Orly Miller Psychology

Omg I’ve written a book! ✍🏼

It’s taken me a full two years.

My book is about limerence - a psychological state characterised by infatuation, obsessive and invasive thoughts and fantasies, intense longing, and a strong desire for reciprocation of feeling.

Finishing this book feels very exciting for me. I grew up watching my mother write, always half-responding to us while simultaneously typing, with a far-off dreamy look on her face. For the better part of the last two years, this has been me as my children came into my study, enjoying the peaceful aura of deep work.

My daughter developed a ritual of asking me, “how many words?” and each time I’d answer, she’d make an astonished expression at the seeming largeness of the number.

It’s my baby, and I’m incredibly proud of my work. It’s currently with a few publishers, and I have all my toes and fingers crossed 🤞🏼

The painting that hangs above my client couch in my treatment room is very special to me.

It’s been with me for so long and reminds me that life is a journey.

It also reminds me of the poem ‘Invictus’ by William Ernest Henley:

“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”

What does it make you think of?

My new treatment room.

Previously I have rented rooms but now I feel ready for a space which is only my own.

Here it is and it feels so good!

🎎

Therapy can be the anchor that we need to keep us grounded and centred as we navigate the tides of life ⚓️

Clinical psychology servicing individuals and couples in person in Melbourne or nationally via video call.

Medicare rebates available 🌤

Remember to take breaks, connect with yourself and visit wild places 🦋

Change is natural, especially in Spring.

My grandmother used to sing a sing a song whenever I used to ask her questions about the future as a child.

She’d sing ‘Que Sera Sera’, which means ‘whatever will be will be’.

I remember she would particularly sing this when I asked about things I wanted but didn’t immediately get.

Sometimes it felt frustrating as an answer. Sometimes it felt like a threat.

Today it feels like relief.

Surrendering today to the mystery of tomorrow feels like opening to the process of becoming and allowing whatever is unfolding to unravel as it will.

It feels like the holding required to deepen into the experience of longing, yearning and not having and being at peace in the process.

❤️

Love is a way of life. It a practice and we can dedicate ourselves to the service of Love.

We can choose gentle and loving words and let each of our actions be guided by loving intentions. These are examples of living in the service of Love.

It has been said by great mystics that Fear is the opposite of Love. This is true in many ways. It is also true in a physiological sense.

Oxytocin is often referred to as the “love hormone” because it is released during touch and moments of intimate connection. It’s what makes us feel so good when connecting with ourselves or a beloved other.

In order to secrete oxytocin, we have to be relaxed. When we are tense and experiencing fear or anxiety, oxytocin becomes less available. Cortisol, the “stress hormone” reduces oxytocin in our systems.

In other words - Fear is the opposite of Love. The more fear we experience in any given moment, the less we have access to the experience of Love.

Letting Love be your religion means committing to a practice of self-responsibility, self-soothing and regulating your nervous system so you can remain an open channel to the experience of Love, which is available to us in any moment - as long as we do the work to stay open.

What are emotions?

Emotions are body sensations. They are feelings we experience viscerally, in our bodies. Some are pleasant and some are unpleasant. We often get fixated on this point of difference and move into a place of chasing or avoiding. This is why we get ourselves into trouble.

When we move beyond the duality of good and bad, pleasure and pain - we have the opportunity to experience every feeling as a message and an invitation to feel into our intuition and create a healthy relationship with our emotional experience.

When we experience difficult emotions such as anxiety or sadness it can be helpful to remember that these feelings are transient, they won’t last forever, and they won’t hurt you - they actually arise to help you by communicating something important to you in the moment through the expression of visceral experience. So rather than trying to avoid the feeling through disconnection or some kind of avoidance behaviour, see if you can welcome the feeling as a guest in your body with a message to be received. Once the message has been received , the feeling will change and you will be left more connected to yourself. This is part of regulating your nervous system, self-soothing and creating and maintaining a healthy attachment with yourself, your emotions and your intuition.

The weekend is often a great time to be reminded of these practices as we have the opportunity to slow down and change pace from the rush and noise of the week.

With love 💗

This day can be like a delicate flower for some.

Not everyone can celebrate with joy alone.

Some are grieving lost mothers.

Some are grieving lost children.

Some are longing to be mothers.

Some have difficult relationships.

This day is a delicate day for some.

We are all born with an imprint of the archetype of 'Mother'.

We know from birth that Mother is warmth, Mother is nourishment, Mother is home and Mother is unconditional Love.

That's why it can feel so destabilizing to lose our mothers or find we are unable to become mother's when we so yearn to be.

It is my hope that we all find access to these 'Mother imprints' every day whether we have loving human mothers here or not.

One thing I found helpful after I lost my own mother was the remembering that the Earth is our collective Mother and there are forces in the universe like Gravity which hold us and provide us with unconditional grounding and support.

These parts of Nature hold the 'Mother imprint' that are available to us in every moment. We just have to surrender to their holding.

We also can be channels for the 'Mother imprint' in many ways whether we have our own children here or not.

Wishing everyone whatever it is they need for this day of Mothers.

With much love 🌺🙏🏼

A reminder

✨🌙

Framing is everything

✨❤️

I'm taking a short break from my practice this week to attend a wedding and cleanse my mind, heart and soul so I can then be of service again. I will be open again from next Thursday.

My heart is with my other community in the Northern Rivers navigating the aftermath of very severe storms and flooding without much help from the authorities.

Such an incredible community with the best survival skills. I love you.

My husband is coming soon to help.

❤️♥️

I don't usually bulk bill but if anyone from the Northern Rivers would like therapy and I don't already see you I am happy to bulk bill you. Please reach out.

🙏🏼🌹

https://www.orlymillerpsychology.com/post/men-cycles-and-women-s-cycles

Men Cycles and Women's Cycles Men have a 24 hour hormonal cycle. Testosterone levels in men tend to peak in the morning and diminish over the course of the day. They then rise again the next morning with the beginning of the new cycle. Women have an average hormonal cycle of 28 days. Oestrogen and testosterone levels rise around...

I got a few questions about this point after my monogamy post so I want to clarify what I mean.

Men have a 24 hour hormonal cycle. Testosterone levels in men tend to peak in the morning and diminish over the course of the day. They then rise again the next morning with the beginning of the hew cycle.

Women have an average hormonal cycle of 28 days. Estrogen and testosterone levels rise around the second week of the cycle, peak at ovulation and then diminish as progesterone levels rise and dip the week leading to menstruation and then begins a new cycle.

Men go through the same hormonal cycle every 24 hours so will generally feel similarly at the same times from day to day.

Women go through a cycle in approximately a month and so may feel similarly at the same time each month but certainly feel very different from day to day.

We all have circadian rhythms that means we're awake during the day and asleep at night but the point I am trying to illustrate is that while men will be the same every day, women will not.

Our society is based on a 24 hour cycle. Work days and other structures are built on the assumption of a 24 hour cycle.

The assumption is: what we did last week (the effort we put in, the emotional availability for the task, the concentration capacity etc.) we should be able to do the same next week. While this is more likely true for men, it certainly isn't for women.

I hope I have been clearer this time in trying to illustrate my point but please come forward if you disagree of have questions. I am currently in an agreeable stage of my cycle and willing and open to engage.

I also hope this information may be helpful to women to let you know.. you are not meant to be the same every day.

Unlike the Sun, the masculine principle which shines in wholeness every day ☀️ we are daughters of the Moon, we are different on each day of our cycle 🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕 so full permission to act in accordance with how you feel from day to day. Check in with yourself. We are not like men.

New year, new treatment room.

I'm in Elsternwick. Come visit me.

There's a big window, I promise.

Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays.

Bookings through my bio.

❤️

Monogamy is a recent development in the history of human evolution. It's interesting to think how many people in our society seem to take it as a given.

Some cultures never took it on and those who did seem to have done so only in the last thousand years or so.

It's being questioned a lot these days. Some argue it's a perpetuation of patriarchal society. It wasn't a thing in the days of the matriarchal goddess worshipping traditions.

There is debate around its origins. It seems to have been taken on around the same time the matriarchal lineage traditions were overtaken on masse by patriarchal ones. So the paternity of an offspring became more important and name, land and inheritance began being passed from father to son rather than mother to child. Monogamy then became a good way to control the paternity of the children and by consequence, the sexuality of the woman.

Then beginning with the industrial revolution women started to become more empowered within the patriarchal societies. We were given the right to vote, work, own property and now we can even keep our own names if we decide to get married or choose not to get married at all and still live a fruitful, financially viable life.

But it's clear that we still live in a patriarchal society.

Some examples of this are the traditional wedding vows which transfer the property of the woman to the man or children traditionally taking the surname of the man.

Another good example is the way our society is based on the rhythm of a 24 hour cycle which is the duration of a biological cycle of a man, rather than a typical 28 day cycle of a woman.

There are biological theories about why monogamy was taken on by some societies and they all seem quite primitive and based on fear. One example is the suggestion that it was a good way to ensure men wouldn't kill other men's children to sleep with the woman. Savage.

Perhaps monogamy is being re-evaluated during these times because it is in keeping with the movement back (and forward) towards a society that honours the feminine principle and questions traditional structures rather than accepting and following them without considering their ultimate meaning and basis.