Look within, the secret is inside you —Huineng
Hello and welcome.
My name is Staci Schaitel. I am trained as an integrative therapist, spiritual counselor and mindfulness facilitator. I offer contemplative, somatic and trauma-informed assisted self-study for individuals interested in personal growth and meaningful change.
I came to this approach out of a desire to extend the work I do personally and in community mindfulness facilitation to an accompanied one-on-one setting. Mindful, somatic inquiry undertaken with a personal guide is a gentle, elegant, and effective approach to deepening self-awareness and working with challenges.
Auroville, India | Integral Education research project, 2023 | Staci Schaitel (l), Stephanie Travale (r)
Together we may attend to sensations, emotions, thoughts, images, impulses, memories, dreams, or whatever else is present. As you learn to stay with your experience in this way, patterns and meanings that were previously implicit can become more visible. Often, what you need to know is already present, but hasn't yet had enough space or attention to become known.
The full spectrum of human experience is welcomed into our sessions together:
body, mind, spirit, earth, & community
My role is to accompany you in discovering, inhabiting and befriending all of your experience more fully. Rather than trying to analyze or explain your experience from the outside, we slow down and become curious about what is happening from the inside.
It is from a place of compassion and shared humanity that I approach our therapeutic relationship. I am not only facilitator and guide, but a fellow human shaped by challenges, mistakes, and ongoing learning.
I do not practice counseling as a way to diagnose, fix or shame, but rather as a relational exploration into human experience and what it’s like to be you.
If you’re curious about integrative counseling and whether it might be a good fit for you, I invite you to reach out for a complimentary twenty minute meeting session. Please read more about what our sessions may look like below and feel free to schedule a consultation with any questions you might have.
Inquiry session
I look forward to meeting you.
“As someone seeking greater spiritual awareness, I really appreciate your ability to create a space where I can be vulnerable and explore what’s really going on beneath the surface. You have a way of listening without judgment, which gives me the confidence to go deeper than I might otherwise allow myself to go. There’s a gentleness in how you hold and guide our conversations, and it helps me understand my situation with more clarity and compassion.”
“Staci brings qualities to counselling that have created the conditions for profound inner shifts. Her ability to hold space, to attune and listen deeply, and to offer reflections that are intuitively healing and strengthening, have been life-changing for me. She meets me without judgment, without any sense that something needs to be “fixed”.
With Staci, I trust that I am being guided not toward some formula for life or an outside agenda, but back toward my own inner knowing. Her skill and depth of knowledge have helped me relearn how to listen to my soul’s messages. This has brought greater freedom, curiosity, and confidence into my daily life.”
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limiting beliefs and patterns
gifts and talents
night time dreams
expansive and afflictive emotions
challenging situations
what you’re trying to shift
what you’re longing for
what scares you
what compels you
what is lighting you up
what is depleting you
what confuses you
what nourishes you
your inner wisdom and unique intelligences
the intelligent and compassionate nature of your defences, fears, anger, sensitivity
ancestral memories
imaginal realms
intuitions
altered states of perception
your spirituality
your relationships to others
your relationship to nature
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In our sessions, I may introduce exercises and practices that support you to:
tend to your emotions
tune into what’s happening in the body
attune to thoughts and feelings as they arise
access a sense of steadiness when navigating difficulty
foster supportive relationship with the natural world
deepen compassion and loving-kindness
cultivate inner balance and steadiness in the face of life’s ups and downs
rest more deeply
gather a scattered mind
express yourself in creative therapeutic ways
deepen a sense of inter-connectedness and belonging
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In our work together you may begin to:
make choices and move in directions that feel nourishing and in alignment with your authentic self
feel more seen, heard, witnessed
understand yourself better
articulate more clearly what is most meaningful to you
feel a growing sense of support from within
deepen connection to and clarity of your inmost experience s
strengthen relationship with your own spirituality
feel an increased sense of embodied aliveness
feel an increased trust in your own capacity
attune more deeply to your own innate guidance and wisdom
experience enhanced compassion for yourself and others, both gentle and fierce
gain increased insight into your own fundamental goodness
access a sense of inner spaciousness
gain confidence that you can weather the ups and downs of life
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Each session is 60 minutes in length and is delivered virtually via Zoom. Sessions cost $175 CAD. A limited number of spots are available with reduced-rate fees in support of accessibility.
New clients please schedule an initial consultation. There is no fee for this 20 minute session in which we can learn a bit about one another and determine whether my therapeutic approach aligns with your needs.The approach is non-clinical, non-diagnostic, contemplative, holistic, and oriented toward personal exploration and growth. Coverage for this type of work varies across extended health plans. Please check with your provider. Look for available reimbursement under categories such as counselling, coaching, spiritual care, or complementary/holistic services.
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times