“You are not who you were when you began your journey.”
Who I am and why I chose this path
Brenda Martin – Founder of Embracing Wellness & Author of "Surviving Christmas, Limiting Self belief and How to Show Up for Yourself: Changing Habits
Brenda Martin’s journey into mental wellness and emotional recovery was not born out of theory—it was born out of survival. A survivor of profound childhood trauma, Brenda knows the heavy silence that lingers in homes where pain is not spoken, where grief goes unnamed, and where wounds are carried quietly for years. Her life has been deeply shaped by loss—grieving not just one sibling, but four, who all died before age 40. One to crib death, two to cancer, and one to suicide. Each loss carved a different kind of sorrow into her story, and each taught her something irreplaceable about the human capacity to feel, to break, and to begin again.
In her grief, Brenda found a way to live her life without the physical presence of the ones she loved most. But healing didn’t mean forgetting. She still loves them. She still misses them. Every day. Grief doesn’t disappear—it becomes something you carry. And through her own process of mourning, stumbling, and slowly rebuilding, she discovered a truth few speak about: people don’t “get over” grief—but they can learn to live alongside it, and even find joy again.
Brenda doesn’t speak from the mountaintop. She speaks from the road—still walking, still healing, and still learning. Her recovery journey hasn’t been easy or linear. It has been a path marked by setbacks, quiet victories, and the kind of resilience you can only build when life gives you no other choice. Depression, guilt, and overwhelming grief once felt like unmovable weights, but through years of deep work, honest reflection, and spiritual searching, Brenda found a way to live a full and meaningful life—not in the absence of pain, but alongside it.
Because of everything she’s lived through, Brenda felt a strong calling to help others who are navigating their own pain, confusion, and heartbreak. Through her workshops, writings, and support work, she offers a space where people can feel understood and supported—where recovery isn’t about quick fixes, but about small, honest steps forward. Whether someone is grieving a loss, struggling with depression or anxiety, or trying to rebuild after trauma, Brenda walks beside them—not with answers, but with empathy, encouragement, and real tools for healing.
Her voice is one of gentleness and truth. She doesn’t promise easy paths or perfect outcomes. Instead, she offers something more powerful: a safe place to be real, to feel, to grieve, and to grow. Her life may still have challenges, but she has learned how to meet them without being crushed by them. She believes that healing doesn’t mean everything is perfect—it means you can keep going, even when it’s hard. And that’s the kind of healing she now helps others find.
"Life is not happening to you; it is happening through you."
Steve Paquette, MPH, BASc
Mindfulness Specialist & Non-Dual Awareness Teacher
Steve Paquette's journey is not a story of a life lived without pain, but of a life transformed by it. Despite a childhood with every advantage, Steve carried the unspoken weight of anxiety and depression, shadows that deepened with his family's history of mental illness and addictions, and the constant relocations of his military upbringing. This instability forged an identity with no steady ground, and a mental health crisis at age twelve went tragically unnoticed, a silent cry for help lost beneath the surface of success.
His path from a high-achieving student to a military member was a continuation of this search for a secure identity, but his unresolved pain culminated in a severe mental health crisis and hospitalization. This crisis became a turning point, a breakthrough moment where he recognized his major life decisions had been wholly conditioned by unworthiness and people-pleasing behaviours. This realization led him on a backpacking journey that became a spiritual pilgrimage, exposing him to mystical traditions and igniting a flame of spirituality that has guided him ever since.
Steve’s life is a testament to the fact that material success is not a cure for suffering. His direct role in one of the greatest business success stories in Canadian history, the development of the BlackBerry, brought him immense wealth but not peace. The loss of his self-identity as a "technology leader", after his own venture failed, catalyzed, yet another mental health crisis. It was here, in the rubble of his ego, that he returned to his spiritual path, finding a new sense of purpose in the deep teachings of Yoga, meditation and energetic healing.
His calling to help others grew from this place of profound experience. After a decade-long immersion in a spiritual community and a move back to Nova Scotia, Steve dedicated himself to sharing mindfulness-based practices with people living with mental illness and addiction. He saw firsthand how simple, present-moment awareness could offer people profound relief. But his own journey took another difficult turn as his career and marriage collapsed under the strain of a toxic workplace, leading to another breakdown that became a breakthrough—a powerful, direct experience of non-dual awareness.
Steve’s experience is not from the mountaintop, but from the raw, beautiful messiness of life. He has learned how to balance the deep peace of non-dual awareness with the emotional landscape of life itself, from the global pain of a world on fire to his own struggles with isolation and relationships. After a period of dedicated spiritual retreat, he now shares the skills and insights he has earned through years of survival, searching, and healing. He offers a path not to a life without pain, but to one where you can carry both sorrow and profound peace in the same moment, and learn to find your way home to yourself.