The Monster in my Mind Fierce and frightened. Frightened and fierce.Many of us know something of the monster in the mind: the harsh inner voice, the relentless replaying, the shadowy sense of dread that looms larger the longer we meet it alone. Often it sounds certain, cruel, and convincing, repeating itself so insidiously that it can begin to feel like the truest thing about us.Perhaps the monster is also a protective pattern, formed in service...Read More

Never Forget Often it feels like we have a younger part of us still alive inside.Perhaps this is the part of us that learned, early on, when proximity meant survival, what it took to stay connected and protected by the Other. When care arrived inconsistently, or arrived only when we made ourselves easier to be near, our systems began to organise around that. We became watchful. We became accommodating. We became capable far earlier than...Read More

Persisting and Collapsing When our systems are shaped early by prolonged volatility, and when turbulence remains ever possible, our experience organises into patterns of protection, or parts of us, that implicitly learned how to adapt and respond to Others and the World whilst keeping the Self safe.Parts of us move toward daily functioning and toward getting through, they feel the push to persist. These parts learned long ago how to push on and push through...Read More

When the Body Shuts Down Perhaps you know the sort of exhaustion that sleep does not touch.Perhaps you have taken the week off and found that the rest restored nothing, or that stopping felt worse than continuing, and something within you began to hum with a pressure you could not name.Certainly this is confusing. We are told to rest, to slow down, to be gentle with ourselves, as though the stopping were freely available and...Read More

The body remembers what the mind forgets. It holds the story of love, of lack, of longing — not in words, but in gesture, in posture, in silence. Author Unknown Embodied Relational Knowings Have you ever reacted in a certain way with others that seemingly happens no matter how hard you try to change it?Appeasing or people-pleasing; distancing or doubting; shrinking or shielding?These may be embodied relational knowings - patterns of Self-protection that you implicitly...Read More