Let's Connect

Learn the art of inspired living.

A very warm welcome to you.

Now, before anything else, take a moment to take a deep breath and reconnect with yourself. Dive into the warmth and peace of the quiet of your breath.

We all know that moment when the challenges and the stresses of life have taken over. The moment when we’ve lost the connection with our inner spirit – the one that thrives on joy, wonder and fun. We know it’s time to regain a sense of well-being.

There are simple ways to tune into what your body and mind need to support your spirit. To work with the life you have now — a place where there is richness and joy just waiting to be remembered. To relax back into your best self, reconnecting to the people and things that mean so much to you. To begin to remember what peace, joy and spaciousness feels like.

I’m Deirdre Walsh. I am here to help you reclaim yourself from the spirit-crushing effects of a stressed out body and a stressed out life. I’ve had a few trips to the land of overwhelm, so you can trust that I’ve walked the talk.

Have you wondered if there was more to life than the daily grind?

Do you feel like your body is letting you down when you need it to amp up the energy?

Are there times when you’re not being your best self with the people who matter most?

Are you ready for an answer that honors your spirit rather than numbs it out?

Then you are ready for a new approach to overwhelm.

A Mindful Approach to Overwhelm

It feels like all roads have led me to here.

I’m a wife, mother to two incredible teenagers, certified integrative health coach, friend, seeker, chronic fatigue experiencer and mindfulness devotee.

My own struggles with living with fluctuating energy have kept me reading and researching about this amazing companion we’re given at birth — our body. I learned so much about healing with diet, exercise, sleep, and mindfulness during my foundational health coach training at Duke. I learned through my experience with chronic fatigue that you can be giving 110% – even when it looks like nothing is happening.

A sudden uptick in stress can leave you feeling overwhelmed and at sea in your own life. We all have a certain level of overall stress we can cope with. Part of it is genetically coded, part of it is how much stress we have in our life and part of it is how we choose to cope with the challenges of our life.

There are reliable signals that our body sends us when we’re getting closer to burnout. You will be having problems with sleep. Your memory won’t be as reliable as it was. You’ll exercise to feel better and end up feeling depleted. You’ll be gaining weight when you’re cutting back. It will be very hard to regulate your moods. You may have been a steady rock for the people around you, but now you’re snappy and tired a lot. You’ll feel like you need to push through most of the day.

Give yourself space to be present to life and you will restore

This feels counter-intuitive. I know because I was there. But the most powerful tool you have to regain emotional, physical and mental resiliency — the feeling of well-being — is mindfulness. Your body has to relax to restore and mindfulness works on your brain to let that happen.

The science is solid. Giving your mind the space to relax and restore creates a cascade of positive effects. When your mind calms it stops signalling danger. Your body has the space to turn off it’s fight or flight alarm system and turn on the restorative relaxation response. That’s when your cells start manufacturing all the hormones, neuropeptides, enzymes and proteins that keep your body in good health. In a very complex way it’s really as simple as that.

My Background

I trained at Duke Integrative Medicine – a program aligned with the integrative philosophy and science of Dr. Andrew Weil. I’m one of the first certified integrative health coaches in Canada. I was drawn to integrative health because it’s the type of care that I want for myself and my family. It puts you at the center of your own health – you are an informed participant in your health, you draw from the best information about medicine and self-care, and you learn how to nurture your health in every aspect of your life.

The Duke program requires certified coaches to be trained in mindfulness meditation, which has been a gift of joy and peace for me. I completed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, Levels I and II, based on the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn.

I’m local to Mississauga and have clients here and in Oakville, Burlington, and Toronto. I also have clients across North America who I connect to by telephone or Skype.

I worked for twenty-five years in the health care industry as a healthcare consultant, analyst and researcher. I have a B.Sc. in Biochemistry.