My name is Michael Vaclavik (He/Him/His). My parents, older brother, and I arrived in Canada as settler-refugees when I was just a year old, fleeing communist Czechoslovakia. After several years of migration, we began our lives gratefully on the Coast Salish lands of British Columbia.
My parents’ choice for us to leave our homeland came with high risks and many costs- including the painful separation from family. The courage to make such a decision came from their strong connection to their values. Their authenticity would greatly encourage who I was to become.
I would find myself drawn to many interests my parents risked pursuing illegally under the oppressive regime back home. These passions have included Eastern philosophies, yoga, and meditation. Additionally, they passed on to me their deep love for the wilderness, a driving force that guided their choice in migration. As such, I had a childhood wonderfully privileged with hiking and camping adventures.
My adult life has continued in these directions. I’ve spent my time exploring nature for as long as possible, playing with oil paints, supporting and attending meditation retreats, traveling, deepening my growth in psychotherapy, dancing, reading, and engaging in hands-on work. I am profoundly grateful not only for the opportunities my parents afforded me but also for how they opened my life to a multitude of beautiful experiences and pursuits.
As a settler, it is important for me to continue to inform my counselling practice and engage in allyship with the indigenous peoples of this land. I wish to concretize this value in my practice. Here, in Vancouver, I live and work on the stolen, traditional, and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
