Sheila O’Byrne, Ph.D. Psychologist
Counseling Services

Office: near Cook and Oscar Streets, Victoria, B.C.
Phone: 250-590-7472
Email: dr.sheila@shaw.ca




I assist people with a variety of challenges
  • Anxiety, Depression, Panic
  • PTSD ie/ car accidents, military
  • Eating Issues such as Bulimia Nervosa, Anorexia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder
  • Pain Management
  • Divorce or Separation
  • Marriage Counseling
  • Grief / Loss, Terminal Illness
  • Insomnia, Sleep Issues
  • Burnout, Addiction
  • Women's Issues
Therapeutic Approaches Used In Counseling
  • CBT (cognitive behavior therapy)
  • EFT (emotion focused therapy)
  • Gestalt Psychology
  • Intuition Development
  • Guided Imagery (hypnotherapy)
  • Minuchin's Structural Family Therapy (couples and families)
  • Spiritual Psychology
  • Dream Analysis
  • Relaxation Exercises
  • Meditation
The focus of counseling is to assist individuals in developing their own inner power by learning tools such as: meditating or doing relaxation, being aware and kind to self, feeling feelings, managing mind-talk, listening for intuition, and if necessary exploring childhood in relation to present issues. During marital and family sessions, communication skills are also practiced. In individual sessions and in groups, relaxation and guided imagery are used to help people go inside themselves for intuitive answers. This is empowering for the clients. Next is a story of my life experience and how I use tools for healthy self-management. If you like this story go to 'Solutions' for more examples.


Anxiety and Panic

“Accepting means you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling at that moment....you cannot argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer. Through allowing....You become whole.”         (E. Tolle, A New Earth , 2005, p.184)


Dealing with Change. When I turned fifty years old it came to me to stay home for Christmas. This was my intuition guiding me. Messages from intuition or deep wisdom just pop up. Anyway it felt like a good idea because for the last fifty years I had always gone to my parents' home for the holidays or stayed home with a husband. Stay home, I thought? Why not, I was ready to do something different. Also I loved being in my own home. At that time I had been a single mother for 11 years and my son was going to be away with his father for Christmas. It was a perfect time for me to be home alone with no responsibilities. I looked forward to it.

To my great surprise this Christmas vacation was very difficult. Before I knew it I was feeling anxious and panicky. I was crying. Everything was fine in my environment but yet I was so unsettled. I even had crazy thoughts like my sister Mary Jane didn't love me because she was not returning my calls. On Christmas Eve I was crying on the phone to her, embarrassed to admit my folly. She explained that she had been away on a weekend trip and had told our mother to tell me. My brother was at her home visiting and we spoke. He suggested he fly me out that night to Victoria for the family Christmas. He said that if this was just about putting pins in my eyes why the heck would I stay in Calgary. I laughed and I was tempted. I saw myself sitting at the dining room table with everyone, feeling fine and wondering what all the fuss had been about. Then I knew that I needed to stay home and finish this out, whatever it was. And I was pleased to feel the support and love coming my way. After I hung up the phone I went to a friend's house for dinner and had a nice time.

Later that night at home, I felt anxiety and panic again. I felt my feelings and did my best to walk through the experiences, to be in them. I said yes, accepting what I was facing. I also figured I was shedding layers of feelings, if anything. Then Christmas was over and I felt fine. I reflected. The process made me think about the people who get laid off or retire after 30 or 40 years at the same job and what they must go through. Or a person who loses a spouse to death after 50 years of marriage, even a military soldier who must become a civilian again after years of service. I realized that the cells in the body must go through anxiety, panic, anger, or frustration with the change.

I had gained significant life experience that Christmas and much empathy for people going through great change. It would be several years later that I would also understand the significance of the experience when I moved to Victoria, B.C. and again felt anxiety. It was as if my body was saying what are we doing here? I miss the roots in Calgary. The previous event at Christmas had prepared me for the change I went through when I moved to Victoria. It softened the blow. It has been written that moving is one of the most stressful changes we can make. I always wondered how that could be. I had moved to Calgary when I finished university in Edmonton. That wasn't very stressful. Moving from Calgary to Victoria on the other hand was a different story. Now I understood. I had developed deep roots in Calgary. The deeper the roots the more stressful the change. Again the key is to be in the change with awareness and acceptance

A More Extensive List of Tools for feeling better
  • Doing daily Meditation or relaxation. (5 minutes a day is a good start.)
  • Practicing awareness and kindness to self.
  • Managing mind-talk. (ie/ breathing and coming back to the moment.)
  • Feeling feelings. (so they can melt and the onion can get smaller.)
  • Listening for the Inner Guidance.
  • Eating healthy foods and cutting back on junk foods. (ie/ eating three balancd meals a day.)
  • Exercising moderately.
  • Reading books on self-development.
  • Listening to audiotapes on self-development.
  • Watching a sad movie, which helps us to cry and thus release feelings.
  • Opening up to a friend or partner.
  • Looking for the positive in oneself and in others.
  • Writing in a journal.
  • Analyzing dreams.
  • Addressing addictive use of smoking, drinking and taking drugs.
  • Cutting back on television.
  • Laughing.
Purpose of Tools

Rome was't built in a day so making small changes in how you live your life can eventually lead to significant change. If you can implement some practices into your lifestyle, in time it will feel normal to be living in these ways. Change will begin to happen and you will be more peaceful and conscious. You will experience more Beingness which is very helpful when dealing with inner and outer stress.

See Meditation Made Easy for a tool that's simple to do, but also hard to get done.


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