About Astrid Marie Machalitza

The Story behind LivelyFuture Counselling

I’m Astrid Marie Machalitza, a Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario and a Licensed Heilpraktikerin (Psychotherapie) in Germany.

I warmly welcome you to LivelyFuture Counselling — the heart-grown result of a deep and emotional journey through loss, love, faith, and renewal.
A journey shaped by moments of heartbreak and courage, by seasons of grief, burnout, and single motherhood — and by finding hope again through connection, therapy, and a steadfast trust in God’s gentle presence.
It’s a story I’m grateful to share with you here.

I support individuals, couples, and families who long for more connection, trust, and inner calm—especially in times of grief, exhaustion, life transitions, or relationship struggles.

My work combines evidence-based psychotherapy (Emotionally Focused Therapy – EFT and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – CBT) with a deep faith in healing, growth, and divine love.

Together, we create a safe and compassionate space for what moves you—so you can, step by step, breathe, feel, and live with greater ease again.

A therapist who believes in balance, bonding, and real life

Themes: Balance · Self-compassion · Healing · Human connection

I’m Astrid — a therapist, a mom, and someone who knows what it feels like to walk through deep valleys.

I’ve gone through seasons of grief, depression, and deep uncertainty, and I’ve learned that healing doesn’t happen in one single moment — it happens again and again.

Do you know that quiet moment after a hard time when you suddenly feel: “I’m back”?

Not the same as before, but wiser, softer, more real.

Those experiences continue to shape how I hold space for others — with presence, compassion, and patience.

I’ve learned that everyone heals at their own pace, and that healing needs room, safety, and genuine connection.

And through it all, something steady has carried me — a quiet faith that God is present in everything, even when life breaks apart.

The first turning point — and a country that touched my heart

Themes: Self-worth · Confidence · Growth · New beginnings

Back in 2000, my life turned upside down — in a surprisingly healing way.
At the time, I was anything but a model student. English was my weakest subject; every year I feared I wouldn’t pass. School meant shame, pressure, and failure.

Then came a nine-week internship in Canada — and with it, a completely new perspective on life.

My thoughts and fears: For me it was a risk to go as I thought: Yes, I will have a credit card, so I will hopefully survive, but I hope that I can understand the images on all the products, because I won't be able to read anything. My confidence in my English was so extremely low. 

The reality: Suddenly I was surrounded by warmth, openness, and kindness. For the first time, learning felt light and life felt free.

Can you remember a moment when you suddenly realized: “This is what life is meant to feel like”?

I fell in love with the country and its people — so much that I wanted to write my thesis there (and my English was really very basic!) and, deep down, I already knew:
“One day I’ll live here.”

That time taught me that growth happens where we feel safe and seen.

It was also the first tender moment when I began to believe that God sometimes opens doors we never even looked for. 

When life turns everything upside down

Themes: Shame · Guilt · Loss of self · Emotional isolation

In 2006, everything changed again.
I was about to get married — everything planned, decided, secure.
And then, one week before the wedding, I met the great love of my life again.

After three years without contact — and countless attempts to “think away” my feelings — there he was. Everything I had buried came rushing back.

I was torn between duty and longing, between what seemed right and what felt true.

Do you know that moment when your heart speaks a different truth than your mind — and you don’t know which to follow?

He told me he still loved me — but that it was impossible.

I felt completely alone, caught between shame, guilt, and fear.
I couldn’t talk to anyone — and the one person I did confide in said the one thing that shattered me:
“You want to leave — and just because of a feeling in your gut?”

So I stayed silent.
I went through with the wedding — with a broken heart and the feeling that I had lost myself.

Maybe you, too, have made a decision that looked right on the outside — but shook everything inside you.

That experience shaped me deeply.
Today, I never want my clients to feel as alone as I did back then.
I help them find the courage to trust their emotions as messengers — not as weakness, but as signs of life itself.

And even in all that confusion, I began to sense that God can give direction through broken paths — just not the way we planned.

Rising again after loss

Themes: Grief · Letting go · Love · Meaning

Some years later, that friend — the one I could never fully let go of — died.
The news hit like a storm. It felt as if part of my heart had been torn away.
I often wondered if he had truly been my “soulmate.”

Hearing that he had spoken about me until the end was strangely comforting. It was clear he had loved me deeply.
We hadn’t been able to be together — but through his death I learned that it is possible to move through profound grief and still come out freer, softer, and more whole.

Have you ever felt how pain can break you — and open you at the same time?

Grief, I discovered, isn’t just pain — it’s love with nowhere to go.

Today I walk beside people in grief — whether they’ve lost a loved one suddenly or expectedly,
experienced miscarriage, separation, the loss of a parent, child, or even a beloved animal,
or are mourning something less visible — the loss of meaning, trust, or belonging.

Grief has many faces. Sometimes loud, sometimes silent. It cannot be “fixed,” only held — with gentleness and presence.

My way of being in those moments is grounded in this belief:
You don’t have to be strong. You just have to be here — with whatever lives inside you.

And I know this because I’ve lived it: God stays — even when everything else falls apart.

A breaking point — and a new beginning

Themes: Burnout · Self-worth · Identity · Renewal

In 2009, another major turning point came.
After a short but intense time of success as a managing director, I collapsed into a deep burnout.
The world went gray; I couldn’t see a way forward.

Have you ever kept functioning on the outside — while inside everything feels numb?

That was me.

Psychotherapy became my lifeline.
I started asking questions I had avoided for years:
Who am I — beyond achievement and expectation?
What truly gives my life meaning?

I trained in the Enneagram, coaching, and mediation, first to heal myself, later to help others.
And little by little, I began to trust again — in life, in people, in God.

That time reshaped how I understand exhaustion and loss of identity.
Burnout, I realized, isn’t a personal failure — it’s often the final cry of a heart that has been unheard for too long.

Now, I help people reconnect with themselves — and with that quiet inner source that holds them when they can’t hold themselves.

Between motherhood, overwhelm, and starting over

Themes: Overwhelm · Single motherhood · Grief · Faith · Safety

My pregnancy with my son Matthew feels like a blur — a mix of wonder and unbearable loss.
During those months I lost seven people I loved.
I was both mother-to-be and mourner, living between beginnings and endings.

There were nights when I lay awake, feeling new life inside me while saying goodbye to others.
Joy and pain, gratitude and exhaustion, love and fear — all at once.

Have you ever felt that — giving and losing at the same time?

In the midst of it all, I made a decision that changed everything:
I chose to become a single mother.
Not because I wanted to, but because staying in that relationship meant feeling completely alone.

I didn’t know it then, but the very themes I was living — trust, reliability, emotional bonding — would later become the core of my work as an EFT therapist.

Around that same time, my mother was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
Suddenly, everything was about waiting, hoping, fearing.

During surgery, she died for a moment — and was brought back.
Later she told me she had felt an emptiness in heaven, expecting to see God and Jesus — but finding silence instead.

It only made sense to her when I told her what I had seen that same day:
I was in Germany, at my parents’ home, on the phone with my cousin — who would later die from the same condition — and I saw God standing as the surgeon beside her, and Jesus holding her hand.

That vision stays with me — a moment where faith, love, and life met beyond time.

What followed was a long season of hospital visits, fear, and exhaustion.
And then, another blow: during one drive to the clinic, we learned my cousin hadn’t survived his own surgery.
I pulled over, stepped out of the car, and screamed — not from anger, but from despair so raw that words no longer existed.

Maybe you know that moment when there’s nothing left to do but cry out.

Those months taught me how thin the thread of life can be — and that sometimes, all we can do is hold on to the One who holds us.

Now I walk with clients who find themselves in those in-between spaces — between life and loss, fear and faith.
Healing, I’ve learned, begins the moment someone stays beside you while you have no ground to stand on.

When the World Stopped — and So Did Connection

Themes: Isolation · Family Bonds · Trust · Faith

During the Covid pandemic, life changed once again — but this time in a way that touched something very deep within.
The world grew quiet, and fear began to replace connection.

My parents pulled away, believing what they heard — that children could endanger their grandparents.
As a mother, I understood their fear (or at least tried to).
But as a daughter, the distance broke something tender inside me.

There was a kind of ache that words couldn’t reach — the sorrow of losing not only closeness, but also trust in the people who had once been my safe place - and the only resource for me as a Single Mom with my 11 months old son.

Have you ever felt that strange kind of loneliness — being surrounded by others, yet feeling completely unseen?

That time taught me something profound: disconnection wounds the soul, and healing begins the moment we find our way back to one another.

It also deepened my faith — reminding me that even when the world closes its doors, God’s presence never leaves the room.

Today, I carry a special tenderness for those who still feel the quiet weight of that time — the loss of belonging, the fear of being judged, or the unspoken grief that never found its voice.

Is there something from that time that still lingers quietly in you — a sadness, a fear, or a longing that hasn’t yet found its place?

If so, you’re not alone. Healing often begins when we gently turn toward what still needs to be seen and held with care.

A dream taking shape

Themes: Calling · Faith · Purpose · Becoming

Years later, I finally followed that first call from 2000 and moved to Canada.
There I completed my Master’s in Spiritual Care & Psychotherapy and, in 2023, became a Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario.

During my studies I discovered Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) — and it felt like coming home.
This approach spoke the language I had always longed for: emotion, attachment, and healing through relationship.

After graduation I continued training until I became an ICEEFT-certified EFT therapist for couples, individuals, and families — and later an ICEEFT-certified EFT Supervisor for couples therapy.

Today I have the joy of guiding other therapists along their own EFT journeys — and that fills me with deep gratitude.

EFT, faith, and lived experience have all taught me this:
True healing doesn’t come from techniques — it comes from connection.

Through the valleys and back into light

Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t a destination — it’s a way of being.

There were many moments I thought joy would never return.
But then came those quiet, almost invisible moments of grace — the small signs that life was stirring again.

Maybe you, too, long for that first deep breath that feels like life again.

I carry my story not as wounds, but as maps.
They help me truly feel the people I sit with — and to hold faith that even in the darkest places, a light remains.

My faith as a source of hope and healing

Themes: Spirituality · Meaning · Trust · Grace

My faith in God and Jesus is where I draw strength, comfort, and orientation.
Faith, for me, isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that love is present, even in pain.

In my darkest moments, it was that faith that held me — quietly, but faithfully.

It flows naturally into my work — not as doctrine, but as presence:
a deep knowing that healing is possible, that grace is real,
and that we can always find our way home — to God, to others, to ourselves.

I believe there is a divine spark in every human being — and that this spark never goes out, even when everything else seems dark.

When you long to breathe a little easier

Themes: Trust · Lightness · Self-acceptance · New beginnings

Maybe you’re at a point where you feel tired and worn out — or maybe something inside you quietly whispers:
“I want to live again.”

Perhaps you recognized pieces of your own story in mine — a loss, a decision, a season of overwhelm, or a moment when you started over.
Maybe you know that tension between “holding it all together” and the wish to simply breathe and be.

Or maybe you just sense that it’s time — to reconnect with yourself, to find steadiness, to feel seen again.

Then you’re in the right place.

I offer a free 20-minute consultation so we can explore together what you need and what your path back to ease, clarity, and connection might look like.

Healing doesn’t mean the darkness disappears — it means learning to see your own light again.