Jonathan Scrivens is joining us at Conexus Counselling beginning Tuesday, September 6, 2016! He is a counselling intern that will be working with us for the next season of his education. The rate for his sessions (60 minutes long) is $45.00. Call us at 204 275 1045 or email us if you’re interested in booking an appointment with Jonathan!
As part of bringing Jonathan aboard, I talked to his previous employers. He has played a supportive role with young adults and worked at a post secondary school with publications and media, as well as mowed lawns and other “gettin’ through school” work. He has volunteered with young adults at church and worked with kids at summer camp. And the people I spoke to about him, well …their voices got softer and warm when they talked about how much he cares, they go on and on about his gentleness, his integrity and how much they trust him. They all spoke of his great ability to listen deeply to others, and respond thoughtfully and effectively. They were SO fond of him. I’m so excited that Jonathan Scrivens will be working with our team as we seek to improve the connections in the lives of Manitobans who come to see us.
I invited Jonathan to speak to us about his experience about moving to Manitoba to get his degree in counselling. Us therapists are not just therapists, we have lives that are real and brutal and beautiful and painful and growing. Along the way, life happens. Jonathan is not the same person who started his counselling degree…and I wonder if the tragedy in his life has had more of an impact that all that book learnin’. Listen in to Jonathan’s experience through his own words…
Loss begets grief. When processed in healthy way grief begets resilience.
I know now something of loss.
Prior to June, 2015, I was rather naive to it.
My journey towards becoming a counsellor has a long backstory filled with encouragement, confusion, fear and, finally, a huge risk.
That risk for our family came in the form of uprooting from our happy home and life near friends and family in central Alberta and moving to south-eastern Manitoba. I started attending Providence Theological Seminary as a student in their Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology program. We did not know a single person in Manitoba and so my wife, myself and our one year old son began this journey of education with much trepidation.
We were excited and nervous to learn in that first semester that we were expecting our second child due to be born in the spring of 2015.
- Excited because we had been hoping to grow our family.
- Nervous because our support network was back in Alberta.
However, we looked forward with hope and anticipation for what was to come. We chose optimism over pessimism. As the year progressed we made new friends who started to give us hope for support and community in our new home.
This support proved invaluable because as our due date grew near my wife realized one morning that she had not felt any movement from the baby in the last day or so.
We tried not to panic (modestly successfully). We dropped our son off at a friend’s house and went to see the doctor. Our fear set in when she could not find the baby’s heart beat and sent us to the obstetrics triage at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg.
We tried to stay calm, sent some texts to family to let them know what was happening but a sense of dread started to settle in over both my wife and I. The first two doctors could not find a heart beat. They sent for the ultrasound tech who confirmed it.
Our baby had died.
Our baby had died… 39 weeks, healthy pregnancy, no warning, sudden, no preparation.
Stillborn…
The word stillborn was not really in our vocabulary because it seemed so far from anything in our lives. All of a sudden it was our reality… We set into the practical side of the inevitable delivery. My wife was devastated but determined to get through the delivery successfully. She was amazing!
My wife and I spent about five hours in the hospital with the body of our little boy, Levi. Though I would trade any of it to have him with us whole and healthy, it was an important time for us nonetheless.
As the months have passed since Levi’s passing. there have been huge emotional ups and downs for us. We have navigated the fear of trying to conceive again, the intense heartbreak of two miscarriages and now the cautious optimism of another growing baby in my wife.
We are different people now.
We have come through loss. It took courage to share our story and ask for help. But it made a difference. Through the strong support of others are moving forward in our grief towards greater resilience.
Through all of this I have continued my training towards becoming a counsellor. I am now looking to the next step of sitting with you. I want to hear your stories and provide a safe place and the support needed. Let’s journey together towards greater healing, health and wellbeing in your life. This is the goal of my time as an intern at Conexus Counselling.
I look forward to sitting with those of you who take the brave step of trusting someone to come alongside you in a helping role!
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