Online Group for Queer Folks Living With Pain

This counselling experience for queer folks living with pain offers a community of learning and support. Together we will explore what it means to live with ongoing pain, strategies to support emotional wellbeing, and practical ways to take care of ourselves in the midst of it all.

This group will respond to the needs of participants as indicated on the intake forms as well as the emerging needs of the group.

Topics covered may include:

  • Coping strategies

  • Emotional regulation

  • Exploring what increases and decreases pain

  • Emotions, needs and boundaries

  • Exploring inner reactions to pain

  • Care tasks (chores, laundry, feeding yourself and others)

  • Ableism, visible/ indivisibility.

  • Claiming your space in the world and being as you are.

Mondays 7-8:30pm PST

March 4-25 & April 8

Early bird rate: (by February 18) $225+gst / $45 per session

Regular Rate (after February 18th $275+gst / $55 per session

Sliding scale rate is $25 per session. Please contact natalie.maxson{at}oneskycommunity.com to inquire.

I’m Natalie (she/her), completing a Master’s in psychological counselling. I look forward to journeying with you as we explore living and coping with ongoing pain. Ten years ago, I began suffering from chronic pain. My world began to shrink as I discovered I wasn’t able to do what I once could. While there continues to be elements of mystery and complexity in a life of ongoing pain, I live with a greater sense of self-compassion, a stronger desire to set healthy boundaries and a passion to support others who live with visible or invisisble disabilities and ongoing pain. My hope is that you will find nourishment from this group together. 

Natalie is doing her counselling practicum at One Sky Community Resources. For more information and to book an individual, low-cost counselling session with Natalie, go here

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare” - Audre Lorde 

I’m Christina (she/her), a Registered Clinical Counsellor working in East Vancouver. I work mainly with queer and neurodivergent folks and people living with pain. I have lived with various types of chronic pain for most of my life. Some moments/seasons I have adapted and flowed with my fluctuating capacity, finding joy and surprise in limitation. Other seasons/moments I have set my sights on the horizon and moved forward with clarity, pretending limitations didn’t exist. Other seasons I have grieved with longing for what I thought would be. Other moments I have cried and cried.

And here I am, offering a group about pain. Shit into fertilizer? Maybe something I have learned along the way will be a balm to ease your suffering. Maybe something you have learned will be a balm to someone else. My hope is to offer gentle and nourishing space where we can learn, explore and find ease in community.