Category Archives: This might be helpful

New Year’s Resolutions?

Amongst all the lists of new year’s resolutions, both personal and for everyone, I read a couple of articles this new year about resolutions that really struck a chord with me.

‘New Year, Old You – it’s time to ditch those resolutions’ Philippa Perry in The Nerve

https://www.thenerve.news/p/philippa-perry-new-year-resolutions-gym-membership-self-improvement

‘ The secret to being happy in 2026? It’s far, far easier than you think’ Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jan/03/secret-being-happy-2026-simpler-than-you-think

It feels to me that these articles are both telling me something really important: ‘I am good enough’. I don’t need to be tidier, more organised, better at housework, be fitter, be thinner, look younger etc in order to feel good about myself. Some of those things on the list are quite offensive, but to be honest some of them would be really nice! But if I don’t make any changes in any of these directions, actually, that is also fine – I am still a good enough human being, and have intrinsic value.

I love what Philippa Perry says: “You cannot build a sustainable life on the belief that you are fundamentally lacking.”

Like so many New Year’s Resolutions though, it’s easy to say ‘I’m good enough’, but for some of us it’s hard to make this internally true. How can we feel good enough if we have a deep belief that we are not good enough? How can we learn to be kind to ourselves if we feel that we don’t deserve that kindness?

If we are able to be kind to ourselves, to believe that we are good enough and to accept our intrinsic value, the likelihood is that we will feel better. There won’t be the critical, maybe even mean, voice in our head holding us back; there won’t be energy wasted on endless judgment/punishment of ourselves; we might even radiate some of the excess kindness out to others, and we might be able to let generosity travel both ways – not just from us towards others.

How can you get to this place though? A place that might feel very distant, unimaginable maybe. It also might feel a bit ‘wrong’, the idea that you can relax on yourself, perhaps there’s a worry of what you’ll actually do if you are kind to yourself. Or that it isn’t ‘allowed’ somehow, there’s something about you that means you don’t deserve kindness.

Good places to start for you might be reading the articles that inspired this post. Or starting journalling, or meditation, or doing more activities that feel nourishing. Go to Kristin Neff’s site for self compassion exercises. Practising treating yourself like someone who is good enough can help shift things for you – yes, fake it till you make it!

Counselling might also be helpful now.

You’ll have a boundaried place to explore all your feelings, and the complex ideas around ‘good enough’ and beliefs about your own worth. Some of these beliefs you have might be old, beliefs you internalised as a child, some of them might come from the society and culture you live in, and some you might have calculated to be true during certain relationships or times in your life.

Conversations with a trained professional counsellor can lead you to deeper understandings about what you believe and why. You can work through the beliefs for the ones that are still helpful for you, and explore what it would mean to let go of some of the old ones.

You could start with a counsellor this month, or wait and see how the year develops, then meet one when you’re ready. Good luck with it, and with everything else in 2026.

Learning new things

Joining an art class for the first time this year, I was looking forward to learning some new techniques. I was also hoping for connections with others and to sharing the enjoyment of drawing and painting. And I did, I got the chance to practise using some different materials, I got some great guidance from the teacher, and at the end of the semester I had a little collection of artwork I had made. Being in the group was also a lovely experience: we were all there with the same purpose in mind, and the teacher created a warm atmosphere where we thoughtfully complimented each others’ work. The feeling I got near the end of each class when we would all bring our pictures together was joy – look at what we have all done, how fabulous we all are!

What I also got was an insight into a whole host of other stuff: vulnerability, perfectionism and comparison for starters. It turned out that an art class was a great place to learn more about myself, as I had the time and space to be able to really notice my feelings.

The things that came up for me are areas that many of us struggle with, and I wonder whether you might have places in your life where you could explore your understanding of yourself – just as I did in my art class.

Vulnerability

I guess that we all know that we are supposed to be vulnerable – if we embrace and share our vulnerability, then our relationships (and everything!), will benefit. If we need reminding of this, check out Brene Brown:

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability?language=en

But actually being vulnerable is hard for most of us, however much we want it. It feels scary to be vulnerable – to let others see ourselves as we are, which might even include to let others see us failing.

At art class, one week I arrived late, and had to sit inside the main circle of easels, where everyone could see what I was doing. I had a couple of hours to fully experience the vulnerability of making mistakes, there was no hiding. Perhaps you can imagine yourself in a similar setting, somewhere safe, where you do feel quite free from judgment: what’s it like? I wonder what your first urge is? Do you try and find a way out? Do you try and hide yourself somehow? And if, or when, you give in to feeling vulnerable, and you accept that others are going to see you, what exactly is vulnerability for you? Maybe after a while, you might notice yourself soften and perhaps it might be ok for others to see what you are actually doing, and to share with them that it feels uncomfortable to do this.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism can be a really painful condition – when everything you do feels like it needs to be perfect, and if it isn’t, it’s not worth anything – and neither are you. It comes with an awful lot of pressure – to get things not just right, but perfect. Starting something new can feel impossible, because what if you get it wrong? What if you can’t do it perfectly?

One way to break out of perfectionism is to practice not achieving perfection, while giving ourselves absolutely loads of self compassion. If we can reassure ourselves that we are still worthy, regardless of the quality of our output, maybe we can let go of the anxiety around what we produce, and enjoy the process instead.

At art class, each week I had to tolerate the fact that no matter how hard I worked, my picture was not really going to look like the thing I was drawing or painting. My picture might have other qualities, but it was always going to be a long way from perfect. Could you imagine yourself spending time doing something you enjoy, but you aren’t very good at (yet)? How would it feel? What would you need to say to yourself to allow yourself to relax? What kind words would you need inside to help you stay in the moment of enjoyment?

Comparison

Comparing ourselves with others rarely feels good. Are we judging them, or ourselves? Are we comparing to make ourselves feel better or worse? Why does our ranking amongst others mean more than our own ranking of ourselves?

At art class, each week, when we brought our pictures together, the first thing I noticed myself checking for was whether mine was the worst. I wanted to make myself feel better by finding someone ‘worse’ than me – even though I couldn’t tell you what that meant. Have you been in a situation like this, and have you been able to reassure yourself? What kind words do you need to say to yourself in order to feel proud of your output, regardless of what anyone else has produced?

Next steps

Sometimes we become aware that these themes are really impacting our lives. If we daren’t be vulnerable, we risk not being able to connect with others or ask for help. If everything we do has to be perfect, we are setting ourselves up for anxiety and failure. If we are always looking at others to see how we are doing, we might not have our own self confidence.

Understanding the impact of these themes on us is a great starting point, and from there we might work on what we would rather do instead. We might also feel that we need to understand the root of these feelings in ourselves – why is it so risky to show our real selves? who told us we are only worthy if we are perfect? how come we don’t have our own confidence in ourselves?

Starting working with a counsellor means that you can explore both the causes and the effects, and also practice a way out. A counsellor will be able to help you talk about these feelings and together you can work out what’s going on, and with understanding often comes change.

Books (by me) that might help

I self-published a couple of books in the last year or so, but have been reluctant to actually advertise them, even though I have had good feedback about them. I am finally challenging myself to be brave, and so here I am, sharing information about the books and how you can buy them.

My Therapy Pages:

This is a book to support your therapy journey, by offering sets of prompts for you to answer at each stage of your therapy. Doing this means that you can record and reflect on what happens in your therapy, helping you make the most of the therapy even when you aren’t in session.
Part One: this is for before you start therapy, and guides you through finding the best therapist for you.
Part Two: this is for your actual therapy. There are pages for before and after each of your sessions, up to 12 sessions. Then you review your progress after 6, 8 and 10 sessions, and at the end of the 12th session, review the journey as a whole.
Part Three: these pages are specially to help you when something goes wrong in the therapy relationship, and help you explore how you typically repair relationship difficulties.
Additionally, each page comes with a ‘How To’ guide. These give you some ways you can answer the prompts and questions, and guide you on what to think about. There is also plenty of empty space for you to use to express yourself more freely. You might like to draw your feelings, or your therapist!

At Least Ten:

This book gives you loads of prompts where you to list At Least Ten positive things – for example, things you are good at, times you felt great, or compliments you received. Each list is something positive, to help remind you of your experiences, talents and value. You’ll remember how wonderful and unique you are.

‘At Least Ten’ is a book for you to use, and then to come back to. At first it might be hard to list ten, but as time goes on, and thinking positively about yourself comes more easily, you can return to the book and add to your lists. Self compassion isn’t a natural habit for a lot of us, and ‘At Least Ten’ is here to help you develop your self compassion skills. Along the way, look out for increasing feelings of self esteem and self worth.

If you’re someone who enjoys journaling but who sometimes gets stuck with where to go next, try ‘At Least Ten’ to help you. If you know someone who seems to struggle with understanding how wonderful they are, ‘At Least Ten’ might be a great gift that could help them remember.

A.I. Therapist vs Human Therapist

Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be constantly in the news – and AI for therapy is popping up in my newsfeed regularly. I’m interested in AI, which for me includes wondering about how it might replace me, a therapist, and what a human therapist can offer that an AI can’t. Thus, this article – what is the difference between an AI and a human therapist?

Firstly, they work in quite different ways:

Human brains are complex and intuitive, capable of understanding subtle emotional cues, body language, and tone. We process emotions through a network of interconnected neurons, and our brains are wired to seek out empathy and understanding from others. When we talk to a person, we typically pick up on not just the words they say, but the energy, intent, and emotional undercurrents behind those words.

AI, on the other hand, works by recognizing patterns in data. While it can be programmed to understand the words we use and even respond with what seems like empathy, it lacks any true emotional awareness. AI doesn’t feel anything—it simply processes information and applies algorithms to predict what response would be ‘best’ based on previous interactions. It can’t read between the lines or intuitively grasp the underlying emotional context of a conversation.

There are a lot of different apps and websites where you can type or talk about what’s going on, and get feedback from an AI. The AI might give you strategies and techniques, and some offer an element of coaching as well. Typically you chat to it, typing or dictating – just like you might already chat to ChatGPT. If you are going to use an AI therapist, do check out the privacy and data collection policies, and maybe do a bit of research first so you know what you are getting into.

Most AI therapists you do have to pay for, but some are free, or are free for a limited period. I had a quick go on three that popped up when I did a google search for AI therapist:

https://www.freeaitherapist.com/ : you can type or dictate about how you are feeling, and the AI Therapist will respond – I tried it briefly, and I found it talked too much! I didn’t feel like it ‘got’ me – or at least not straightaway. But it was an interesting alternative to journalling – a bit like journalling to a person, but in a completely private space.

https://lotustherapist.com/ : this one is CBT based and when I tried it, it quickly asked me about thoughts and behaviours connected to certain feelings. But without paying, it often says it is at ‘maximum capacity’ right now, and you can’t continue.

https://abby.gg/ : this is a paid one – it lets you type/talk about a specific challenge, and after a short time, it gives you a Roadmap – a plan for a structured conversation that will last about an hour. If you want to progress to this conversation, you have to sign up – you get 7 days free, but will have to hand over payment details. I quite like this one, I didn’t progress to the Roadmap, but it was interesting to see its perspective on a useful way to proceed – and that this wasn’t the way I would have instinctively chosen to proceed.

What can a human offer that (for now at least!) an AI can’t?

At the core of any successful therapeutic process is the relationship, the connection between two humans—one with expertise in understanding emotions and the other with the lived experience of pain, hope, and struggle. And this is where true healing happens. When we are listened to with empathy and without judgment, our nervous systems settle, and we can begin to make sense of our inner turmoil.

A human therapist doesn’t just apply techniques; they engage with us as real people, seeing beyond our symptoms to the emotional landscape that shapes our experience. This authentic connection is the foundation for personal growth, creating a space where we feel safe to explore difficult feelings and change patterns that have been holding us back.

One of the most unique aspects of working with a human therapist is the opportunity for “rupture and repair”. A rupture is a misunderstanding, a missed connection, or even a mistake. It could be something as simple as a therapist misreading your emotions or responding in a way that doesn’t resonate with you.

In a healthy therapeutic relationship, these ruptures are not signs of failure but opportunities. The process of repair—whether through discussing what went wrong, expressing hurt feelings, or clarifying misunderstandings—allows you to practice vulnerability, assertiveness, and emotional resilience. It’s in these moments that you get to see how to restore trust, rebuild connection, and navigate the complexities of human relationships. In fact, these moments of rupture and repair often mirror real-life, offering a safe space to learn more about how we manage our relationships, and to practice skills for outside the therapy room.

I asked ChatGPT (the free version) what it thought:

While AI may continue to play a role in mental health support, it’s clear that human therapists bring something irreplaceable to the table: empathy, authenticity, and the ability to form real, relational bonds. Therapy isn’t just about learning skills; it’s about transforming your relationship with yourself and others, which can only happen in a space where mistakes are made, repaired, and learned from.

Human therapists aren’t perfect, but that imperfection is where the magic happens. It’s in the messy, imperfect moments that we practice how to handle real-life conflicts, emotional challenges, and interpersonal growth. The relationship itself is the healing process.

If you’re looking for a therapeutic experience that can truly transform your life, a human counsellor is the one who can walk with you through the complexities of your emotional world, offering not just strategies, but understanding, growth, and most importantly—connection.

Counselling and ADHD

I recently completed a training course all about ADHD and supporting adult clients with ADHD.

While the main focus was on adults, one module was about ADHD in children, and how to support them through school. As I was listening, the speaker noted that a lot of children who would now be diagnosed with A.D.H.D. were instead diagnosed as B.A.D. I was worried – what did the B and A stand for in this new ‘disorder’ that I had never heard of? It took me quite a while to realise that the speaker was saying that a lot of children who have ADHD are often thought of as bad, or naughty, children.

An adult with ADHD might well remember that the way they were as children annoyed adults, they were judged to be ‘bad’ children, and told that they were difficult or a problem. Now as adults, they are in many ways the same as they were as children, but it is their own internal voice that is criticising them inside their own heads.

ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I wish it wasn’t called a Disorder, as it’s a way some brains work. However, the Disorder part of the name does give us an idea that having this type of brain can make life more difficult – as some of the behaviours that we value in our societies are particularly hard for someone with ADHD.

The Attention Deficit part of the name sounds like it means that people with ADHD can’t pay attention to things – when in fact, someone with ADHD will likely know that they can pay so much attention to certain things that they’ll be unable to do almost anything else! It might only be the boring things that they can’t pay attention to. And the Hyperactivity part of the name reminds us that in the past we thought of ADHD as being what was wrong with the children who couldn’t sit still for any length of time, and some people with ADHD might have noticed that they prefer to be moving in some way if possible.

Some of the experts on my course said that a better way to think of ADHD is as difficulty with Time – people with ADHD might typically think of Now and Not Now, and other times, especially future times, don’t feel very important, interesting or real. Some experts talked about ADHD being a difficulty with Executive Functioning – which is a pretty broad array of things we do in our brains, and includes self awareness, inhibition, working memory, emotional regulation, planning and problem solving. And others focussed more on the need for more ‘dopamine hits’ in the brain for someone with ADHD – so someone with ADHD might find that they are attracted to something immediately distracting because it will satisfy their brain, as they get a hit of dopamine, a ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter, released.

If you are someone with ADHD, maybe one of these ways of thinking about it feels more right for you than the others, or maybe none of them are quite right. Perhaps a mixture suits you and your brain. I wonder if you have an internal critical voice in your head though that rejects these ideas, and instead is insisting that you are the problem, that there is something wrong with you, and that you are a bad person. That wouldn’t be uncommon, as these are the messages we have been given all our lives: good people are organised, sit still, don’t get distracted, do the things on their To Do list, tidy up after themselves, start tasks and finish them… the list could go on and on. It might take a conscious effort to establish an alternative list for yourself: good people are kind, helpful, listen to their friends, give compliments, have time for others… again, this list could also go on and on!

Getting to know what your particular challenges are can be helpful – and you could approach this as an investigator or an observer, someone who is gathering information about what works for you, what is easy for you, and the opposite. Once you know a bit about what you’re like, and what your brain responds to, hopefully you’ll find some strategies, tips and tricks that will help you with your every day life. Something that counselling, or journaling, or exploring personal development with a friend can help with, is learning to accept what your brain is like. If you can find ways to give yourself the unconditional love that you deserve, and to quiet that internal critic, these strategies might make more sense, and life with ADHD may well become a lot easier.

Some resources that might be helpful:

https://add.org/resources/ The Attention Deficit Disorder Association

https://www.adhdadult.uk/resources/ ADHD Adult UK

https://www.self.com/story/adult-adhd-resources Blog post with a ton of links

https://adhduk.co.uk/adhd-useful-resources/ ADHD UK

What does ‘lazy’ mean – and can we re-frame it?

I’m always curious when someone says, in a self-critical way, shameful way, something like ‘Oh I’m so lazy’. I hear a lot of negative judgment attached to the idea of laziness, and I often wonder why. How do we decide to label some behaviour as lazy, and what does lazy even mean?

I recently started reading the book ‘Dark Emu’, by Bruce Pascoe. It’s an argument for the reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians, and he shares evidence that people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. He starts off by re-visiting the records of the very first white colonialists, and looking at their descriptions with fresh eyes. He talks about how the first settlers arrived with a set of beliefs about race, destiny and superiority, and how this influenced how they interpreted what they saw.

This whole topic is fascinating to me, but a story he re-told in the introduction struck me as something very helpful for thinking about ‘lazy’. We tend to label certain activity as ‘lazy’, we think that being ‘lazy’ is a bad thing, and we berate ourselves internally for being ‘lazy’, and there might be shame attached as well. A quick google search about being lazy throws up ideas around productivity and unproductivity. It is bad to be unproductive, we should be productive all the time or we are ‘bad’ people.

The story Bruce Pascoe relates comes from James Kirby, one of the earliest colonial settlers, who described his experiences in a publication “Old Times in the Bush of Australia: trials and experiences of early bush life in Victoria: during the forties’ (1897).

Kirby describes coming across weirs built into a river system, and saw that fish were thus directed into different channels. He describes a young man sitting near the opening of one of the channels.

“just behind him a tough stick about ten feet long was stuck in the ground with the thick end down, To the thin end of this rod was attached a line with a noose at the other end; a wooden peg was fixed under the water at the opening in the fence to which this noose was caught, and when the fish made a dart to go through the opening, he was caught by the gills, his force undid the loop from the peg, and the spring of the stick threw the fish over the head of the black (man), who would then in a most lazy manner, reach back his hand, undo the fish and set the loop again around the peg”

I read this description of a method of catching fish, and thought it absolutely ingenious, a feat of engineering, an exhibition of knowledge and understanding of fish. Kirby saw this method of fishing, and labelled it lazy. Not just lazy, but ‘most lazy’. His ideas about the people who already lived in Australia were so deeply held that he couldn’t interpret what he saw in front of him in any other way, he had to make what he saw fit in with his own beliefs.

How often do we do that to ourselves? Look at what we are doing, and label ourselves one thing, when if we looked at the same thing a different way, we could label it a different thing. When we think about being productive, do we really mean moving around a lot, obviously ‘doing’ as much of the time as possible? Is it the outcome that matters, or is it the activity?

Perhaps we need to interrogate our deep seated beliefs – something we don’t know if Kirby ever did. What’s underneath our judgment and self criticism? Are we, in fact, operating from a place of beliefs based on some sort of prejudice?

Next time we hear our self-critical voice berating us for being ‘lazy’, I wonder where this idea came from, and if there’s a more helpful, more compassionate re-frame we could do?

Also…

I didn’t touch on the problem of believing rest is not a valuable activity – see https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/about/ for more on this!

Bruce Pascoe ‘The Dark Emu’

James Kirby’s book: https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1255272

Laziness does not exist, an interview with Devon Price.

There’s a documentary about the impact of Pascoe’s ‘The Dark Emu’

Journaling: could it work for you?

You might have heard that journaling is a good idea and that it can help support good mental health, and this sounds like something you would like to do. Maybe you have friends who say they journal, and who encourage you to do it, but you aren’t sure what ‘it’ is. Perhaps you kept a diary as a child or young person – is that what journaling is? Like a lot of things, journaling is something that can feel a bit mysterious, and possibly a bit exclusive. Unless you already journal, how do you find out what it is and how to do it? How do you know if you are doing it right?

First of all, journaling is a few things in one place: you, something to write with and on, and some time. The permutations within this set are almost endless – are you on the bus, in bed, at the table, in the bathroom, in your workplace, is it in the morning, or is it last thing at night? Have you got an hour or have you got five minutes? Are you using a lovely new notebook, your laptop, the back of a scrap of paper, an app on your phone, or your actual diary?

For some of us, we can take what we’ve got, in terms of time space and materials, and just get started. This might mean we start just writing about the day, perhaps we start by describing the events and then are able to move on to writing about our feelings about the events and maybe segue into other feelings or events we are reminded of. Before we know it, time has passed, words have appeared from out of the ends of our fingers and perhaps we have explored something unexpected, perhaps we have a feeling of relief at getting something ‘out’, or another feeling is around, as a result of the writing. We might be able to read back over what we have written – or maybe we can’t, because it’s literally too messy, or we didn’t write actual sentences, or it just doesn’t seem relevant to read it.

Once we’ve had that first experience of journaling, as described above, we can repeat it – the next day maybe. Or next week. Or next time we have a difficult day. As we do it more often, we might expand our writing from specific events to specific people or relationships, we might explore our patterns or delve backwards into our distant pasts, triggering memories we didn’t know we still had. And the writing might be collected in one place – a notebook, a folder, a box, a document, an app. Or each bit of writing might be dumped, because it’s the process not the product that is important to us.

After a few months, we might have turned into one of those people who encourage others to journal – we’ve experienced the benefits of having a place to dump stuff, to explore themes, to express ourselves.

For those of us with perfectionism and anxiety around doing things ‘right’, getting started like this might well be impossible. We might feel like we need to get properly prepared with the right tools, at the right place and time. So for us to get started, we might need a new notebook, and a nice pen. We might want a plan that someone else gives us, (here are some ideas), so that we have enough structure to be able to take the plunge, and start. What will it be like for you, to start this thing that really doesn’t have a ‘right’ way and really is just for you? For those of us with anxiety around doing it properly, journaling can be really challenging – and it can also be a safe place to explore some of those difficult feelings and restrictions.

Next, a couple of directions you might want to go in, now you’ve read this far and are maybe thinking journaling might be for you!

Firstly, there is now a body of research into gratitude journaling specifically that shows that having a gratitude practice is good for us: this article summarises the research findings. Could your daily journal start with a list of three things you’re grateful for? Doing this regularly will start to retrain your brain – it will want to find things you can add to the list!

Secondly, journaling doesn’t have to be only for the hard times. We are wired to focus on the negative, but with a little help, we can encourage our brains to also pay attention to the positive. Describe a good friend, a lovely day, a great feeling. Give your happy memories an airing!

How does journaling fit in with counselling? It can support your counselling, and expand the learnings you make from your sessions. Themes might appear in your journal that you can bring to your therapist to make more sense of. Your therapist might be a great person to work with those feelings of perfectionism and anxiety, and together you might be able to work out what those feelings are about for you.

If you do start journaling, good luck!

The Festive Season

This time of year, the build up to Christmas, then Christmas itself, and the week in between, and then the New Year, can be all kinds of things, and sometimes a lot of different things all at once.

All the adverts at this time of year might make you think that everyone else is having a super time with friends and family. Everyone is buying each other thoughtful gifts, cooking elaborate meals to share together, and dressing up to go out together for a great time.

What if it’s different for you? Maybe you aren’t going to be doing any of those things in the adverts. What if your life looks very different from the adverts? What if your life looks a bit like the adverts, but you don’t feel like those people look like they feel?

If any of those apply to you, you might find this time of year hard. You might have a sense of the Christmas you ‘should’ be having, how your family ‘should’ all be getting on together and how you ‘should’ be feeling. At the same time, you might also know that those thingss are not possible for you. Perhaps your family history is complex, and difficulties will arise between you all. Perhaps you don’t have the money to be able to do anything or everything that you’d like. But maybe you are also someone who holds hope every year that it will be different this time.

The cocktail of expectations around this time of year can be a tough one to navigate. What can you do to protect yourself?

It might be really helpful to remember that a lot of what happens at Christmas is going to be out of your control. And some of the things that you in theory could control, in reality might be out of your skillset. I’m thinking of something like a difficult family member or friend. Perhaps you are able to speak directly to them, and ask, for example, that they don’t do something that you don’t like. But it’s hard to hold boundaries like this – to state a consequence, and then stick to it. You might be able to ask your brother not to tease you, and state that you will have to leave if he continues to do it, but following through, especially at Christmas, with all its expectations, might actually be a bit too hard.

If you’d like to work on establishing and holding your boundaries, Neddra Glover Tawwab might be a good place to start. She has a couple of books and some great online resources.

https://www.nedratawwab.com/

It’s also a time of year when you might feel other people’s expectations of you. Perhaps you’re the person in your family or friend group who does the Christmas shopping, organises get-togethers and does their best to make it a lovely time for everyone else. Maybe you’re someone others expect to be cheerful, thoughtful and helpful, no matter what. Some years, you’ll be able to meet their expectations. Other years, maybe you don’t have it in you. And other years, maybe you’ll decide you don’t want to meet these expectations any more.

Something helpful could be to do some work on putting yourself in the centre of the picture. If you can set aside some time for a good think, perhaps ask yourself what you need at this time of year, and what might make you happy at this time of year. These questions might sound easy – but for a lot of us, it’s really hard to know what we need and what we like. Are you able to give yourself the freedom to look for your answers? See how it feels. Perhaps you can pick a few things: what might they be: some time to yourself? some time with particular people? certain food, or certain activities? You might well feel that some of your wants or needs aren’t going to be possible – they might be things for next year.

Being able to get some of your needs and wants met will often mean that you feel better, and this in turn might mean that you have more space to tolerate the parts and people of the festive season that you don’t like, but can’t avoid. For some of us, it’s helpful to remember that taking better care of ourselves will mean we are better able give to others. As you have more chances to practice, how would it be to suggest the idea to yourself that maybe it’s ok for you to get things you need or want?

This season can be tough for so many different reasons, so above all, I really hope you are able to be kind to yourself. I hope you have compassionate words inside your head for yourself, and calmness and reassurance for yourself when you need it. Especially when things are at their toughest, it’s important to encourage yourself internally with kind words, a soft tone, and some love for yourself.

If you’d like to work on self-compassion, here are a couple of places you might like to start:

Resources: Self-Compassion and Compassion for Others

Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff

Good luck this festive season.

Season’s greetings

Sometimes a change in the season can spark old memories and the feelings associated with them.

Autumn is definitely here up in Edinburgh. Over half of the leaves on the lime trees on my street have changed colour to a yellowy-gold, and even though it has been sunny, it has also been cold, and the second storm of the season has arrived.

This autumn is reminding me of last autumn, and autumns before that. I’m thinking of autumn weekends travelling to see the leaves in the past decade, and before that, autumns in countries where the weather didn’t change much; and even before that, as a child when autumn meant conkers and kicking piles of leaves. But I notice I’m feeling a lot of sadness as well, which doesn’t really make sense. Until I realise that most of all, I’m being reminded of autumns with my much loved old dog Daisy, walking through the leaves with her, or going on forest walks with her in all the colours of autumn. These are happy memories, but I feel sad that those times are past, that she’s not with me any more – she died in January. Maybe this time of year will always remind me of her, colouring the season with grief.

The sights, smells and sounds of autumn can bring back feelings that were around in the past. We might find ourselves feeling sad, and work out that it’s because the last time the leaves turned, we were feeling really alone. If we had a painful conversation or received some bad news while crunching through autumn leaves, we might feel those same feelings next time we crunch through leaves. These feelings might not immediately make sense – it can sometimes take time to catch up. One way to help yourself understand what is happening, is to journal. Spend some time with your journal, reflecting on what is happening in the natural world around you, and any feelings you can identify.

So autumn might be bringing up feelings from the past, as your senses recognise the new season. You might also notice that the reminder of time passing is leading you to reflect on how our pasts and presents interact. We might compare past and present autumns, or wonder how we travelled from that past autumn to this present one. We might be prompted to worry about future autumns: where will we be next year when the leaves are turning? Some of these thoughts might be helpful, some of them not so much. When we find our thoughts to be a long way from the present, I wonder if we can find an ability to pause for a moment, mentally step away and check on what’s going on. Something that might help you learn how to pause is a meditation or mindfulness practice.

If you are experiencing unexpected feelings, especially if they don’t really make sense, I wonder if they are old ones. Maybe something about the change of season is reminding you of a past time like this, and the feelings of that time are reappearing. You might like to do some journaling about what’s going on, or talk to a friend. Of course, counselling can help as well – therapy sessions can be great places to explore our feelings and memories, and the intersection of past present and future that memory-jolters can sometimes take us to.

Under pressure – deadlines and me.

I just heard my first reference to Christmas – someone saying it’s only a few months away, so they are starting planning for it now. As well as a feeling of surprise that so much of this year has already passed, I also noticed a feeling of ‘under pressure’. I’m not someone who does a lot of anything for Christmas, so it’s not something I need to be thinking about or worrying about just now, but that mention of the time limit, the deadline, was enough to spark a little feeling of panic in my body.

For me, someone who finds feelings of safety in rules and following the rules, a deadline can be something exhilarating: I like to know the parameters, I can write them in my diary and think about what needs to be done. A deadline means there’s an end, so I’d better get started! But there’s also a panic: what if I forget to do anything, what if I’m going about the task the wrong way? What if I complete the task by the deadline, but I do it wrong, and I fail? What if I miss the deadline entirely? A lot of ‘what ifs’ pop up for me when I’m faced with a deadline. I might even find they can swim around in my thoughts for a while – for longer than I would like – leaving my body with that feeling of panic and worry.

I do know what to do when faced with a deadline and these feelings that go along with it. For me, planning helps, writing things down on paper feels reassuring. Breaking tasks down into steps and small chunks works for me. When I am really struggling with getting things done, I set myself short timers and work on the task for a minimum of, let’s say, five minutes. I might carry on after then, or I might not. I keep the end goal in the front of my mind – and at the top of my written plans. These are the practical things that work for me.

Doing the practical things helps the feelings as well – my body is soothed as it recognises I am taking care of things. But I might also need to devote some additional time to other soothing activities to support my physical feelings. For me, this is more yoga (Yoga with Adriene of course!) and more listening to talks and meditations from Tara Brach. More sitting in the garden listening to insects and birds. More walks in the countryside, feeling the air on my skin. Doing these things builds up my feelings of safety, calmness and joy. It means I can more easily be kind to myself when I don’t tick anything off my list of plans. I can more easily reassure myself when the worrying thoughts reappear.

I wonder what you are like when it comes to deadlines? Do you know what your feelings are around them? And do you know what helps soothe you if you’re worried or thinking about them too much?

Doing a bit of self exploration around deadlines and the feelings can be really helpful – you might find out what deadlines mean to you, and why. You might experiment with different ways of getting things done, and in doing so, realise what actually works for you. You can do this exploration alone, with a trusted friend, or through journaling. You could also do it with a counsellor – someone who is going to listen carefully as you explain what it’s like for you.

If you do decide to seek a counsellor to help you with deadlines, and anything else you’ve got going on, have a look at my previous posts with advice about how to go about finding a good match for you.

Good luck!

Jessica Tett Counselling

Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Wellbeing