To Adjust Your Sails is to adapt to life instead of expecting life to adapt to us. But why call it Adjusting Your Sails, what services do you provide, what issues do you help?
Why call it Adjusting Your Sails (AYS)?
My late grandpa, Albert, was a keen sailor and I idolized his ability to take life in stride. No matter the setback he would rise to an issue as an opportunity with a little grumbling but he wouldn’t dwell on it.
Adjusting Your Sails is a metaphor that applies to many people and life experiences but none more relevant than uniformed professionals. Having married my husband who, is now a retired volunteer firefighter, he saw some terrible **** and there is no changing that. When you’re a uniformed professional like a first responder, nurse or in the military, the stuff you go through can’t be changed but you can learn to adjust the way you deal with it – AKA adjust your sails.
The Power of Adjusting Your Sails
A great article that speaks to the power of adjusting our sails comes from Dr. Susan J. Noonan. Dr. Noonan suggests that to avoid being a bystander one must do something when something happens to us. Choosing to seek out counselling means you’re doing just that, you’re taking control and seeking support. It’s tough to ask for help. Sometimes it feels like we’re admitting some weakness or shortcoming. Just as a firefighter puts on fire gear before entering a burning building, you need to take care of yourself first before you can help others.
Adjusting your sails puts you back in control of the things you can adjust. This reduces the anxiety of worrying about the things we can’t control – such as the weather. Often in life we consider things outside of our control and this leads to feelings of helplessness. To adjust our sails is to allow those things we cannot control to not define us or what we do.
What Services we provide
At Adjusting Your Sails we provide mental health services to help individuals through talk therapy and skill building. This enables you to improve your resilience and tolerance to everyday life stresses. We help you build your toolbox so that you can better help yourself in the future. Some therapy modalities we use are:
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – “CBT is a structured, time-limited, problem-focused and goal-oriented form of psychotherapy. CBT helps people learn to identify, question, and change how their thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs relate to the emotional and behavioural reactions that cause them difficulty.” (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health [CAMH], 2022)
- Mindfulness Based – This type of therapy helps individuals focus on the here and now to avoid thinking about the past or dwelling on the future. It has been shown to greatly improve things like stress, anxiety, and depression as well as other mental health issues, (GoodTherapy, 2018).
- Narrative – This is a therapy focused on separating the individual from their problem or concern. In other words, you are not the problem, the problem is the problem. This can be a very liberating realization!
- Solution-Focused Brief (SFBT) – This therapy focuses on short-term therapy to find solutions to specific problems or situations. A goal-oriented approach, it seeks to help empower individuals to be their own problem solvers.
Approaches to Therapy
Below are some approaches which we aim to maintain throughout all therapy and every individual. We aim to keep things:
- Compassion Focused – This type of therapy focuses on developing compassion for others such as your family, friends, strangers, and of course, yourself!
- Person Centered – This therapy is also known as Rogerian Therapy and relies on the client to take more of a leadership role in finding solutions to their concerns.
- Strength Based – Building on the skills and strengths of each individual, this therapy seeks to reinforce the capabilities of each individual. This approach is often helpful for those who lack self-confidence and/or self-esteem.
- Trauma Informed – This therapy type is normally added on to adjust other therapy types to account for past traumas in individuals’ lives. Trauma exists in most people’s past and/or present and it’s the degree to which it affects each individual that determines if a trauma-informed approach is required.
Regardless of the type of therapy used our therapists take a culturally sensitive and inclusive approach to every individual. Being as you are unique your therapy needs to be too! If you have any questions about the type of therapy or would like more information just speak to your therapist or get in touch with us!
What issues we help with
Below is a non-exhaustive list of some of the issues we help with.
Areas of Focus:
- Anger Management/Behavioural Issues
- Anxiety
- Burnout/Workplace Stress
- Chronic pain/illness
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Family Conflict and parenting
- Grief
- Life Transitions
- Pregnancy, Prenatal, Postpartum
- Relationships
- School Issues
- Self Esteem
- Stress
- Trauma and PTSD
Don’t see your issue listed above? No problem, contact us today and let’s discuss the suitability of our services for you. If we aren’t the right fit, we’ll try and point you in the right direction!