Exhaustion. Irritability. Numbness. Longing. Grief.

When life moves fast, we learn to override these signals. We push through. We explain things away. We stay in our thinking minds because it feels more manageable there.

Slowing down in therapy allows us to gently notice what is happening underneath the surface without immediately needing to fix it.

Sometimes this means pausing after a question instead of rushing to answer. Sometimes it means noticing what happens in the body while telling a story. Sometimes it means sitting quietly for a moment after tears arrive instead of moving away from them.

These moments may seem small, but often they are where deeper healing begins.

People sometimes worry that slowing down means endlessly analyzing feelings or staying immersed in pain. But therapeutic slowing down is not about drowning in emotions. It is about building the capacity to be with ourselves in a more supported and compassionate way.

In many forms of trauma and attachment healing, going too fast can actually move us away from meaningful connection with ourselves. We can become flooded, overwhelmed, intellectualized, or disconnected.

Slowing down helps therapy become more relational and embodied rather than performative or rushed.

It allows space for curiosity instead of pressure.

Often, the nervous system needs slowness before it can trust...

Many people arrive in therapy carrying nervous systems that have had to stay vigilant for a very long time.

For some, slowing down may initially feel uncomfortable because fast movement, busyness, overthinking, caretaking, or staying productive have become ways of staying safe.

Therapy is not about taking those strategies away abruptly. Those ways of coping often developed for very good reasons.

Instead, slowing down invites us to become more compassionate toward the parts of ourselves that learned to survive this way.

Over time, with enough safety and support, the nervous system may begin to soften. Not because someone forced it to, but because it no longer has to hold everything alone.

Slowing down can reconnect us to our inner world.

One of the quiet gifts of slowing down is that people often begin to rediscover parts of themselves that have been hidden beneath urgency and survival.

Feelings become clearer.
Needs become more visible.
Boundaries become easier to sense.
Grief that has waited patiently for years may finally have space to move.
Joy, creativity, tenderness, and rest sometimes begin returning too.

This process is rarely linear. And it does not happen through pressure.

Healing often unfolds through moments of being deeply listened to — by another person, and eventually by ourselves.

In a culture that constantly pushes urgency, slowing down can feel radical.

We live in a world that rewards speed, productivity, certainty, and performance. Many people have internalized the belief that their worth is connected to how much they accomplish or how well they hold everything together.

Therapy can become one of the few places where there is permission to pause.

To breathe.
To notice.
To not rush toward an answer.
To allow complexity.
To listen for what is true underneath the noise.

05/18/2026

Grief is one of the most human experiences we carry, and yet it is often misunderstood, rushed, or quietly pushed aside in our culture. Many people receive the message—directly or indirectly—that grief should be hidden, moved through quickly, or resolved neatly within a certain timeline. But grief does not tend to move that way.

Grief asks something different of us.

The path of grief is not separate from being alive; it is woven into the experience of loving, changing, longing, and losing. We grieve people, relationships, identities, hopes, seasons of life, and sometimes even the things that never came to be. Your grief may come through the death of a loved one, a separation or divorce, illness or disability, the loss of work, family ruptures, or the ache of unmet dreams and expectations.

When grief is ignored or carried alone for too long, it can begin to harden inside us. It may show up as anxiety, numbness, exhaustion, disconnection, or a feeling that parts of ourselves have gone quiet. And yet, when we are given space to gently tend to our grief with compassion and support, something meaningful can begin to unfold. Grief can become not only a place of sorrow, but also a place of deep listening, healing, and reconnection with ourselves.

I believe it is both our human right and our profound opportunity to know this experience called grief. We are not meant to navigate loss alone.

As a somatic and mindfulness-based counsellor, I hold grief work with tenderness, patience, and respect for each person’s unique process. I often remind clients that every body holds resources, even when we feel lost, overwhelmed, or disconnected from them. Sometimes we simply need compassionate support to help us remember what is already there.

It is an honour to sit alongside people as they move through loss, transition, and change—making space for emotions, stories, and body experiences that may not have had room to breathe elsewhere. Together, we work toward greater wholeness, self-understanding, and more nourishing ways of being with ourselves.

I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor offering trauma-informed counselling for adults, youth, and families. My work integrates somatic practices, mindfulness, and nature-informed therapy.

Sessions are available in my Victoria office, online, and outdoors in places such as Elk/Beaver Lake and Francis King Park.
If you or someone you love is moving through grief or a difficult life transition, you are welcome to reach out for a free meet-and-greet conversation to see whether working together feels like a supportive fit.

For more information, please visit vanyalaporte.com or email vanya.laporte(at)gmail.com.

02/12/2026

Upcoming workshop for folks interested to learn more abotu Walk & Talk style therapy outdoors.

Feb 27th from 6-7pm PST
Fee: $60

Meeting Clients on the Path: An Introduction to Walk-and-Talk Therapy

Walk-and-talk therapy offers a gentle, embodied alternative to the therapy room. This workshop introduces the why and how of working outdoors, with space for questions, reflection, and practical take-aways you can use right away.

01/26/2026

This!

https://www.elephantjournal.com/2025/08/space-clearing-in-the-age-of-fascism-how-to-protect-your-home-body-from-collective-trauma-lais-stephan/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAPjz_RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeJQ-dhvWyo0CrFjAKXKZDx6RiqbESsRcvYXMeXmbIDPGSjfzkmJN3jNdxjCs_aem_tvlvU9GKcgO8NsViLdMPjg

I used to energetically clear my home when life felt heavy. I loved making my home feel lighter after a breakup or a tough week. Now I do it because the world won’t stop breaking my heart.