Like many therapists I offer a free consult for clients to ask any questions they may have about having therapy with me and what it could look like working with me.  The reason why I offer consults for my private practise is because I think they are very helpful. 

If you have not had therapy before it can be a great way to find out more about therapy and how it could look like for you working with a therapist.  It can also be a great way to put your mind at ease.  You may have lots of questions that you would like to ask before therapy or you may want to make sure that what you want to talk about during therapy is something that I work with.  Any question that you may want to ask during our consult that is linked to therapy is valid and worth asking.

If I could turn back time (or what a thought!) I would tell my younger self to go that tears may come but if they do the therapist would not judge and I would feel safe.

It's 2am and your mind is racing. Replaying that conversation from earlier. Worrying about tomorrow.  Planning, re thinking, over thinking, adding in heaps of what ifs. You're exhausted, but your thoughts won't let you rest.

Or perhaps it's the middle of the day. You're trying to focus on work, listen to your partner, be present with your children. But your mind is elsewhere. Spinning through worries, jumping from one anxious thought to another, never settling.

The racing thoughts are exhausting. They steal your sleep, your focus, your peace. They keep you from being present in your own life. It feels like you can’t seem to stop them either.

But here's what I want you to know. You're not stuck with racing thoughts forever. There are tools that can actually help. And one of the most powerful is called grounding.

It can feel such an odd sensation feeling emotionally numb.  Feeling as if you are just a walking stick person with no feeling to fill you out.  Feeling as if life wasn’t happening in your body but just in your head.

Living through your thoughts.  Analysing everything that popped up in your head, going through it but feeling absolutely nothing.

Emotions feeling distant as if they belonged to someone else.

If one more person tells you to 'just set boundaries,' you might scream. Trust me, I get it. If it was that simple, don't you think you would have done it already? The truth is, when you've experienced trauma, saying no doesn't feel like self-care - it feels like signing your own death warrant. Your nervous system has learned that keeping others happy keeps you safe. And that's not weakness - that's survival.

For a long time you have kept those around you happy as a way to keep yourself feeling safe. But whilst you are keeping everyone else self it is a failing juggling out that you are continually trying to keep up with.

You are looking at others for validation that you have done enough for them and they are happy but what about you?

I became a primary school teacher fulfilling a dream from when I was 5 years old but I didn’t realise the run up to every September training to be a teacher and then as a teacher would be filled with anxiety, awful dreams and worry.

Add in becoming a mum to four incredible boys and not wanting them to start school (by this point I was no longer a teacher), let alone go back every September filled me with feeling sick, unable to think start and wanting to run away somewhere hot avoiding reality.  

My body clung on to this feeling of dread so that every summer I have felt shaky, uneasy, anxious.  Often unable to look at a calendar and having to walk fast past any back to school adverts.