We direct bill counselling services to Pacific Blue Cross, GreenShield, Canada Life & Sun Life! For a full list of direct billing providers, click here.
Skip to content We direct bill counselling services to Pacific Blue Cross, GreenShield, Canada Life & Sun Life! For a full list of direct billing providers, click here.
There’s a kind of knowing that lives below language. In the body, in play, in the image that surfaces before the explanation arrives. If you’ve been white-knuckling your way through life and you’re starting to wonder what it would feel like to slow down without everything falling apart, Sarada’s work begins there. With curiosity, with gentleness, with the belief that creativity is how we find our way back to ourselves.
Sarada is also direct. Spaciousness in her work doesn’t mean passivity, and slowness doesn’t mean the work sits still. She’ll name what she sees. She’ll invite you into challenge. And she’ll do it with warmth that makes the challenge something you can actually stay with.
Sarada offers individual and relationship counselling for adults in Vancouver and virtually across BC who are wanting support with burnout, grief, anxiety, trauma, chronic pain, somatic awareness, self-expression through art, building more fulfilling relationships with others, or understanding identity and relationship with self.
…you’re worn down, emotionally overloaded, or disconnected from yourself, and you want support that feels gentle and spacious, without being passive.
…you’ve noticed parts of yourself speaking up more lately, parts you’ve been managing or overriding, and you’re curious about what they need.
…you’ve felt squeezed, stretched, ignored, or oversimplified by more traditionally structured therapy, and you want room to co-create something that actually fits your life.
Sarada works with adults and relationships who need room to slow down and listen to what their body and inner life are already telling them. Her sessions draw on art, somatic awareness, and expressive approaches, and often include thoughtful challenges that help loosen patterns without pushing you past your limits.
This work pays attention to burnout, grief, anxiety, and life transitions, while staying aware of how culture, power, and expectation shape what people carry.
This is not therapy that confuses gentleness with avoidance or leaves everything exactly where it started.
Warm Greetings! I am grateful that you’re here. I joyfully honour you showing up in the therapeutic space, and I recognize the intrinsic strength and courage that takes. You’ve got this, and I’m here with you.
I bring creativity and play into the therapeutic process as more than techniques. They’re ways of knowing. Our sessions often incorporate art, imagination, somatic awareness, and humor, not as add-ons, but as the primary language through which healing happens. For people who feel stuck in their heads, who’ve been told to “just talk about it” one too many times, or who sense that their body and creative instincts hold answers their words haven’t caught up to yet, this approach can feel like coming home to a part of yourself you forgot was there.
Here are some ways I hope to show up for you, and some things you can expect from me. You can expect someone who values and aims to lead with curiosity, recognition, collaboration, warmth, and space. I believe that your innate knowing is the centre of our work together, and that our time can be a collaborative space to build around this. I might invite us to slow down or pause so that we can focus on safely reflecting on and exploring together.
I offer individual and relationship counselling. Some things that enter the therapeutic space, when called upon by the client’s needs and situation, are parts work, focus the body’s experience and needs, playfulness and humour, and creativity. You could describe my approach as multidisciplinary and spacious, prioritizing co-creation and collaboration.
I work with clients who are navigating their relationships with self, others, and the world. I recognize the intersectionality, complexity and uniqueness that comes with addressing and exploring your life and experiences with you, but here are some themes that tend to show up in my work with clients: relational dynamics and transitions, relationship to self and identity, navigation of the world and systems of oppression, life transitions, trauma, grief, loss, anxiety, depression, balance, and rest.
In relationship counselling, I work with partners wanting to explore their relational dynamics, events that have impacted the relationship, communication, reconnection to each other, and emotional intimacy, among other things. I cherish this work and am honoured to witness people enter a space collectively with the willingness to hear each other and heal together.
While I list some common themes here, I invite you to book a consultation and have a conversation about what might be going on to see if we may be a good fit.
A little bit about me: I am a cis, able-bodied, woman, born and raised in so-called Vancouver BC, with Indian ancestry. I am a second-gen, racialized settler living and working on the unceded and traditional lands of the sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō) nations. Connection, community, and playfulness are big values for me. Outside of my counselling work, I enjoy laughing with loved ones and connecting to practices and activities that spark creativity and joy. My personal journey includes reconnecting to self, navigating the impacts of chronic pain, renegotiating my relationship with slowness, and embracing the journey that rest is resistance within systems that push overwork and hyper-productivity. You could say these are some of my human qualifications.
I understand that finding the right counsellor for you is in itself a process. I would love to meet you through a free consultation and see if we may be a good fit or help you in your process to finding it (yay for rhyming)!
You’re open to slowing down, even when the world around you keeps insisting you speed up.
You want to co-create the shape and direction of therapy together, rather than being handed a formula.
You’ve felt squeezed, stretched, judged, belittled, or oversimplified by more traditionally structured therapy, and you want something different.
You value the awareness and reflective parts of the process. You’re curious about what’s underneath, even when what’s underneath doesn’t have a name yet.
You’re looking for very traditionally structured therapy with clear weekly homework and fixed benchmarks.
You prefer a therapist whose role is to give advice, expertise, or answers.
You want to work very fast or move through topics without pausing to sit with what comes up.
This isn’t a judgment of what you need. It’s about helping you find the right fit, and sometimes that means being honest about where the edges of this work are.
Relieved. Less alone. More self-assured. More grounded in their own knowing.
More fully seen, in a way that doesn’t require performing or explaining yourself first.
Excited, sometimes, to reflect and explore. Not because the work is easy, but because there’s finally room for it.
…tends to happen after someone shares something difficult, something they’ve been judged for before, and they’re met with space and curiosity instead of correction.
That shift, from bracing for a reaction to realizing the room can hold what they brought, is where trust starts to build. And it’s where something begins to soften.
Slowness and pause are needed. Not as avoidance. As practice.
Awareness is one of the most important parts, and often the starting point. Before change happens, something has to be witnessed.
Parts of you speak up for a reason. They’re not problems to solve. They’re information about what you need.
It can all make sense and still not feel settled. Discomfort isn’t always a sign that something is wrong. Sometimes it’s a sign that something is new, or different, or unfamiliar, and your system is still deciding what to do with it.
External and systemic pressures, and how they show up in the body and in relationships. Not just what happened, but what keeps happening around you.
Relational tension, nervous system cues, and the places where silence, space, or a pause might hold more than another sentence.
When someone is ready to invite their body into the conversation, and when that invitation needs more time.
Where is your voice in this?
Why is this particular part coming up right now, and what does it need?
What’s your capacity looking like, and what pressures are shaping it?
Getting caught up in what other people are doing, feeling, or saying at the expense of your own experience. Other people’s stories matter, but they can also become a way of staying far from your own.
Letting the story spiral. When the same narrative loops without landing somewhere new, that’s often a signal to slow down rather than keep circling. We’ll notice that together.
Labelling my approach too tightly. I don’t describe myself as a somatic therapist or an art therapist, because the labels flatten something that’s more responsive than that. I focus on how I hold the space, why, and what that can offer you, and I’d rather you experience it than categorize it.
Put pressure on you to know answers to everything. “I don’t know” is a complete answer sometimes, and we’ll honour that.
Ignore systemic factors. What’s happening around you matters as much as what’s happening inside you.
Pathologize difficult emotions or parts of self that are asking to be seen. They got loud for a reason.
Ignore changes in your capacity and needs. What worked last month might not work today. We’ll stay responsive to that.
Give space for many things to coexist. The contradictory feelings, the unfinished thoughts, the parts that seem to pull in opposite directions.
Pause and slow down. Not because we’re avoiding something, but because the slowing is where the real noticing happens.
Be curious and compassionate. Even toward the parts you’ve been trying to manage, silence, or push through.
Therapy sessions with Sarada Bhagavatula, MA, RCC can be directly billed to most extended health insurance providers, as well as CVAP. She is currently offering virtual counselling sessions and works with adults individually and through relationship counselling.
