Tag: Holistic Counselling

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How we all doing? 

I thought I’d share my inner musings with you because maybe your brain works the same way as mine. 

How often do you pause before you speak? How many times have you stood outside yourself and watched as you spoke immediately whatever it was you thought and then shrink back inside yourself because – nooooooo I didn’t want to say that!!!! 

There’s my hand going up hahaaa! And for me it’s always more than a couple of reasons. One is I’m in my head not my heart. And that goes for both the recipient of my words and me speaking it. Others are anxiety. Overwhelm. Discomfort. Energetic boundaries. Crossed boundaries. Wounded conversation. So many things right? 

First thing I do is pour a bucket of kindness over my head when I’ve had my oh shit I didn’t want to say that moment. Next is a whole lot of whatever I need. I observe if someone has seemed triggered by my words – I take a look at myself and check in. Was I speaking for them or for me? We are all responsible for our own responses – and actions. 

I look at why I feel what I’m feeling. Did I speak or act from an old pattern of anxiety and not enoughness? Was I overwhelmed and just had a case of the old verbal diarrhoea to ease my discomfort? Did I feel uncomfortable with people I thought I should be comfortable with and overcompensate? Did I overshare because I have an open heart and forgot not everyone is my true friend? 

And another thing I did recently …. Well we all know I’m a talker for a living right, I’m a counsellor and energy therapist and sometimes? I forget my loved ones just wanna offload and not be therapised AND I forget – as one of my beautiful friends reminded me just recently – that I don’t always know what I think I know especially when I run from my head not my heart. 

Another friend gave me priceless advice when I was feeling overwhelmed and upset and a little lost about my often conversational discomfort. She said, ask the question – do you want me to just listen, give advice or do something? And I want to add in here – or just comfort with a hug.

So many things right? And I’ve felt and still sometimes feel and do alllll the above. We’re human and forget these things at times. 

This is a loving reminder to just breathe. Yes take a look at yourself if you need to. Give yourself a hug and don’t hang on to shame or annoyance if you’ve done any of the above. As Maya Angelou says, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” 

And please know there are layers to this quote. We can have awareness of who and where we are in any moment. Recognise an oh shit moment. And through our woundedness we just might do it again. Healing is in layers. So is knowing better and doing better. 

Be kind to yourself. You really are doing the best you can with what you know at the time. And that really is enough 🤍

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Authenticity

I was talking to a beautiful soul this morning, and we were sharing thoughts and feelings about being authentic and healing and those feel like crap days too. 

We saw a reel about someone saying to “just be authentic” and it got me thinking. It’s not always easy is it? I’ve found that it takes a shit tonne of healing so we can tune in to our own authenticity. If you’ve lived with pain and hurt and trauma, you may not even recognise what your authentic self is. Or even if you do? You don’t know how to be that because the wounds make fear louder than what letting go of the pain is. 

We feel the tiredness of the body and soul and it can be the tiredness of not being able to be your authentic self. But please don’t give up on yourself if you don’t know what it’s like to live authentically – yet. Heal. Just keep the healing flowing and layer by layer your authentic self feels free to be brighter than all the crap that’s been piled on you ✨

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Do what you can with what you have

I was a single mum for quite a lot of years and this philosophy served me well! Especially around Christmas! I barely had enough money for the day to day let alone Christmas celebrations and the expectation of extra celebratory food or gifts etc. So…

I baked cookies. For everyone. I 2nd hand and $2 shopped for jars and put cookies in them, tied ribbon around the top and everyone, and I mean everyone, got cookies for quite a few years! My friends and loved ones loved them!

Do what you can with what you have with where you are. I had flour and butter and eggs and sugar and the capacity to bake. That was where I was at. I felt a bit embarrassed that that was all I could give but then I realised …. that it WAS enough and I was and am enough.

This season can get way out of hand – all for the sake of one day – and the pressure can feel enormous. Make it your own. Make your own way of celebrating. Do what you can with what you have. And sometimes that’s a great big bucket of love and joy – which is the best gift ever.

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Healing

“I just want to feel better. I want peace. I want to know who I am without this pain”. These are the words I spoke to my mentor 20 years ago. He looked me in the eyes and said “I can help you with that, but you’ll need to work hard. You’ll want to quit but that’s when the magic starts to happen”. I sure did want to quit, more times than I can count!

Healing IS a choice. You choose it over and over again. Shifts happen all the time. Life happens every day. As the saying goes healing is not linear. It moves with you. As you learn, grow, experience life, healing grows with you.

Healing doesn’t mean perfection. It doesn’t always mean free of physical conditions either – it can, but not always. Healing is the soul work. It’s knowing who you are, loving all the parts of you, feeling grounded and feeling inner peace.

Keep making the choice. It’s so worth it. You’re worth it 🌻

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Growth

You’ve just spoken up. You’ve spoken a truth for you. You’ve shared your feelings with honesty and integrity. You’ve shared from your heart. It was maybe a bit scary and equally freeing, and you did it. If you spoke that with someone else, maybe it gave them permission to do the same. Growth can look like this. 

Something you’ve been focused on has been set free. A weight has been lifted and you feel like you can breathe. Growth can feel like this. 

So why then, some time after, do you feel like crap. Growth can sometimes feel like this too. That voice in your head when you see the other person struggle with what you just shared? The voice that starts saying I shouldn’t have, I wish I had stayed quiet now, I could have should have would have …..

That voice is coming from a well of old beliefs and pain. The one that told you for years that you’re not enough or that you’re less than, or the one that never knew a healthy boundary or what healthy love looks like. 

When you speak from a place of love and worthiness, you’re creating new boundaries and reinforcing that new place of I am enough. Doubt will creep in. The should have would haves will creep in. Growth. 

Take a breath. Hands on heart. I am enough. I am worthy of speaking my truth. I hear others truth as well. I balance the two in my seat of worthiness. Breathe. Bring love in. Hold on to the space of bravery and knowing of your worth. 

Be easy on you. Sometimes you will rise and fall in one moment. 

Growth, is a dance, not a light switch. 

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Gratitude

I saw an interview with Michael J Fox talking about living his life with Parkinson’s disease. He spoke these very wise words about gratitude and it reminded me how important this emotion is to practice and to feel.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful tools for your toolbox. I’m not here to say chin up get on with it, just be grateful, because I know how damn hard it is to find the grateful in difficult times. It doesn’t mean being blind to the tough stuff or the messiness that can get all of us from time to time. What it does though, is help you notice the goodness in the world, in your life.

Gratitude makes sure that in the midst of all the things, even what we know or perceive as negative and crappy, we don’t lose sight of the good.

And science wise? Did you know that gratitude also has the capacity to increase important neurochemicals in the brain like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. Which do what? Increase and contribute to the good feelings that come with gratitude, like happiness, connection, hope, seeing a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel.

There are processes like using a gratitude journal each day, listing up to 5 things you can be grateful for. Or, you can just think of one and speak it out loud! No matter how you choose to express gratitude, it’ll work it’s magic.

So today, I’m grateful for feeling loved by my family and friends. What are you grateful for today?

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You are not your illness.

There are a lot of motivational and inspirational posts out there. I remember when I was in the midst of my health struggles thinking, that’s great, but I can’t even move right now so how can I make that relevant to my life?!!!! When I was at my lowest either physically or mentally, honestly, reading “how to” posts by a healthy person really pissed me off! Not their fault I know, just the place I was in.

Please know, anything I am about to say is from a place knowing there are health issues bigger than what I lived with. I’m not speaking for all illnesses and conditions here, I speak from my own lived experience, to any similarities you may feel with your own health.

When you are struggling with an illness, health issue, diagnosis or a label given to you, it’s all consuming. As you navigate your way, to seek answers and cures and look for hope, it’s so easy to become your “label” and forget who you are.

When I was initially diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia many years ago, I fell into the trap of it defining me. I became my “dis-ease”! I equally rallied to get rid of it and surrendered to living with it, knowing I had no idea if or when it would end.

What I found important and it might help you too is, remember who YOU are first and foremost. You may have a condition but it does not define you. You are not your illness or disease. You are still you.

After allowing myself to feel all I felt with the struggles of it, I chose a mindset of; being as well as I could based on the day; looked for what I was grateful for; what filled my tank with happiness; a tweak here n there to make positive changes 🙌 and then let go and did my best in that moment.

It’s a tough slog, and you’re not always gonna manage it and that’s ok too! I know it’s not easy to focus on joy and vibrancy when you’re in the midst of health struggles, honestly it sucks to feel so unwell and it’s hard to think of anything else!

Loving and accepting yourself as you are right now today, will add to improving your health in your mind and soul, and your body will feel it too. Step by step, moment by moment, you’ve got this.

Honour your strength, your courage, your vulnerability, your heart. And remember:
You are braver than you believe
Stronger thank you seem
Smarter than you think
And Loved more than you’ll ever know