Month: July 2025

Posted in IFS, Mental Health, Reflections, Sam's adventures, Stress Management

Building Community

Posted on by Snowrose

I have often wondered what it would be like to live somewhere where building community is part of the culture. Over the last five years, I have been trying to build community intentionally, and I have found it to be needlessly hard. Canadian culture, especially in the big cities, is not anything like the international community imagines. We have an overdeveloped sense of autonomy and an individualistic mindset. From the conversations I have had with those who immigrate to Canada, the culture shock is isolating. As someone born and raised here, I love my country, but I hate the autonomy of our culture.

My experience has been common: building community is hard. It is easier to live interdependently in rural areas, but in the city? Oh boy, individualism is the ideal. This has been detrimental to our population for so many reasons. While everyone has a fundamental integrity need for agency, individualism takes this principle too far. People wonder why rates of mental illness are continuously on the rise in Canada. The simplest answer? Broken homes and no community. I realize those topics are heavy and loaded, but as an adult child of divorce, I can attest to the impact of both. Canada is a land with so much potential, despite its cosmopolitan history. It’s not too late to turn things around for the next generations.

The solution? Intentional Community Building.

If we want to turn the tide on mental illness and suicide, we need to work intentionally to make and foster a culture of community. To be honest, we need to embrace the Canadian stereotype and welcome the level of hospitality and kindness that the international stage believes we have. To be honest, I don’t know the steps needed to make that change, but I know it is the direction that we need to go.

It has taken me 5 years to start seeing the fruit of building up a community at my local parish, with consistent support from my friends who live in other parts of the city. It took even longer to overcome the internalized autonomy. I believe every effort is worth it. As I have learned more about psychology, I’ve come to understand the importance of community. We are a species that thrives on healthy interdependence. Isolation kills, community gives life. Let’s work together on building a community.

Posted in celiac disease, Recipes, Sam's adventures

Birthday Delights

Posted on by Snowrose

Last week was filled with birthday party prep! There were many birthday delights for our son! This year, we hosted a shared birthday party with one of our close family friends, and it was a huge hit! I am amazed at how quickly these kids grow up. If you aren’t a parent, the phrase “the days are long and the years are short” does not make sense. I can say with all honesty that the older Tristan gets, the faster the years seem to go by.

Today’s blog post is all about one particular birthday delight: CAKE! Like many boys his age, Tristan loves Minecraft! He had been asking for months for a Minecraft cake. We scoured the internet for inspirational ideas- and this year I jumped out of the box… box mix, that is. It has been nearly a decade since I was willing to experiment with gluten-free baking! For the most part, I have been using tried-and-true box mixes. This is not the most creative way to bake, but I cannot express how much I dislike experimenting with flour blends. The early years of my diagnosis came with baking that a friend iconically said “tasted like rice and sadness”.

A fantastic find!

In comes a fantastic find: Ardent Mills Gluten-Free Flour Blend.

I had seen this brand recommended in various Celiac groups I am in on Facebook, but had never found it at the stores nearby. I had originally planned to make the cakes with gluten-free box mixes, but the Costco near our house had it in stock! What a VALUE!! I managed to make pancakes, 4 FULL cakes, and STILL had leftover flour for 15$!! To give those who don’t have to avoid gluten an idea, each box mix usually costs 6-7$ EACH. Oh, and those boxes only include enough flour blend to make ONE slab cake OR 12 cupcakes.

I had honestly forgotten what it was like to bake in normal volume. At first, I accidentally made way too much carrot cake. Though, really, can you have too much carrot cake? We have been enjoying the extra carrot muffins all week! I made one extra cake on purpose as a gift to our family friends in thanks. It was also a hit. I admit, as I was mixing all the batter, I did question the volume. It wasn’t until I was starting to fold in the carrots that I realized where I had made the happy mistake. Gluten-free baking with box mixes NEVER yields this much.

Birthday Delights: a Minecraft Cake

Now, with white cake, chocolate cake, carrot cake, (not) Rice Krispies squares, and Jello, the cake was ready to come to life!

The cake was built in two pieces because Tristan wanted a Nether Portal on the Outworld AND the Nether. It has been a while since I have made anything this complex, but I had so much fun making it! I grew up baking every week and was hit hard when I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2012. I am so excited to keep baking with this awesome pre-made blend! It needs more liquids than regular flour, so recipes need to be modified appropriately, but that’s so much easier than figuring out the blend itself. I am so thankful that I stepped out of the box and made this cake! Tristan LOVED this birthday delight!

Posted in Health, Sam's adventures

Sleeping Soundly: a Cautionary Tale

Posted on by Snowrose

Sleeping soundly is a phrase that mothers tend to forget over the years. From the moment your baby is born, sleeping seems to become a thing of the past. Some children sleep well, and their mothers are blessed with sleep. I did not experience that. My sweet boy was born and did not sleep through the night until he was 3, by which point I was not sleeping through the night for another year. Then, over the last two years, I found that sleep no longer brought rest, even when I did sleep through the night. Turns out… I have sleep apnea!

I should have investigated this sooner, but to be honest, I didn’t know my poor sleep was not a normal part of motherhood. Sleeping had become difficult and unrestful, and I chalked it up to being a lighter sleeper… that is, until I started waking in the middle of the night feeling as if I were choking. It took getting quite bad before investigating! Nearly 9 months ago, I went for a sleep test. They found that my windpipe collapsed during REM and my oxygen went to 76%. I was likely experiencing this for the majority of my motherhood, but did not take my sleep needs seriously.

Although CPAP therapy took some time to get used to, it has made an INCREDIBLE difference. When I got my CPAP back in March, I found that I could not use the full mask without many leaks throughout the night. I’ve been using the Brevida Nasal Pillow mask instead. It took around two weeks to adjust to the air pressure in the CPAP at night. Instead of waking up choking, I would wake up with intense air pressure to keep my windpipe open. Within a month, I was relaxing so much that I needed to wear a chin strap to keep my mouth closed. This setup has continued to work for me and has become a very consistent sleep cue. It may look silly and weird, but it has made a WORLD of difference in my energy.

To any moms out there struggling with daytime exhaustion, restless sleep and sleepiness: don’t wait, investigate. If you are silently suffering from sleep apnea, you aren’t sleeping soundly. You matter and ought to prioritize your needs. It takes over a year to see the metabolic changes from treating sleep apnea. Over time, you will feel better and you will find sleeping finally breathes the life back into you!

Posted in Coaching, Mental Health, Reflections, Stress Management, Trauma

Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

Posted on by Snowrose

As an adult child of divorce, there have been many lessons I missed receiving due to the nature of my family situation. One of these was the idea of forgiveness. This is especially true when looking at forgiveness and reconciliation. I’ve come to learn in my adult life that these are two very different but interwoven concepts. Like many others in broken families, I have worked to learn about what I didn’t get. In this way, I hope to break the cycle and live out a resilient family life with my husband and son.

Forgiveness is for me

To begin, I think a fundamental realisation is that forgiveness is not actually for the other person. Forgiveness is for me. If I have been injured in some way, forgiveness is not pretending it was ok, sweeping it under the rug, or becoming a doormat. Unlike these examples, forgiveness means recognizing I am rightfully owed a debt of injustice, whatever that injustice may be. You can only truly forgive by acknowledging what happened. Forgiveness says, “I recognize you cannot pay for this injustice, and I forgive you the debt”. Forgiveness means I allow myself to process and release the emotions of hurt and pain. This means I recognize the broken humanity in us both and choose not to harbor it against you.

Reconciliation is for you

This is where the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation comes in. In choosing to forgive, I choose not to hold onto it, but that does not mean that the injury to the relationship is ignored. Whether I re-establish the relationship and how, now that is reconciliation, not forgiveness. I have forgiven the debt owed, and from there, have to establish boundaries and see whether the transgression is reconcilable. To rebuild a relationship after injury to trust, both parties must show accountability. If one or the other cannot acknowledge their behaviors healthily, it is not possible to reconcile. Next, the injured party chooses forgiveness, and the injuring party exemplifies a genuine desire to change. If the one who has caused harm refuses to change, then boundaries need to be set to protect yourself. There is no one-size-fits-all how-to-reconcile, but those are the fundamentals to see if it is possible!

How to model these as a parent

In my youth, I was not modelled either forgiveness or reconciliation. I am a firm believer that modelling is the most effective parenting strategy, and the science is there to back me up. “Do as I say, not as I do” just doesn’t promote sound psychology or human formation. Teaching your child to apologize helps them learn accountability. Saying you forgive them is only a small part of modeling forgiveness and reconciliation. To truly model it, you need to allow them the opportunity to forgive as well. This means apologizing when you misbehave as a parent, and let’s be real- we all do. Allowing your child to practice forgiveness can prevent the common childhood wounds of shame, support emotional regulation, and encourage resilient self-confidence. By teaching your child both how to be accountable and to forgive, you uphold their dignity and show them a better way to relate and live.