In-Person & Virtual Counselling Services for Women
Empowering Mind-Body-Spirit Wellness:
Holistic Counselling for Women
Empowering Mind-Body-Spirit Wellness: Holistic Counselling for Women
Kirstin McKinnon, Registered Clinical Counsellor & Registered Nurse
Welcome to Feminine Fortress Counselling. I’m Kirstin, a Registered Clinical Counsellor and a Registered Nurse in Qualicum Beach.
My career began as a Registered Nurse, then as a Family Nurse Practitioner. I became a nurse because I wanted to support people as they faced difficult health challenges, and support them in improving their health. I knew early in my career that one of my deepest desires was to help people find their strengths, improve their lives, and feel better about who they are as a person. This led me to discovering how much I valued working with people to improve their emotional and mental wellbeing, in addition to their physical wellbeing.
I find that I can’t be a nurse without also being a counsellor, and I can’t be a counsellor without also being a nurse! Counselling and Nursing naturally complement one another. It allows me to take a whole-person approach to care and to see the “big picture” of someone’s life and their struggles. Being both a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Registered Nurse allows me to understand, and work with, the interconnections between mind, body, emotion, and spirit. I understand how our biology and health conditions impact our emotional and mental health, and how our emotional and mental health impact our physical health. Having this knowledge also helps me in addressing each person’s unique needs, and in creating a plan for improving their wellbeing.
I love helping women who know they are strong, but are at the point of overwhelm. They made be overwhelmed with stress, trauma, or grief, or overwhelmed with trying to stick to a healthy lifestyle. My desire is to help women re-connect with a sense of calm, confidence, and balance, and to get unstuck from reactive patterns that are impacting their lives. I do this work so that I can join with women in helping them to feel better and to have a better life.
“I know that I am strong, but I am overwhelmed”
This is something I often hear from women. So many women feel stuck in “fight or flight mode”, stuck in reactive patterns, or stuck in grief. Or they tell me that they either tend to get hijacked by their emotions, or they push them down and suppress difficult emotions. Yet, we know that the more we try to push away or avoid an emotion, the more easily it is activated!
I help women create change in their lives primarily with the use of Emotionally Focused Therapy and Polyvagal Theory, and I also include some forms of Expressive Art Therapy. One of the benefits of integrating these modalities is that they take therapy beyond just talking! Each of these therapies make room for practices such as guided imagery, visualization, and connecting with inner supports which can make therapy feel more real and impactful.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) provides a trauma-informed, research-based framework that can help you to:
- Get unstuck from reactive patterns and unhealthy habits
- Create emotional balance and resilience
- Improve your relationships
- Strengthen the sense of who you are and what you are capable of
- Learn how to deal with emotions in a healthy way, instead of pushing them down, numbing, distracting, or getting hijacked by them
One of the first steps of EFT is helping people connect with their inner strengths and resources that support and encourage as you take your wellness journey. This empowering process can help you to reclaim joy, compassion, confidence, acceptance, and peace. EFT deepens your access to your inner wisdom to cultivate personal growth, resilience and inner transformation.
Polyvagal Theory is a trauma-informed, research-based model that:
- Provides a roadmap of the nervous system and regulates troubling symptoms, difficult emotions, and unhealthy patterns
- Provides clear framework that can empower you to understand how your nervous systems shapes your thoughts, emotions, and patterns, and offers powerful methods to create new patterns of calm, connection, and compassion
- Helps people to let go of negative self-talk and re-connect with more a more empowering narrative
- Enhance one’s ability to self-regulate difficult emotions
- Helps build resilience and reduce trauma symptoms
- Helps to create a greater sense of stability to engage more fully with life
Expressive Arts & Journal Therapy techniques can:
- Provide creative ways for reducing inner criticism
- Connect you with the part of yourself that is compassionate, connected, non-judgmental, calm, and confident
- Connect with the person you want to be
- Provide a way to express what cannot always be said with words
- Move you from your left, analytical/judging, brain and into our right, creative/compassionate, brain to find to find clarity and direction
- Provide a pathway to the restorative power of your imagination and inner wisdom
- Support you in feeling regulated, calm, and enlivened
Take the First Step
If you are considering seeking counselling, I welcome you to book a free 15-minute inquiry call, so that you can “meet” me and see if this is a good fit for you.
Counselling Services:
Counselling Services for Women in Qualicum Beach
Hi! I’m Kirstin McKinnon. I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and a Registered Nurse (RN) in Qualicum Beach. In being both a counsellor and a nurse, I have a unique expertise in health and wellness. I understand how unhealthy habits are formed, how they get “programmed” into our nervous system, and how we can change them. It takes more than just a plan, motivation, and willpower to change lifestyle habits. This is where I can help best; helping women to change their relationship with food, to work through the underlying issues that maintain unhealthy patterns, to build self-confidence, and to create more calm in their lives. In essence, I help women create healthy habits of the heart, habits of the mind, and habits of the lifestyle.
I have a master’s degree in nursing, and hold both registrations as a Registered Nurse and Registered Clinical Counsellor. I also previously trained as a Family Nurse Practitioner, personal trainer and health coach. I have over 18 years of experience in working one on one with clients. I have seen the complexities of life and relationships, and I strive to help clients form a place of empathy and understanding. My combined education and practice experience gives me a unique understanding of, and approach to, the interconnection of mind, body, and emotions. My knowledge and training in counselling and advanced practice nursing enables me to provide evidence-based, holistic care to support clients in creating greater well-being in their lives. I wholeheartedly believe in peoples’ capacity to heal, grow, and change. This ability within you, combined with evidence-based therapies, can produce meaningful change in your wellbeing.
Tending to the heart, mind, body and soul.
Dissolve unhelpful behavioural and emotional patterns, develop a stronger sense of self, and engage in life in a more meaningful way.
