No.

Questions about meaning, purpose, values, identity, and how you want to live aren't limited to people who are religious or spiritual.

You might have a particular faith, follow a spiritual practice, consider yourself agnostic or atheist, be questioning what you believe, or not use any of those words for yourself.

Counselling can start with the questions that matter to you, regardless of labels.

Yes.

Faith may be an important part of your life, something you're questioning, something you're returning to, or something you're trying to understand differently.

You can talk about your beliefs, doubts, practices, relationships with religious communities, or how faith connects with other parts of your life.

Your counsellor isn't there to tell you what you should believe.

You can bring that uncertainty into counselling.

Maybe something you grew up believing doesn't fit in the same way anymore. You might be reconsidering particular beliefs, exploring something different, returning to beliefs you had moved away from, or realizing you're not sure what you believe.

Counselling can give you somewhere to explore those questions without needing to arrive at a particular conclusion.

Yes.

You might be wondering what feels meaningful to you now, what you want your life to be about, or whether the direction you're heading still feels right.

Sometimes these questions come up after a major change, loss, graduation, career shift, relationship change, or another experience that changes how you see things. Sometimes there isn't a particular event behind them.

Counselling doesn't need to produce one answer to what your purpose is. It can give you somewhere to explore the question and what it means in your own life.

Existential questions are some of the bigger questions people can have about being alive: meaning, choice, freedom, responsibility, identity, uncertainty, relationships, death, and how you want to live.

You might be asking What matters to me? What am I doing with my life? Who am I becoming? How much control do I actually have? What do I want to do with the time I have?

These aren't necessarily questions with answers a counsellor can give you.

They can still be worth talking about.

That can be something you bring to counselling.

Differences in faith, spirituality, values, or beliefs can become complicated when they are connected to family, culture, relationships, or a community that matters to you.

You may be figuring out what you believe while also thinking about what you want to share, how you want to participate, or how to stay connected to people who see things differently.

Counselling can give you somewhere to think about both without deciding which should matter more.

Yes.

You might want to talk about judgment, rejection, pressure, exclusion, conflict, or another experience within a religious or spiritual setting.

You don't need to decide what that experience means for your relationship with religion or spirituality before talking about what happened.

You may want to stay connected to your faith, leave it behind, find something different, or still have no idea. Counselling can start with where you are now.

It can be part of counselling if you want it to be.

You might draw on spiritual beliefs or practices when making decisions, understanding difficult experiences, thinking about relationships, grieving, or considering what matters to you.

You and your counsellor can talk about what spirituality means to you and whether or how you want it included in your counselling.

You might be thinking about your own mortality, what happens after death, the death of someone you care about, aging, illness, or simply the fact that life is finite.

You may have clear beliefs about death, be questioning beliefs you once had, or be comfortable not knowing.

A counsellor doesn't need to have an answer to those questions for you to be able to talk about them.

Yes.

Faith, spirituality, culture, sexuality, gender, family, relationships, and personal values don't typically exist separately from one another.

Maybe those parts of your life fit together comfortably. Maybe some of them seem to pull in different directions. Or perhaps you're still figuring out what you think.

Counselling can make room for those different parts of your life without assuming that one needs to take priority over another.

You don't have to replace one set of beliefs with another.

There may be a period when you're somewhere between what you used to believe and whatever comes next. You might keep some things, question others, find something different, or remain uncertain.

You can come to counselling while you're still in the middle of figuring that out.

Counselling should be centred on your beliefs, values, questions, and experiences—not on convincing you to share your counsellor's.

If faith or spirituality is something you want to include, you can talk with your counsellor about what that means to you and how you would like it to be part of your sessions.

It's also okay to ask a counsellor about their approach to spirituality, religion, atheism, agnosticism, or different belief systems before deciding whether you want to work with them.

There isn't one particular way these conversations need to go.

You might talk about faith, changing beliefs, family or community, meaning and purpose, values, grief, identity, mortality, or a decision you're trying to make.

You might spend time with questions that don't have clear answers. Or the work might be quite practical—looking at what matters to you and how that fits with the choices you're making in everyday life.

You and your counsellor can start with what you're actually thinking about rather than deciding in advance where the conversation needs to lead.

Depending on what's important to you, we might talk about:

• Meaning and purpose

• Faith and spirituality

• Questioning or changing beliefs

• Religious or spiritual identity

• Existential questions

• Values and what matters to you

• Difficult decisions and uncertainty

• Family or community expectations

• Culture and faith

• Difficult experiences with religion or faith communities

• Changes in your relationship with a religious or spiritual community

• Sexuality, gender, identity, and relationships as they relate to your beliefs

• Grief, death, and mortality

• Major life changes that have shifted how you see things

• Questions about how you want to live

• Uncertainty about what you believe

There doesn't have to be one question at the centre of it all.

We can start with what's on your mind.