Hi, I’m Karin and I am a counsellor, author, inclusion advocate and also a former journalist.
I have always loved the written word.
I am the younger of two siblings and used to copy words from my older brother’s reader he brought home from school. I was very upset he got to go to school and I had to wait another year for my turn!
So, copying words and learning letters had to suffice.
As a young adult, after finishing school at 18, I went straight to full time work as a journalist while also attending journalism school.
Gosh, the dreams were big (eyeing off a Pulitzer for my own version of Watergate) and reality was utterly depressing.
I realised that changing the world through the written word came almost last after tedious admin, office politics and design disaster when creating a newspaper page.
At the ripe age of 21, I couldn’t do it anymore.
I resigned and went travelling and inadvertently changing my life.
To cut a long story very short - I met a man while travelling, followed him to the other side of the world (Australia), got married, had two kids, endured domestic violence and eventually left.
There’s a whole lot of trauma packed into those sentences and the pain and struggle I went through has led me to who I am and what I am doing now.
I studied counselling after suffering a miscarriage (my first ever pregnancy!) and became a grief counsellor. Through my ongoing study and professional development, I added trauma counselling to the list.
These days, I am still working in both grief and trauma but more on an educational level to teach others on how to work with clients that have suffered a lot of trauma.
I am also planning on becoming a clinical supervisor in 2024 to guide and support the next generation of counsellors.
When I am not busy doing all the things, I am resting. No joke!
Probably the hardest curveball life has thrown me, has been my multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2018. Talk about a life-changing disease.
Funnily enough, MS has now become one of my greatest teachers, after originally fighting tooth and nail to accept I had it.
MS doesn’t make my life easy and the struggle for accessibility is real and draining. It has led me to become an advocate for inclusion and while it can be hard work, raising hell and making my voice heard has never been more important. That still includes writing for me - it’s one of my happy places.
So, there you have me in a nutshell.
When I don’t parent, work or rest, I read, meet friends, go to the beach and look for cat and duck memes on the internet.
My professional bio
Karin Holmes is a qualified and fully registered counsellor (ACA Level 2), author and speaker who specialises in grief healing and end of life support. She works with people individually, hosts workshops and webinars and delivers educational talks both for the public and mental health professionals.
She holds a Diploma of Counselling, Cert IV in Community Services and is currently completing her bachelor's degree in psychology.
Karin originally trained as a journalist and worked in the field for ten years before re-training as a counsellor and opening her own counselling practice in 2016.
Although her journalism days are over, Karin still loves to write. She turned to writing after suffering a miscarriage in 2011 which resulted in her book ‘How to survive a miscarriage - a guide for women, their partners, friends and families’.
Karin is also a MS advocate and works towards reducing ableism in the mental health space.