Counselling in the Comox Valley
Counselling for Women in Business in the Comox Valley
Running a business or stepping into leadership can be exhilarating—and it can also be lonely, overwhelming, and deeply personal. If you’re carrying the weight of something you built, you deserve a place where you can be honest about all of it.
Sound familiar?
The challenges women face in business are often different from what gets talked about in boardrooms or business coaching. Imposter feelings, perfectionism, boundary struggles, guilt about never being fully present anywhere—these aren’t just professional issues. They’re deeply emotional ones, and they deserve more than a productivity hack.
- You’re the one everyone comes to with problems—and there’s no one you bring yours to
- You lie awake running payroll numbers, staffing gaps, or that one difficult conversation on a loop
- You can’t remember the last decision that felt easy—even choosing dinner feels like too much
- The business has become so much of who you are that you’re not sure where it ends and you begin
- You look like you have it all together on the outside while quietly running on empty
- You feel guilty at work about home, and guilty at home about work—never fully anywhere
- Some days you dream about walking away, then feel ashamed for even thinking it
How counselling can help
Before I became a counsellor, I co-founded a wholesale bakery and owned and operated it for more than a decade—hiring and training over thirty staff, riding out the hard seasons, and learning firsthand what it costs to hold a business together. I know the 4 a.m. starts, the decision fatigue, and the strange grief of loving something that is also exhausting you. So when you tell me you can’t just switch it off, you won’t have to convince me. I get it.
Counselling isn’t business coaching, and I won’t hand you a five-step plan. Instead, together we’ll look at the emotional undercurrents of your working life: the fears that keep you from resting or taking risks, the patterns of overwork and people-pleasing, the old stories about worth and achievement that may have been running the show long before the business existed. My work is grounded in attachment theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy, because how we learned to earn love and safety often shapes how we lead, how we push ourselves, and how hard we find it to ask for help.
I won’t ask you to slow down unless that’s what you actually need. Some seasons of business genuinely are full-tilt—I remember them. What we can do is make sure the pace isn’t costing you yourself: finding ways to lead and build that don’t come at the expense of your mental health, your relationships, or your sense of who you are beyond the work. And if you’re standing at a crossroads—growing, selling, closing, beginning again—I know from my own life that those thresholds can be crossed, and that you don’t have to cross them alone.
What we might work on together
Every business—and every woman behind one—is different, so our work will be shaped around you. Some of the threads we might follow:
- Untangling your identity from your business, so a hard quarter doesn’t mean you’re failing as a person
- Easing entrepreneurial anxiety, decision fatigue, and the mental load that never clocks out
- Softening perfectionism and the feeling that you’re never doing enough
- Building boundaries you can actually keep—with staff, clients, family, and yourself
- Making sense of how your personal history shapes your leadership and your relationship with achievement
- Navigating big transitions—growth, succession, selling, closing, or the courage to begin again
Questions women in business often ask
Is this business coaching?
No—and that’s the point. A coach helps you grow the business; counselling tends to the person carrying it. We won’t be building marketing plans. We’ll be looking at the anxiety, the perfectionism, the guilt, and the patterns underneath them, so the life around your work can feel like yours again.
You ran a business yourself — does that shape how you work?
It does. Before counselling, I co-founded a wholesale bakery and owned and operated it for more than a decade, hiring and training over thirty staff along the way. I know what payroll weeks, staffing crises, and 4 a.m. starts feel like from the inside. You won’t have to explain why you can’t just relax.
Do you offer a free consultation?
Yes. A free consultation is a short, no-pressure conversation to meet, ask questions, and see whether we’re a good fit. Booking is handled securely online through Comox Valley Counselling’s Jane system, so you can choose a time that works around your business.
Can we meet virtually? My schedule is unpredictable.
Yes. I offer in-person sessions at Comox Valley Counselling in Courtenay, as well as virtual and phone sessions anywhere in British Columbia. Many business owners find a virtual session between meetings—or a phone session from the car—is what actually makes counselling possible.
My business is doing well. Is counselling still for me?
Yes. Success and struggle live side by side more often than anyone admits. If you look like you have it all together on the outside while quietly running on empty, that’s not a contradiction—it’s one of the most common reasons women in business reach out.
Ready when you are
You’ve built something remarkable. Let’s make sure you don’t lose yourself in it.
A free consultation is a chance to meet, ask questions, and see whether we’re a good fit—no pressure, no obligation.
Book your free consultationIn person in Courtenay · virtual & phone across BC · individuals aged 10+