Founder & Program Developer of Mind Your Heart Academy
Counsellor, RTC | Trauma Educator
If you’re here, there’s a good chance you’re not looking for inspiration. You’re looking for something steadier. Something that doesn’t rush you, fix you, or explain your life away. Mind Your Heart Academy exists because I had to find my own way out of complex trauma without a clear map.
For a long time, I survived by staying capable, functional, and disconnected from my body. On the outside, I looked like someone who was coping.
On the inside, my nervous system was exhausted, hypervigilant, and carrying far more than it had words for. I encountered support that meant well but often moved too fast, asked too much, or unintentionally reinforced the idea that I was broken rather than impacted.
Climbing out of complex trauma wasn’t a breakthrough moment. It was a slow, layered process of learning safety, capacity, and choice. It involved understanding my nervous system, unlearning shame, rebuilding trust in my own signals, and receiving education that didn’t override my pace. It also meant discovering where traditional models helped and where they quietly caused harm.
That journey shaped the last decade of my work.
I’m a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor, trauma educator, and the founder and program director of Mind Your Heart Academy. My background spans counselling, trauma-informed coaching, psychoeducation, and somatic-based healing. I’ve spent years teaching nervous system regulation, stress resilience, and trauma awareness to individuals and professionals, always with one guiding principle: information should reduce harm, not create more of it.
Mind Your Heart Academy was created to offer the kind of psychoeducation I needed when I was healing. Education that is grounded, relational, and respectful of the body receiving it. Not content designed to push insight faster than integration, but learning that restores context, agency, and dignity.
Here, trauma-informed education is not about fixing yourself or performing healing. It’s about understanding why your responses developed, expanding choice gently, and building capacity over time. Harm reduction is woven into every offering because many people arrive here already carrying the weight of being misunderstood by systems that were meant to help.
I oversee all programming within the Academy to ensure it remains ethical, trauma-aware, and accessible. This space is designed to support healing alongside therapy, not replace it, and to meet people where they are rather than where they “should” be.
You don’t need to rush.
You don’t need to be more resilient.
You don’t need to turn your pain into a success story.
You’re allowed to learn slowly, safely, and in a way that respects how hard you worked to survive.
That’s what Mind Your Heart Academy is here for.
With care,
Lea
"I can honestly say I am not the same person as I was when I began to work with Lea. I have always been fantastic at anticipating and meeting the needs of others, and not so great at taking care of myself. With Lea's support and mentorship I have learned to take care of and love myself the same way I do others.
I have learned how to create and uphold healthy boundaries, eliminating resentment and creating ease in my relationships.
Within our coaching relationship, I have experienced the felt sense of safety, allowing me to heal more deeply as I am able to understand and access this feeling in times of stress. I am so grateful for Lea's support. If you are even the slightest bit called to connect with Lea, do it! You won't regret it!"
"I've been in some sort of therapy and counseling since I was 28 years old and it wasn't until this last year working with Lea at the age of 60 that I finally started to see some progress. I recently ran into my counsellor and she asked if I felt CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) was no longer of help to me, and I had to be honest saying no. CBT was a great foundation to have, but understanding my trauma responses and how to regulate my body changed my life! After going through Lea's programs and working with her regularly one on one, my relationship with myself has completely transformed. I used to believe that my existence was of no value. I cannot explain how this manifested in all of my relationships including my marriage. Working with Lea has led me to feel more at peace, less reactive, more compassionate towards others, I don't take things so personally anymore and I feel SO confident in who I am and what I bring into this world. I thought I was a lost cause, constantly feeling stuck in how I felt, and now, I can honestly say I have never felt better. Working with Lea changed my life!"
"Spring of 2022 I signed up for Leas screw coping program and it was extremely helpful! I was already on my own healing journey for about 1.5 years before this program started. The program really helped me understand the awareness around my own trauma and what I still needed to do to heal. Lea ended up doing a 1:1 mindscape session with me in front of the class and it was hands down the best thing that ever happened to me. I told everyone I knew that the 1:1 session I had with Lea saved me in so many ways. I couldn't believe how much that one session helped me. I've always had a deep fear of my husband dying due to my biological dad abandonment. I walked away from that session with Lea and have never had that fear again. Lea literally saved me and I'll forever be grateful for her. After a wonderful six months in that course I signed up for a more advanced trauma informed coaching certificate. This course was amazing and the amount of knowledge I walked away
With was incredible. I now feel so much more confident talking to my patients who have experienced trauma and I don't worry about saying the wrong thing. I was always so worried about re triggering them or sometimes I just truly didn't know how to respond because it was different trauma then what I had experienced. I now have so much more knowledge and understanding about trauma. It's way more complex then I truly realized. I'm so grateful I was able to learn from Lea. Not only is she a beautiful human inside and out but she's extremely knowledgeable when it comes to trauma. Her whole heart is in this program and you can tell she truly loves what she does. I can't wait to keep learning from Lea, she's been an amazing mentor. If you're wanting to learn more about trauma I highly recommend Lea and her programs. Not only will it help you personally but it will help you professionally too."
"My biggest takeaway is getting my life back. This course was a total game changer for me. I had lost my will to live, I had hit rock bottom with my mental health and was burnt out at work. My life has improved in so many ways. I have healthy boundaries now, I have learned coping mechanisms to help me deal with things as they come up now. I'm actually out doing things I love now. My relationships are so much better now. I can communicate my feelings and needs better without feeling bad for having needs etc. This is probably my greatest accomplishment from this program. I no longer hate myself. I didn't think I'd ever be able to say that. My relationship with myself is healthy for once. I put myself first and it feels amazing I recommend this program to anyone and everyone. It was such life changing thing for me. It gave me the confidence boost I needed. I feel like I conquer whatever crazy shit life throws at me after working with Lea and I will be forever grateful."
"I recently completed Lea's 1:1 12 week Trauma Recovery Program. Originally, I was drawn to Lea's work as she is very intuitive, and exudes a genuine sense of caring and warmth. In her practice and throughout the program with her, I was impressed by her easy-going professionalism, and the rigour, effectiveness and transformational quality of the work we did. I can honestly say I don't feel like the same person I was 12 weeks ago! I really appreciated the diligence with which Lea continuously brought me back to my sense of safety and well-being with the work. Her depth of knowledge and experience, combined with her ability to deeply empathize with the mechanisms of trauma response and the not-so-straightforward process of recovery has been invaluable and life-changing."
Meet with me monthly in The Informed Practitioner (T.I.P) membership, your professional care plan! It's a support circle for healers, coaches, counsellors, and alternative practitioners who are doing big work: emotional labour, healing, therapy, and energy work, because you don't have to do it alone!
Whether virtual sessions are your thing, or you'd prefer to connect in person, I'm available for both.
Therapeutic Counselling
Trauma Coaching & Education
Somatic Energy Healing