In-Person & Virtual Counselling Services for Women

Empowering Mind-Body-Spirit:

Integrative Wellness Counselling for Women

Empowering Mind-Body-Spirit: Integrative Wellness Counselling for Women

Welcome to Feminine Fortress Counselling. I’m Kirstin, a Registered Clinical Counsellor and a Registered Nurse in Qualicum Beach.

I am dedicated to supporting women who are struggling with:

  • Creating healthy and sustainable lifestyle habits
  • Feeling stressed and overwhelmed
  • Being hard on themselves and their own worst critic
  • Being stuck in patterns that make them eat in unhealthy ways, push down emotions, or feel trapped in negative thinking

My passion is empowering women’s wellness and personal growth by integrating mind-body-spirit connection.  I believe that we all have an innate healing resource within us. It is like an inner compass that guides us in our personal growth and transformation, it offers us compassion and understanding, and it re-connects us with a sense of calm when we feel overwhelmed. This rich inner resource can regulate a stressed or traumatized nervous system, it can give greater perspective and problem-solving skills, and can help us to break unhealthy patterns. By re-connecting with our internal source of strength and growth, we can develop greater self-acceptance and confidence, create healthy habits, and lead our lives from a place of calm and inner peace.

Do you ever finding yourself saying, “I know what I should be doing- I’m just not doing it”?

It is so easy to get stuck in “automatic pilot mode”, where we repeat the same patterns; we eat the same types of foods when we’re stressed or upset, we think the same negative thoughts, we say the same critical things to ourselves, or we push emotions down in the same repetitive ways. Often we know that we should be eating healthier meals, or that we should be dealing with an issue, or that we shouldn’t be our own worst enemy. But despite knowing better, change can be hard. This is because it’s not just a matter of “having more motivation”, nor is it a matter of “trying harder”. There are a number of factors that underlie why we do what we do and why we feel the way we feel.

As a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Registered Nurse (along with my prior career as a Nurse Practitioner), I offer a unique combination of knowledge and skills to help women create a sense of empowerment and wellbeing. I offer an integrative approach to wellness that supports mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing.

I like to think of it as Empowering Mind-Body-Spirit Connection. In re-connecting these elements of yourself, I will help you to develop:

  • Habits of the Heart
  • Habits of the Mind
  • Habits of the Lifestyle

Integrative Counselling Approach

I help women create change in their lives through the integration of Emotionally Focused Therapy, Polyvagal Therapy, and Expressive Art & Journal Therapy techniques. 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, creativity, writing, and drawing 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:

  • Break free from your emotional 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

One of the first steps of EFT is helping people connect with their inner strengths and resources that can act as guides, supports, and encouragement as you take the journey of personal growth and inner transformation. 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
  • 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 this approach to wellbeing resonates with you, please feel free to call or email me (see my contact page), or to book a free 15-minute inquiry call to take the first step towards your personal wellness.

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. I have a master’s degree in nursing, and trained as a Family Nurse Practitioner. 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.

What has been getting in the way of your wellbeing?

  • Are you going through a separation or divorce?
  • Are you feeling stuck in anxiety, guilt, or self-doubt?
  • Do you feel overwhelmed with stress?
  • Do you feel disengaged with life?
  • Do you feel like you could be a better version of yourself?
  • Are you struggling to stick to healthy eating habits?
  • Do you struggle with a strong inner critic?

These are all places where we can get stuck, and feel disconnected from our inner calm, clarity, and confidence. My integrative approach to counselling is designed to empower mind-body-spirit connection so that in our work together, you can discover your path back to a sense of wellbeing and meaning in life.

As we work together, you can take the steps towards regulating difficult thoughts and emotions, re-shaping your automatic responses, and re-writing a new chapter going forward in your life.

How we create meaningful change:

We all develop automatic patterns in our thoughts, emotions, and actions. They often become our “automatic pilot” mode. Some are helpful, but many are not helpful. These automatic patterns get activated when our nervous system reacts to a trigger.

The good news is, we can create new patterns by regulating our nervous system, re-writing our beliefs, and by re-connecting with our internal source of strength and wisdom.

My Three-Phase Model of Care:

Phase I: Create emotional balance & Identify unhelpful patterns.

Phase II:  Create new patterns & Connect with Inner Strength.

Phase III: Create meaning and purpose & Develop a greater sense of self.

A Little Bit About Me:

My name is Kirstin McKinnon, and I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and a Registered Nurse (RN). Before becoming an RCC, I worked in the nursing field, both as a Registered Nurse and as a Family Nurse Practitioner.

I offer a holistic approach to help women tend to their emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health.

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.

Counselling services for women in Qualicum Beach