There’s a common misconception that therapy happens in a vacuum.

A quiet room.

Two chairs.

A conversation removed from the outside world.

But anyone who has lived inside real systems—healthcare, education, child welfare, immigration, poverty, disability, trauma—knows this isn’t how healing actually works.

People do not arrive in therapy untouched by the world.

They arrive shaped by it.

And this is where social work matters.

Written by Galina Gouliquer, MSW, RSW - Registered Social Worker at Mind and Ocean

There was a time when I believed the next step in my professional journey would be a doctorate. It felt like the natural progression — the outcome of years of studying, refining my skills, and building a career rooted in compassion, curiosity, and discipline.

In many ways, pursuing a doctorate made sense.

It was predictable.

Respectable.

Aligned with the version of myself who had always pushed for more.

But when I found out I was pregnant, something shifted.

Not in a dramatic way — but in a quiet, grounding way that made me pause long enough to ask a question I had never actually considered:

Is the path I’m on the path I want — or simply the one I assumed I should follow?

Written by Celna Sousa, MSW, RSW, CCTP - Owner and Founder of Mind and Ocean

Grief echoes.

Grief repeats.

Grief resurfaces when love is threatened — not because we’re broken, but because we’re human.

The body keeps its own timelines.

The heart has its own memory.

And traveling with someone you love… then watching life shift in ways you didn’t see coming… it brings you face to face with the parts of grief you thought you had already mastered.

Written by Bryan Salangsang, BA psych (Adv.), MACP (Cand.), CCP - Pre-licensed Professional Counsellor at Mind and Ocean

Complacency is rarely loud. It doesn’t announce itself.

It settles in slowly — when the familiar becomes easier than the intentional, when movement gets replaced by maintenance, when purpose gets replaced by a kind of emotional autopilot.

And Las Vegas, in all its intensity, amplified the contrast.

Because when everything around you is artificially stimulating, it becomes painfully obvious when your inner world feels flat.

Written by Celna Sousa, MSW, RSW, CCTP - Owner and Founder of Mind and Ocean

We’re often taught to measure our worth through what others can see or affirm.

A compliment, a like, a job offer, someone saying “I’m proud of you.”

It’s human to crave that — we’re wired for connection. But when those external voices go quiet, it can feel like proof that maybe we were wrong about ourselves all along.

Written by Celna Sousa, MSW, RSW, CCTP - Owner and Founder of Mind and Ocean

There’s a quiet moment that happens every time I sit near the ocean — the pause between waves.

It’s small, almost invisible, but it reminds me of the same pause that exists in the mind when we stop chasing thoughts and simply notice them.

That space, I think, is where the meeting happens — where mind meets ocean.

Written by Celna Sousa, MSW, RSW, CCTP - Owner and Founder of Mind and Ocean