Empowering your healing through values-driven trauma therapy and addiction recovery
Discover new ways to find happiness, fulfillment, and peace within yourself and your relationships.
Welcome!
Embodied Empowerment is dedicated to guiding individuals along their healing and wellness journey.
Compassion and empowerment are the values that drive our counselling approach. These values aim to foster a space that encourages people to explore their emotions, acknowledge their fully-lived embodied experiences, and cultivate their inner resilience. We prioritize a collaborative, (w)holistic approach while using the best in clinical modalities to meet your needs and help you build your inner resources. We focus on a combination of individual and group options to enhance your healing experience, as we recognize the power of combining group and individual wisdom.
Take the first step, schedule a free 15 minute consult today.
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COUNSELLING AND WELLNESS SERVICES
Individual Therapy
After an initial session, you have the option of Virtual or In-Person.
Mental Health
Support & Coaching
Don't know what you need but looking for a change? You're in the right place.
Trauma Therapy
EMDR is a modality best used to treat trauma. After the initial session, we can determine if this is the best fit for you!
Individualized
Addiction Treatment
After a compreshensive assessment, we review recommendations and tailor your treatment plan to your needs.
Embodied Empowerment Group
for Helping Professionals
As helping professionals, we're all encouraged to practice self-care, yet the options often seem limited to time off, hobbies, or managing our workload. What’s missing is a safe space to process our own experiences—somewhere we can set aside the roles we play for others and reconnect with ourselves.
The Embodied Empowerment Group for Helping Professionals was created to answer that need. It’s a genuine opportunity to practice self-care in a meaningful way. Join us monthly as we create a meaningful space and use guided reflective journaling, movement, and meditation to reconnect to our mental, emotional, and spiritual selves.
Imagine a place that values your well-being, that invites you to breathe, ground, and restore without pressure. This group is a space where you can leave the demands of caregiving at the door, even for a short while, and find a sense of balance.
COMING SOON...
The Empowerment Circle
The Empowerment Circle is a semi-closed, in-person group focused on supporting people's recovery victories and struggles. Using trauma-informed best practices, we support both abstinence and harm-reduction strategies to strengthen individual recovery goals. We meet weekly, blending process and psychoeducation through the lens of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), focusing on various recovery themes.
Values-Driven Mental Health Support
Changing behaviour through compassion and empowerment leads to beautiful transformation and unlocks life's potential.
EMPOWERMENT
WHY EMPOWERMENT?
Empowerment is a core value in our approach. Firstly, it highlights the importance of the person’s role to their own healing. When we are stuck in old patterns and stories, we stop believing in ourselves. Empowerment reminds us that we are capable, we just might need some new strategies or guidance to get us there. In a group setting, Empowerment is experienced when we witness the growth in others and connect with each other’s capacity for change. We begin to feel encouraged and tap into that profound experience that we’re not alone. The experience of shared and common humanity is powerful and transformative. Therefore, therapy infused with Empowerment can motivate you to find the right strategies to help you feel accomplished and capable to address what you need to change, confront, or leave behind.
COMPASSION
WHY COMPASSION?
As Empowerment is a core value, Compassion becomes the driving value that steadies our approach. Compassion embodies the kindness and wisdom needed to serve others while maintaining healthy boundaries. Compassion does not excuse behaviour that causes harm; rather it encourages us to see clearly the reality before us, identify suffering, and proceed with awareness. Compassion is said to be the antidote to shame and is therefore, crucial when facing hard truths to make necessary change. Embracing failure through the lens of Compassion invites safety to explore our actions while providing an opportunity to deepen awareness and embrace accountability for where we need to grow in ourselves and in our relationships.
EMBODIMENT
WHAT IS EMBODIMENT?
The term Embodiment is primarily found in spiritual and mystical literature to describe a connection between the spirit/soul/source energy and the body. It’s a term that was important to signal that we recognize people as whole beings, living embodied (in a body) and face nuanced experiences in various environments. These enriched experiences shape how we view and engage in our lives. Further, Embodiment also honours a positive symbiotic connection to the body. In other words, the body holds it's own wisdom and can tell us what we need. In terms of therapy, it’s a way to recognize the importance of grounding and supporting our nervous system. Many of us live in our heads – disconnected from our intuition and our bodies. For some, trauma severed this connection and restoring this connection safely is vital to healing.
"The healer you have been looking for is your own courage to know and love yourself completely."
Yung Pueblo
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Christie Mellan
Master's of Social Work, RSW #16344
Clinical, Trauma-Informed Care Specialization
Master's of Arts
Bachelor of Psychology
Therapeutic Certifications
EMDR Trained Clinician
Motivational Interviewing
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Mindfulness
Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training – Facilitator
American Society for Addiction Medicine Assessment
Hi, I’m Christie
I’m the founder of Embodied Empowerment, a counselling and wellness practice rooted in compassion and empowerment. Since 2007, I’ve dedicated myself to the field of addiction and mental health, developing a unique combination of skills and experiences in the areas of mental health education, health promotion, advocacy, research, and community building -- all prior to becoming an addiction counsellor and trauma therapist! I believe that these experiences have shaped my counselling approach and bring deeper awareness to my practice.
Early in my career, I discovered a passion for group facilitation and fostering connection as a powerful strategy for mental health. I worked extensively in suicide prevention, post-secondary wellness, and cultivating natural supportive capacities within various communities. Facilitation became a cornerstone of my practice, strengthening my belief in empowerment as a vital component of healing.
A less obvious yet deeply significant layer of my story is my connection to spirituality. I’ve nurtured personal spiritual practices since childhood, deepening my connection to my body and nature, and refining my respect for the cyclical patterns of life. Currently, I strive to maintain a Vipassana meditation practice, which reinforces the skill of practicing compassion daily and is a source to living embodied. I find the intersection of counseling and spirituality fascinating and am open to exploring this respectfully with those who find it meaningful in their healing process.
At the heart of my work is my personal journey. Growing up in a dysfunctional family--one that struggled with emotions, avoided healthy communication, and turned to addiction for comfort-- has given me insight into the challenges of breaking generational cycles. Unlearning entrenched patterns is a lifelong process, but it is absolutely possible!
All of these experiences shape my understanding of how people navigate hardship and suffering while still discovering moments of joy, connection, and beauty in life. We are more than our traumas; we are the product of generations of fully embodied lives and experiences. This understanding underpins my belief in the transformative power of compassion, embodiment, and empowerment in healing.
Overall, I’ve been privileged to work with and learn from remarkable individuals—both professionally and personally—who have influenced my belief in a collaborative, values-driven approach to care. My vision for Embodied Empowerment reflects these facets of my journey, honoring the many lessons I’ve learned along the way. Central to this vision is a (w)holistic, values-driven approach that continues to guide my practice as I deepen my specialization in trauma therapy and addiction recovery.
Beyond Counselling...
When I’m not working, I’m passionate about personal growth and connecting with the world around me. Walking in nature, physical exercise, meditation, and laughing over brunch with friends are integral to my well-being.
I also dream of creating a retreat space in nature—one that emphasizes healing through connection, reintegrating the sacred, and fostering community. I aspire to deepen the embodied healing experience by becoming certified in trauma-informed yoga. Every day, I strive to embody my values of empowerment and compassion, supporting people as they uncover their strengths and move toward lasting change.