A grounded space to be seen
Common Ground Counselling offers a calm, collaborative space to explore your story, make sense of overwhelming feelings, and move toward the life you want.
Venessa Ste Marie, Registered Social Worker (RSW), providing counselling support across Ontario.
Not sure where to start? A brief consultation can help you decide if this is the right fit.
What you might be carrying
Many people connect with therapy when life feels too much or not enough, all at once. If any of this feels familiar, you are in the right place.
Together, we slow down, notice what is showing up in your mind and body, and gently build more choice, clarity, and self-compassion.
Meet Venessa
As a Registered Social Worker, Venessa brings a warm, collaborative style to therapy, centering your lived experience, culture, and identities in the work you do together.
Sessions are a space to slow down, be honest, and feel genuinely heard. You set the pace. Together you will explore patterns, strengths, and possibilities without pressure to be fixed or figured out.
Venessa's work is grounded in social work values of dignity, equity, and respect. That means paying attention not just to what is happening inside you, but also to the systems and stories around you that shape how you feel.
How we work
Therapy is most helpful when it feels like a partnership. The focus is on understanding what matters to you and finding small, sustainable shifts that fit the realities of your life. Sessions may draw from:
You decide what feels important to bring into the room. Some weeks you may want to unpack big themes; other weeks you may just need a safe place to land.
Gentle check-ins with your body and nervous system help make sense of why certain moments feel so intense, and build tools to respond with more choice.
Together you will explore small practices, boundaries, or conversations that align with your values and can be carried into everyday life between sessions.
Who counselling is for
Common Ground Counselling works primarily with adults navigating stress, identity shifts, relationships, and the invisible labour of caring for others at work or at home.
When everything feels like too much, therapy can help you name what is happening, honour your limits, and re-orient toward what sustains you.
Explore patterns in family, friendships, and work. Clarify what you need, where your boundaries are, and how to communicate them more clearly.
Loss and change can be disorienting, even when they are expected. This is a space to sit with grief, ambivalence, and the complexity of starting again.
Gently unpack stories about who you should be, and make room for a relationship with yourself that feels more grounded, kind, and authentic.
Next step
Use the form to reach out for a brief consultation or to book a first session. You can share as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. A response will be sent with next steps and available times.