Have you ever been struggling with a difficult emotion or experience and tried to share it with someone, only to be told to ‘be positive’ or ‘look on the bright side’? And though it may have seemed helpful or kind on one level, did it leave you feeling shut down and unseen? Even angry? This…
Do you experience anxiety in social situations that can be overwhelming or even debilitating? Is it affecting your social life, work, relationships – your everyday happiness? If so, this article is for you. Asking what the function of your shyness is might seem a strange question – you didn’t choose it, right? Yet exploring the…
At the heart of every relationship lies a tension between safety and uncertainty. Safety allows us to let go of our worries and feel secure in ourselves and our relationships. But too much safety can make life feel flat and stuck. While uncertainty can keep us and our relationships feeling alive and open to growth,…
We can get confusing mixed messages when it comes to understanding vulnerability. Some people tell us that it’s vital to show our vulnerable side in our relationships, though for reasons that often seem less than clear to us. Whereas our typical response to vulnerability might more realistically be to run away as fast as we…
After many years of hard work, when life was finally falling into place, does it feel like everything is suddenly changing? That you’re blinking into a life transition you neither asked for nor saw coming? In this article we’ll be discussing life transitions: how they can challenge us at a deep and even existential level,…
This is a question that I am often asked. Everyone overthinks sometimes however for some people this can feel like a constant. Some people worry a lot about what others think of them, they can rehash conversations they’ve had, worry about what they’ve said and if they should have said this or that or whether…
This is a common question clients ask therapists. Sometimes clients describe having mood swings, one minute they are feeling fine and the next are feeling very low, and for others it can be suddenly feeling irritable or angry. Sometimes there is an obvious trigger to the change in mood but often clients report no trigger,…
In my last blog I wrote about goals for change and linking these to our values. When someone decides to come into therapy it is often because they would like to make changes and it can help to set goals as a means of knowing when these changes have been achieved. Given this is a…
In this article, I discuss creativity as foundational to being human, how it enables an emotionally and psychologically fulfilling life, and its relationship with psychotherapy. Everyday creativity When we think of creativity we tend to think of world-renowned artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Mozart. This, however, is a very narrow interpretation of creativity…
Is there an expectation that we will not have uncomfortable emotions? To have different emotions is to be human. Life is about feeling emotions. We notice our emotions and label them. Emotion is normal, we have to feel it to get past it. How we look at things and process information is based on our…
Many stressors can impact on our emotional wellbeing such as financial pressures, time pressures, loneliness, physical health problems, insecurity of housing, insecurity of job contracts, loss, bereavement, relationship problems, work stress, family, caring for others, a trauma, adverse childhood experiences, etc. The list is endless. The build-up of these stressors can often result in mental…
What is the difference between low mood and depression? We all can experience low periods in life. This might be triggered by stressful events, being in pain or physically unwell, relationship problems, stress at work, life changes such as change of job or redundancy, a loss or a bereavement. Low mood lifts after a few…