When I was 18, halfway through massage therapy school, something terrifying happened.
I was sitting in class taking notes when nausea slammed into me out of nowhere.
My heart raced.
The room spun.
I barely made it to the bathroom before collapsing on the floor of the stall, dry-heaving and convinced I was dying.

Time warped — what felt like two minutes was actually thirty.
I was dissociating, floating outside my own body, completely out of control.

An LPN from my class found me. Instead of comfort, I got questions:

“Are you pregnant?”
“On drugs?”
“Drinking?”

When I whispered no, she said only, “Maybe tell your doctor,” and left.
A classmate later suggested it sounded like a panic attack.
I had never heard the term before.

So I brushed it off and kept going.
 

When It Happened Again
 

A few years later, now in nursing school — my absolute passion — it hit again.
Front row of class.
Same nausea.
Same spinning.
Same terror.

I ran to the bathroom twice, trying to hold myself together.
Something clicked that day: This isn’t normal. This isn’t “just stress.”

The school counsellor called it an “anxiety attack.”
No urgency.
No follow-up.
 

Finally Being Seen
 

At a routine check-up, I finally told my family doctor everything.
He paused and said:

“You’ve been having full-blown panic attacks and generalized anxiety disorder. This is serious — why didn’t you come sooner?”

He started me on sertraline, and for the first time in years, my body felt quiet.
Calm.
Steady.

I remember thinking, “This is how other people feel? This is what I’ve been missing?”
That moment changed everything.
 

Seeing the Gaps From the Inside
 

I graduated and moved straight into mental health nursing.
And everywhere I worked, I saw the same gaps I had fallen through:

• symptoms dismissed

• experiences minimized

• people left to navigate fear alone

• medical providers treating the body

• therapists treating the mind

• almost no one treating both

Especially for people whose anxiety feels physical, overwhelming, and real.

I kept thinking: If I almost slipped through the cracks — how many other people are still falling through them?
 

My Métis Heartbeat
 

I am Métis.
I carry the blood of survivors — people who walked thousands of miles, hid who they were to stay alive, and carried grief and pride in the same heartbeat.

We know what it is to live between worlds.
We know what it is for our pain to be minimized.
We know what it is to be told to “push through” when the weight is unbearable.

My story isn’t just clinical.
It’s cultural, ancestral, and human.
 

Becoming the Bridge I Needed
 

So I built myself into the practitioner I once needed:

• nursing training

• psychotherapy training

• clinical hypnotherapy (with the incredible Wally Muller)

• years in inpatient and community mental health

• a practice that finally integrates mind, body, spirit, and nervous system

Mindful Odyssey exists because 18-year-old me deserved someone who would not leave her on a bathroom floor feeling broken and alone.

I see you.
I’ve been you.
And you never have to face that fear alone again.
 

Where Two Worlds Meet
 

This is a place where:

• Western medicine shakes hands with Indigenous ways of knowing

• stethoscopes sit beside beaded earrings

• grounding exercises and smudging belong in the same conversation

• your emotions, body, story, and spirit are all honoured

I will never ask you to “just push through.”
And I will never minimize your pain.

You deserve to feel safe in your own body.
You deserve care that sees all of you.
 

🌿 Welcome to Mindful Odyssey
 

If you’re here — breathing fast, trying to hold yourself together, wondering if you’re too much or not enough — know this:

I see you.
I honour you.
And you’re already on sacred ground.

You deserve calm.
You deserve clarity.
You deserve healing that actually meets you where you are.

Miigwetch — thank you for trusting me with your story.
Now let me help carry it.