I was fourteen the first time I understood that therapy could be something sacred. On the outside I was the "good kid," doing everything right; on the inside I was struggling more than anyone knew. One session, my therapist — an older man — sat up straight and told me, firmly and kindly, to stop being so hard on myself. It caught me completely off guard, and for the first time in a long while I felt seen. In that moment I knew two things at once: that change was possible, and that I had reason to hope again. I've never forgotten what it felt like to be met like that, and it's a large part of why I do this work.

Years later, depth therapy found me in my own first analysis. I'd been asked to write down any dreams before the first meeting, and I arrived with one that turned out to be far more personal than I'd expected. My analyst wasn't fazed — she went straight to what the dream was saying about how I saw myself, and in a single session we reached places earlier therapy had taken months to approach. Something clicked. The psyche has its own built-in creativity, speaking in images, metaphors, and stories, and learning to listen to it is a remarkable way of understanding a person. It pulled together so much of what I'd been reaching toward, and I knew this was the work I was meant to do.

That belief lives in the name Cedar River. Part of it is simply this place — the cedars that grow so abundantly across BC. The rest comes from the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, a personal hero of mine, who compared healing to a river. A river doesn't need to be taught how to flow, and people don't need to be taught how to love, or laugh, or come alive. When a river is blocked, the work isn't to rebuild it — it's to gently clear what's in the way so it can move freely again. That's how I understand my role: to notice, alongside you, what's keeping you blocked, and to help you clear it so you can flow.