Empowerment/Collaboration

Counselling is a 2 way process where we work together. All of the answers to your own healing lie within yourself and I can help you to listen, develop and trust in your own feelings and to make your own choices about what is right for you and your life. Learning to harness and accept your own power is a key aspect of your growth and healing. The choice to grow and to take responsibility for your own growth and development always remains with you.

Vulnerability/Trust

Coming to counselling can be a big step for many people. Opening up to and discussing your innermost thoughts and feelings is not easy and is a step into vulnerability, which for all of us, is uncomfortable. However, like any relationship, the counselling one is based on trust which develops mutually as we progress. I trust and recognise that each person is the expert on their own life and experience, knowing what is right for them at any moment in time. As counsellor, I am there to facilitate the process of counselling in a safe and protected environment, helping you to explore, tune into and become aware of what those experiences mean to you in your life while also helping you to become aware of and maintain good boundaries.

Crisis

Many people engage in counselling because they have been faced with a crisis that they find themselves unable to cope with. When their old ways of being and of interacting with the world no longer seem to be working and when it seems that their ability to survive is being threatened. When the immediate crisis passes however they find themselves in a position of whether now is the time to focus on what brought them to this edge in the first place. Sometimes 'playing it safe' in an effort not to grow only leaves us in greater pain. We fear the pain of growth and yet we live with the pain of staying just as we are because at least that is what is known. However, life will continue to be a struggle. The world and everyone in it will seem to be against us and will irritate us – therein lying the possibility for understanding and growth, when the time is right.

Loss/Grief

Loss and grief are a part of everyone’s lives and which we are all touched by at one point or another. The loss of another person(s) is difficult and each and every one of us grieves in our own way. We experience loss and grief in many other ways also – the loss of ones identity, of a job, of a way of life – can leave us grieving for something that may have given us meaning. However, when that grieving process is interrupted or complicated by other loss/trauma, then we can often get stuck in our own grief. Unable to let go, not wanting or being able to move on, we become trapped in this place. Understanding and acknowledging what these losses mean in your life can help to bring peace.

Trauma/Instinct to Heal

Nearly everyone has and does experience trauma in our lives in varying degrees. It should be recognised that trauma is relative to the person who experiences it, as what is perceived as ‘traumatic’ for one person is ‘normal’ to another; what could be ‘traumatic’ for a child is an everyday occurrence for an adult. Where issues do arise it is because of a person’s inability to process and ‘let go’ of their responses to that trauma. Sometimes these responses get ‘stuck’ in the physical or emotional body, and get replayed over and over, or indeed are buried so deep in a shock response that you have never been able to process them. Overall however, the body’s instinct is to heal itself and so will find ways to bring your attention to these traumas.

Dis-ease

Whether physical or emotional, these areas begin to surface, bringing issues to your attention. Something within the physical or emotional body can no longer stay in the position that you have held it all these years and is now ready for release. Through the process of counselling you can allow these issues to come into your awareness, acknowledge how you have lived with them and what they have taught you, and then gently, allow them to be released as you realise healthier ways of being and of relating. Always protecting yourself, and working at your own pace, so that you remain grounded and balanced.

Restlessnes/Unfilfillment/Fear of Change

Sometimes people begin to feel restless with their lives. You work hard to get where you are, you ‘have it all’ and yet something is not right. You feel unfulfilled while having everything you ever wanted. There’s something within you that feels you need to change and yet you fear to look because of the consequences of what that means. Taking time to tune into your inner self, to bring these feelings into your awareness allows you to gently explore what you need and we’ll look at ways at how you can fulfil these. Remember you always have a choice – to change and accept all that goes with that, or to stay as you are, but in the knowledge that you are consciously deciding to do that and accepting that is where you want to be, albeit if just for now.