Anxiety can often be experienced as an overwhelming feeling of dread, worry or fear – this can cause us to feel stuck in ruminating, over thinking or obsessing about things. We can all get caught in ‘negative’ thinking – feeling like something is very wrong, having a specific or generalised fear about what could happen or maybe feeling paranoid about what others may think of us; doubting our capabilities or perception about something… Sometimes, Anxiety can mask other feelings underneath… it can feel more familiar in some ways to feel the Anxiety than it might be to feel the pain or shame of childhood experiences or the sadness of loss…. Through the journey of therapy we can begin to form a new relationship towards your Anxiety. Learning about why this Part of you gets activated and what job your Anxious feelings try to do for you. We can then understand what might be helpful for you to cope when you feel this way – ultimately you beginning to feel more empowered again, less flooded in that Anxious emotion and more able to be out there in the world with confidence.
Anxiety can escalate to the extent some of us may experience acute Social Anxiety, wanting to run away or avoid a situation because we feel overwhelmed or panic in our system. Anxiety can be an uncomfortable emotion to experience so we will all have our strategies to manage that either positively or maladapatively…
We can feel Anxious at times in our lives when our resilience is down , in periods of stress or perhaps we are in a new situation like a new relationship or job. Sometimes we can know that one part is Anxious and yet another part of us can question that thinking there is “no reason” to feel anxiety and we can even find ourselves being self critical…
Usually, there will be a reason why you are feeling this way…. Counselling can help you understand the roots of your worries and fears and we can look together at developing some coping strategies to help you feel more able to manage.
Depression, Low Mood and Irritability
When we feel Low, we can have a much lower tolerance level for everyday life. Feeling more anxiety, quick to react or feeling unsociable, a lack of motivation, tearful or just sad. Depression can often be a longer-term experience, beyond the experience of low mood including maybe at times some suicidal thoughts or a sense of hopelessness and despair. A lot of people have at some point in time had these kinds of thoughts and feelings…
Sometimes we may feel Low in certain situations but at other times, like when we’re with friends or engaged with an activity, we can also feel distracted or even happy… Through therapy we can explore your feelings given there will always be very good reasons why you feel the way you do…
Having the ‘blues’ can occur for all sorts of reasons – sometimes it can be a result of something painful or traumatic in our lives, a loss or a significant change… It may also be part of what we are going through in terms of life-phase; it may be hormonal, situational, genetic or a response to some experience we’ve gone through and have not yet fully grieved or integrated…
Even though it can feel counter-intuitive, it is always a good to reach out for connection and support when you feel low. Life can sometimes feel unbearable when you are going through painful experiences and in this place, it’s hard to imagine that anything can and will change, but it can and it usually does….
With Counselling support, it may be possible to get the help you need; To gain a clarity about why a part of you feels as you do and to learn how to take care of yourself in this place and ultimately to begin move towards a new chapter and a more positive, hopeful path ahead.
Low Self Confidence
We can all have bad days when we feel ow in confidence or insecure, but when poor self-esteem holds you back from pursuing things you’d like to do, or where your lack of confidence affects you socially or in your relationships, then seeking help is a positive step. Counselling provides you with an opportunity to identify and understand any negative core self-beliefs you may be holding on to. Burdens or Beliefs you still hold on to from your family or experiences in past relationships or childhood that still are impacting on how you feel about yourself…
Most people will carry some negative beliefs about themselves – perhaps feeling ‘too much’, ‘not good enough’ or ‘not ok’ in some way – This is such a common experience. There can often be a discrepancy between how we see ourselves and how others view us. The determining factor to our happiness will be our own lens on ourselves and life – we can’t change others but we can focus on ourselves.
Maybe there are aspects of your personality that you like but other parts of you, you dislike and would like to get rid of or transform…Therapy can help you understand more about why you feel the way you do and helps you understand how some of those beliefs you can hold about yourself came into being. In therapy we can develop a new relationship with ourselves to understand the different parts of yourself and over time, even transform or become free of those old negative core self beliefs completely…
If you are not living the life you want or could be, then it takes courage to tend to that… As Marianne Williamson quotes, “the world is not served by you playing small”. Counselling can support you in developing a more realistic, balanced and positive self-perspective and to enable you to move beyond any self-imposed limitations.
“No one is you and that is your power”
Dave Grohl
Feeling Stuck
You may feel there is a decision you’ve been unable to make, a career move, a relationship change or that you’re not living quite the life you’d like…. Sometimes we can feel so paralysed with different parts of us holding such conflicting views and feelings making it hard to move forwards with any choice out of fear of making a mistake, failing or lack of clarity and confidence…
Counselling can help you to identify what is missing for you, what keep you stuck where you’ve been and allows you the space to review your choices in relation to your wants, needs and your dreams…
It will be true for all of us that some decisions or choices are hard to make and where we have opposing perspectives or are affected by what others’ may think then we can get stuck indefinitely. There may be a part of you that wants to make changes but another part that somehow sabotages you in some way where you can behave in the very opposite direction…
In therapy, we explore all your inner perspectives to bring more understanding about those internal dynamics in order to feel for you to feel you have a real Choice, even if it is a difficult one with risk, change or losses…
There may be things that you know are holding you back – concerns about what others might think; fears around the consequences for yourself or others; or fears of failure or low self confidence…
The bottom line is if you are feeling stuck and aware of that frustration, this may well not dissapate – This is an issue worthy of addressing because it is possible to gain more clarity about the different parts of you and why you hold all the feelings and perspectives you do; ultimately finding the courage and strength of purpose to make your choice….
Relationship Themes
We can often find the same themes re occurring in our various relationships. Unable to voice our needs, withdrawing and feeling resentful, or perhaps feeling really triggered so that we blow up or possibly walk away..
Most of us can identify what are the repeated patterns in our relational dynamics but we can sometimes find ourselves blaming the other person, which may well be relevant, however, the real gold can be recognising where you might be feeling activated and why….
From this place it can be possible to bring new insight and potentially access a different choice of approach in dealing with issues in a new way. Potentially leading to quite a radically different outcome…
In IFS therapy, we learn first to do that U-Turn towards ourselves – what am I feeling?
Trying to make sense of that for you first. When we are able to validate and understand our own reactions and feelings then it can be so much easier to advocate for ourselves in a more helpful way.
Counselling can help you explore those difficult dynamics in your relationships and give you some new tools to help you understand each other and to learn to communicate in a more compassionate and constructive way.
Historical Issues
We are all shaped by our past and we all have experienced ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’ of something. Ous history with a lack of enough Connection or not enough Space and Autonomy for example will impact us and affect our view of ourselves, relationships and how we see and be in the world…
It may be that you still carry some of those labels, passed on through implicit or explicit messages you received throughout your childhood. Beliefs you possibly learned from your family that can get in the way of the life you want to life now.
In therapy we can look at some of the beliefs you hold about yourself that have become clear in any re-occuring themes in your life and relationships. You will have the opportunity to explore what is still active in you, what could be let go of or accepted.
In therapy we often review the times we felt ‘triggered’, which is something about how the other has behaved towards us but there is an opportunity is to look at what this event or behaviour has exposed within us… for example, a betrayal that activated an deeper belief of our ‘unworthiness’, of not being good enough etc. Beliefs that belong more in the past than in the present…
About my Practice
- Senior Accredited Member of the BACP
- Level 2 training Internal Family Systems Therapist
- 30 years of Clinical experience
- Safe, Confidential and Engaging Sessions Online
- Online Zoom Therapy sessions for Individuals
Counselling can support you with issues such as:
- Relationship Issues for Individuals
- Anxiety and Stress
- Low Mood and Depression
- Grief, Loss or Endings
- Low Confidence
- Problems with Work or Family
“Counselling can help you understand yourself and your reactions more, and from there you can start to build on some simple tools and techniques to help you cope, to help you make changes, to live your life… just better…” Harley D66
Senior Accredited Member of BACP
