My Services
01.
Individual Counselling
An opportunity for you to explore difficulties, life challenge and change, and worries — from the small to the existential — in a supportive, safe, non-judgemental and confidential environment.
I place your needs and the therapeutic relationship at the heart of the work and will tailor the counselling, within the capacities of my own strengths and knowledge, to suit you.
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Within this relationship you have power and autonomy to decide what it is you need and I am here to facilitate that and attempt to understand what your lived experience is. It is often in this being heard and understood that we begin to listen more closely to ourselves, uncovering things that were perhaps not quite within our conscious awareness and in turn allowing ourselves greater
self-awareness, self-compassion, self-acceptance and a greater ability to engage more positively in our relationships, our environment and our life as a whole.
Life can be extremely challenging and daunting and many of us have lost or never truly uncovered the ability to connect, in a healthy way, to our emotional selves. Often we treat our emotions unkindly, as something to be rid of, but they are as important to our wholeness and functioning as human beings as the breath is in keeping us alive.
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Counselling is about increasing our capacity to feel both the joy and inevitbale pains of life and recognising that we can develop strength and mental fortitude in service of living richer, more fulfilling and truly happier lives.
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02.
Mindfulness
Nowadays, mindfulness is all the rage, we see it across social media and advertising. It has become a multi-million dollar industry, often sold, as one teacher put it, as though it were “a glorified version of an executive stress ball.”
Yes, it can allow us to be a little calmer, less reactive and more patient — all of which is excellent stuff — however, the real power of mindfulness goes much deeper. It’s an exploration of who we really are, how we engage in this world, and how we connect with others. It can reveal mental fortitude we were previously unaware of, overcome deep-seated conditioning and beliefs about ourselves, and to recognise that our conscious horizons are limitless, opening the possibilities for boundless love for ourselves and all beings.
Especially in the West, we are losing contact with the spiritual aspect of our psyche. Here is a chance to reconnect with something deep and timeless and to re-discover inner wisdom.
Though grounded in Buddhist teachings, these lessons will be secular and non-dogmatic, open to people of all faiths and none.
You will be taught the foundations of mindfulness and meditation enabling you to build a personal practice that fits around, complements and, hopefully, helps improve your life and the relationship to yourself and others.
We will start with mindfulness of breathing, discuss the why and how of meditation, and begin building the ‘muscle’ of a concentrated mind. We will explore the nature of suffering and how it may be overcome; investigate the nature of mind and self; discover how an understanding of impermanence leads to insight and freedom; and how a compassionate heart helps ourselves and others. All within a safe, confidential and light-hearted environment.
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Though I offer this as separate to counselling work, it can be blended into counselling sessions if required and we will contract carefully to ensure your needs are met.
03.
Walk & Talk Therapy
Nature has wonderful inherent therapeutic and mindful qualities to it. Just being 'out there' (perhaps in contrast to the 'in here' of our mental chatter) can bring peace and clarity and allow us to step away, if just for a moment, from the busyness of our day-to-day life.
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Counselling is sometimes described as 'walking alongside' and in this case very literally, allowing for a less constrained experience of talking about our struggles, where we may allow nature itself: landscapes, weather, the changing of seasons, etc. to act as a guide for exploration and insight.