Saving Ourselves from Burnout: Mature Compassion
Myths and legends have been around since we humans stood up on two legs and reached for the stars. In every culture, in every corner of the earth, story has been the way humans make sense of the world and themselves. Story has been how we have kept our young folk safe from what lurks outside the periphery of the tribal boundary. How we teach morals, ethics, experiences we don’t want others to repeat. Storytelling is more than entertainment. It’s about the good of the tribe, about survival. about thriving. Lately I’ve noticed a theme popping up with clients: Compassion […]
Read MoreCuppa With a Counsellor: Ep1 – Systemic Family Constellation Therapy
Many therapists work with not just one, but a number of modalities. We call it our melting pot, our tool kit if you will. But what actually do they do? In this series – Cuppa with a Counsellor – I interview well-established mental health professionals. From psychiatrists to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists to counsellors I ask mental health practitioners to unpick their favourite modality. EPISODE ONE – Systemic Family Constellation Therapy Family Constellation Therapy, Constellations or Systemic Constellations was most recently shown on the Netflix Series, Love, Sex and Goop (ep 6). Founded by Bert Hellinger, this modality grew popular in the […]
Read MoreFacing the Shadow
“The best way to deal with he darkness of other people is to deal with your own.’ Carl Jung Photo republished thanks for Unsplash In our lifetime, for each and every one of us, there will come a time that we have to face the shadow in ourselves; to stare it full in the face. The shadow? It is the disowned parts of ourselves that we smother and cast out of the light into the depths our psyche. The quiet murky place where fear can dwell. The shadow side can often be entangled with trauma (or with the trauma we […]
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How To Make Our Well-Being Impenetrable: A Vaccination for the Soul
A moment ago, it seems, it was a new year; 2020. Yet four months in and the entire globe finds itself struggling to adjust to a new normal, in a global lockdown, and the implications are vast. As millions find themselves instantly unemployed, tens of thousands of others fight for their lives and in some cases die alone. In Ireland some hospitals are forcing women to give birth without a single support person. Families the globe over teeter on a tightrope as they take up the mantel of teacher and parent, as well as working from home. Singles the globe […]
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Halcyon Days
I The broken white lines zipper down the highway, our car hurling itself after them in pursuit of the beach. The children sleep in the back seat, one with a hand propped on his cheek, his brow furrowed as if contemplating a philosophical puzzle.t’s a ten hour drive from our regional town to the city. My husband’s hands rest on the wheel, his face creased in concentration. He looks old, yet we are the same age. When many of our peers reached the other side of child rearing – edging the precipice of becoming empty nesters- my husband and I […]
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The Space Between
It is akin to being plunged into the boiling water of the underworld. Some women are pulled down kicking and screaming; others, as they descend, move into depression. The space between worlds is where thousands of women who yearn for a baby but can not fall pregnant or stay pregnant, dwell. Women who cycle between yearning, striving, hope, and who then pick themselves off the floor, month in and month out when there’s no pregnancy. Women deemed, even if temporarily, infertile. But what does infertility actually mean? Usually it means an inability to fall pregnant but this word misses the […]
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