Common Light Pathways
Compassionate support on your journey.
About Common Light Pathways
Who is Deanna?
My life changed forever when, at age twenty-seven, I experienced a days-long panic attack before I comprehended what panic attacks were. I had grown up in an extremely religious household with a high value for self-sacrifice, and after devoting my life until that point to systems and people that did not value me, I fell apart. Following a C-PTSD diagnosis, divorce, and the loss of the faith I had built my life around, I began, for the first time, to discover who I am. Despite pushback from my community, I found a therapist. Therapy and online support groups provided me with the space to find my voice and gave me the confidence to ask myself what I needed for the first time.
Longing for community and not knowing where to find it, I started my own support group for people deconstructing their faith. Being part of the sacred process of healing in community, I recognized that there is empowerment not only in sharing your story but also in holding space for others. Since then, I have expanded my services to encompass one-on-one support, community workshops, and support groups with an emphasis on interdependence and education through lived experience and evidence-based practice.
I bring my lived experience as a neurodivergent, queer single mom of two neurodivergent kids, and my education in social psychology to my encounters, extending a hand in solidarity while offering assurance of skill and education.
What is Peer Support?
“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” (Peter Lavigne)
Peer support is not psychotherapy, but a compassionate partnership with a person with first-hand knowledge to share your challenges with and receive support and encouragement.
Why Choose Peer Support?
Science reveals that empathy gives people a natural motivation to seek solutions to their problems and promotes self-acceptance. An empathetic relationship creates the space for a person to safely explore complicated emotions without judgment. Studies also show that empathy and post-traumatic growth often go hand-in-hand, putting people with lived experience in a unique position to offer not only the emotional space required to explore pathways to healing, but also the wisdom and understanding they’ve gained from walking through something similar. It is my passion and philosophy as a peer support professional to offer you these tools to form your own experiential knowledge that you are not alone.
Qualifications
Honours Diploma, General Arts and Science, Mohawk College
Bachelor of Arts, Honours Social Psychology, McMaster University
Areas of Focus
- Neurodivergence
- Parenting (neurodivergent) kids
- Sex- positive, alternative relationship structures
- Religious trauma
- 2SLGBTQIA+
- Empowerment
- Depression/Anxiety
- PTSD
- Building a Support Network
- Boundaries