Lauren Aldred

Lauren believes that her primary relationship is with the Land; she enjoys this relationship through silence and listening, canoeing, snowshoeing, food and medicine gathering, hiking, and in time will rejoin the earth with peace. Her mixed heritage is English and non-status Plains Indigenous.

She is very proud of and enjoys the company of her three adult sons Nicholas, Dylan, Robin and the daughter-of-her-heart, Stevie-Lynn. She lives with her canine companions, Rough Collies Haley and Sian, a Shiloh Shepherd named Freeman and eleven chickens.

Lauren writes poetry and is learning to create art. When creating, she likes to bring others along for the journey. She is currently working on her Doctorate of Ministry in wellness, spirituality and expressive arts through St. Stephen’s College. Her undergraduate work was in Education at Simon Fraser University and she holds a Master of Arts in Public and Pastoral Leadership from Vancouver School of Theology.

As part of her holistic wellness repertoire, Lauren facilitates ethical wild crafting and teaches students how to make salves, teas and other healthy items from nature. She has studied plant medicine from her youth. Ecopsychology is an area of interest and study.

Her conference presentations and workshops have included Spiritual Storytelling; Therapeutic Arts; Four Directions to Wellness; Wellness, Spirituality and the Land; Grief, Loss and Self-Care; Complicated Grief; Julia Cameron’s Artists Way; Worth the Energy! The Effects of Spiritual/Energy Healing Upon Spiritual Health; Opening the Circle: Advocating for and Supporting Greater Indigenous Participation in Spiritual Health/Care; Celebration of the Spirit: Renewal Through Spiritual Health; Spiritual Health in Palliative and End-of-Life Care; Relationship Violence with Elders and Elder Abuse; Smoking Cessation as a Feminist Act; Surviving Your Client’s Crisis; Super-Woman Syndrome; Assertiveness not Aggression; Taming Your Social Worker, The Joy Workshop, Stress Management.

Awards received include the Northern Health Authority’s Charles Jago Award for Empathy, Golden Key Society Honorary Membership, Shooting Star Award (Volunteer PG), and recognition from the then-Ministry of Women’s Equality for work with women and their children on Haida Gwaii.

She has worked since her pre-teens in human service spanning over 45 years. She currently works as the Part-Time Counsellor (Nechako) for the College of New Caledonia, and offers occasional workshops and trainings through her business, Myriad Wares and Services. She is on leave from her position as the Manager of Spiritual Health for the Northern Health Authority. She is provincial Past Chair of the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care.

To increase her wellness teaching repertoire, Lauren became a yoga instructor in August 2019 and an I-SPARC Healthy Living Leader in October 2020.