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Speak Up Skills
You deserve to take up space.
This is the work I do most. It's for people who are good at reading a room, good at keeping the peace, good at making things easier for everyone else, and quietly exhausted by all of it.
In person in Edmonton · By video across Alberta
The work
Assertiveness isn't about being pushy or rude. It's having the confidence to say what you feel and need, clearly, calmly, and without apologizing for existing.
Most people arrive here thinking assertiveness means getting louder. It doesn't. Loud is what happens when you've swallowed something for six months and it finally comes out sideways. Assertive is what happens at week one, in a normal voice, before the resentment has anywhere to build.
The skill is small and specific. It's saying the true thing at the moment it's still small. Almost nobody was taught it, and if you grew up somewhere that "keeping the peace" was the job, you were taught the opposite on purpose.
Speak Up Skills
You've spent years:
You deserve to hear your own voice again.
That kind of tired doesn't come from doing too much. It comes from monitoring. From running a background calculation in every conversation about how the other person is doing, what they need, whether they're annoyed, and what you'd have to adjust to fix it. That calculation runs whether or not anything is wrong, and it does not turn off when you get home.
People come in describing it as burnout, or anxiety, or "I just don't know why I'm so drained." Sometimes it is those things. Often it's this.
This is for you if you:
This affects everyone: women, men, helpers, perfectionists, leaders, quiet people, loud people. If you've been making yourself small, you're welcome here.
I'd rather be straight with you now than have you find out in session four.
This isn't the right starting point if you're in active crisis and need stabilisation first, if you're looking for someone to tell you the other person is wrong, or if what you actually want is a script you can run without changing anything underneath it. I'll give you the words, but the words work because something shifts behind them.
It's also not couples work. I see individuals. If the goal is to be in the room together, I can point you to people who do that well.
If you're not sure which one you are, that's a fine reason to book a free consultation call and ask.
What we build
Most people can say no. What they can't do is say it once and stop. The no comes out wrapped in three reasons, an apology, and an offer to make up for it, and the wrapping is what invites the negotiation. We practise the short version, out loud, until it stops feeling rude.
A boundary you announce and then abandon teaches the other person that your boundaries are a mood. The hard part is never the sentence. It's what you do the second time, when they push, and you feel the old pull to smooth it over. That's the part we work on.
If you were raised to anticipate other people's needs, you may not have a working list of your own. We start there. Naming it privately comes before saying it out loud, and saying it out loud comes before saying it to the person it's about.
Conflict avoidance isn't cowardice. It's usually a nervous system that learned disagreement was dangerous. So we work on both ends: what to say, and how to stay regulated enough to say it. Skills without regulation fall apart in the moment, which is why knowing the right words has never been enough.
After enough years of deferring, the question stops being "how do I say it" and becomes "how do I know I'm right." We rebuild that from the inside, using your own read on situations, checked against evidence, until your first instinct stops needing a second opinion.
It's honesty with compassion. Together, we build your assertiveness muscle.
Fifty minutes
A session is fifty minutes and it usually has three parts.
We start with something real from your week. Not a theme, an actual moment: the text you rewrote four times, the meeting where you didn't say the thing, the family dinner. Specific beats general every time.
Then we slow it down. What did you notice in your body before you backed off? What did you assume would happen if you didn't? Most of the time there's a prediction underneath, and it's usually older than the situation.
Then we practise. Out loud, in the room, with me. It's slightly awkward the first few times and that's the point. The goal is that the sentence has already left your mouth once before you need it in real life.
Between sessions I'll usually give you something small to notice or try. Not homework you can fail. Something to bring back.
FAQ
I won't promise a number. Most people notice something shifting in the first six to eight sessions, and most of what people want takes longer than that. We'll check in at six weeks about whether it's working.
No. Plenty of people start by apologizing for taking up the session. We notice it, we don't make it a test.
That's session material, not failure. Some of the most useful sessions come after something didn't land.
No. This is therapy. We work on the pattern underneath, not only the performance.
Yes. Video and phone both work well for this particular work. I see clients in person in Edmonton and by video across Alberta.
Then say so at the consultation call and we'll figure out what is. This isn't the only thing I do.
There's no charge for the consultation call, and that's where I'll walk you through the session fee, insurance coverage, and the sliding scale.
Read what a first session actually looks like, or take something with you and come back whenever you want.
See what a first session actually looks like →Take something with you →
