The Counselling & Psychology Clinic

A beneath the surface self-care iceberg. Icebergs explore what is beneath a specific topic or situation.

For instance, people often think self-care is bubble baths, spa days, and candles.

In reality (the parts between the surface), self-care includes the above, but it can also include:
-Healthy boundaries
-Trauma healing and recovery
-Difficult conversations
-Naming and expressing emotions
-Conscious & aware communication
-Nourishing body, mind, and spirit healthy habits
-Understanding toxic and unhealthy attachments.
-Taking ownership
-Making amends

Via Breakthecycle_coaching ❤️

I teach people healthy coping skills for when they feel triggered.

I also teach them how to lay healthy boundaries with the people they love.

Sometimes they get confused and begin to avoid the triggers under the guise of boundaries.

They may build the boundaries too rigidly so they don't have to even use their coping skills.
You guys.....the coping skills are there to help you move through the pain, the pattern and the story. Ultimately helping you heal and move forward.

Boundaries are a tool to help people learn to love you well and for you to learn to love them well.

They are there to help keep the relationship.

Boundaries are not for avoiding our triggers so we can say we have "done the work" but really.....we are busy avoiding the work.

Going to therapy is one part of the work....the rest of it comes when you're triggered and you are able to notice.....then you are able to identify the emotion in your body, you begin to hear the story you are creating in your head and notice the behavior that wants to come from it.

The work is awareness.
The work is self compassion.
The work is releasing shame and blame.
The work is releasing the flight, fight or freeze energy and instincts.
The work is pausing.....calming your body....and letting Self lead.

Choosing different behavior.
The work is responding differently to the very real triggers that exist in our environment and in the people we love.

Boundaries are not walls we are building to keep people out....they are tools to teach the people we love how to love us in a way that makes us feel safe.

When delivered with kindness, they can be the building blocks to a whole new relationship.

When received with curiosity and compassion, they can open up a new way of being in relationship with the ones you love.

Don't build your walls so high that you avoid all triggers ..... the triggers lead you to the pain and the pain has a purpose.

Sit with it. Feel it. Love it.


PS. There is a difference between difficult and unsafe. This post is referring to the difficult people in our lives that we love but are easier to avoid. This post is not referring to abusive situations involving people who are not interested in loving you well.

I was watching a tiktok of a baby that was only a couple of weeks old. Her mother was holding her and all the sudden she started crying.

Immediately her mother said “no don’t cry” then her dad said “Aw no it’s ok.” When she kept crying her mom said “you’re too pretty to cry.”

This is almost all of our habit responses to tears. We don’t even notice it. “Stop crying” has been programmed into all of us at young ages.

We’re uncomfortable when people cry. It brings up feelings of helplessness, a desire to fix, and a belief that we must have “bad” feelings stop.

Crying is a regulator of the body. It releases sympathetic energy. It brings the body back to homeostasis. After a good cry, we always feel calmer and more at ease after. The body has gone through its natural resolution of an emotion.

But so many of us don’t let this happen. We block or repress tears. We apologize for our physiological reactions. We struggle with the vulnerability of someone crying in front of us.

Are you comfortable crying in front of people?

Believe yourself. Honor your story when others don't.

Treat yourself kindly and protect yourself against further harm.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

CREDIT The Therapist Parent

For the longest time, I felt crazy.

I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t just enjoy the moment. Being spontaneous just wasn’t something I did.

It wasn’t until my partner brought this up that I became fully conscious to it. She told me I always just seemed checked out. And numb.

I came to understand I had chronic dissociation. A protective response. Decades of sympathetic activation took a toll on my body. I was in shut down.

One Christmas, I went home and realized this same pattern was in my family. There was little joy, little celebration. Just what can only be described as a somewhat dark cloud. The dysregulation was a pattern. Playing and relaxing was foreign for all of us.

I spent months helping my body to regulate through proper sleep, nutrition, and movement. I was dissociating less and less. One day my partner looked at me and said “Aw Nicole, you’re hopeful!” I was relaxed, I was at ease and smiling.

My body was in ventral vagal.

Today I hold workshops in .circle on play. Every time people talk about how hard it for them. How they feel like they just can’t do it. Just knowing I’m not alone felt really healing.

I also notice today the teaching of rest is becoming mainstream. And I think that’s amazing— it’s clear we need rest and grounding. And, I also know some people are so stuck in sympathetic activation they can’t. Their nervous system is in danger mode. That tired but wired feeling stops them from slowing down.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with being serious. Naturally, some of us are more serious than others. The issue is when you feel like you’re outside of yourself watching other people enjoy life. When seriousness and crisis are the only emotional system you can access. When life seems like a daily fight because to your body: it is.

Support in the comments

You’re likely to feel discouraged when you first attempt to move differently in a stuck relationship. Getting derailed is just part of the process and the challenge is to get back on track again…and again.

For hand-holding and good advice, read (or re-read) the last chapter in The Dance of Anger (“Tasks for the Daring and Courageous”).

Remember that change and personal growth are self-loving tasks that don’t flourish in an atmosphere of terminal seriousness, self excoriation or self-blame.

Changing an old pattern is possible but it is never easy. Sometimes a very small change makes a very big difference.

Creating habits and going outside of your comfort zone is important. And there’s also a point where self discipline can be self abuse. When we’re punishing, restricting ourselves, only showing ourselves love or approval when we “accomplish” something… what does this sound like? Sounds very similar to repeating dysfunctional childhood patterns. Doesn’t it?

I notice many people are drawn to pushing themselves constantly. And I do the same to myself. I push myself to expand, do things I’m uncomfortable with, and to show up even when it’s tough. The issue becomes what do you do to yourself when you don’t show up? How do you treat yourself when you don’t accomplish anything? Are you a friend to you or a critical/harsh parent?

The punish-reward system runs deep in our psyche because we’ve been raised within it.

Life is seasonal. Seasons to push and accomplish. And seasons to rest and enjoy.

What do you think about this?

You can be grateful and really quite tired at the very same time.

True story!

Eight years in and I’m still sleep deprived, to be honest. But this was actually inspired by hopping into the shower post swim teacher shift and feeling absolutely spent. So grateful for the role I get to play in their little lives. We have fun. (Even when the words “hang on, sweet girl. Only one kid in the pool, please” starts becoming every second thing I say.)

Time for me to rest. And to remember that I don’t actually have to be grateful. You don’t have to find the good in everything. Things can just be. But when I am filled with gratitude, that’s pretty cool too.

Parents are humans, and humans have flaws. Some parents don’t try but even those that do tend to let us down and hurt us. Let’s allow ourselves to hold the full complexity of the situation.

Most people do these 3 things when they cry:

1. Apologize “I’m so sorry”
2. Block the natural release (suppression)
3. Self shame “I hate that I cry so easily”

This is to be expect in a culture that doesn’t understand the nervous system and how it works. And, that shames people for natural human reactions.

When we experience fight or flight, our body goes into sympathetic energy.

We can go into fight or flight from:
- hearing about layoffs at work
- getting into conflict with a co-worker
- a partner raises their voice at us
- our mother in law brings up a subject we don’t want to talk about

Fight or flight is when our body senses external danger and: mobilizes or immobilizes to escape that danger.

Sympathetic energy will: dilate our pupils, increase heart rate, raise blood pressure, and increase sweating. All of this happens (usually beyond our awareness.)

Sometimes all of that sympathetic energy triggers a tear response. You’ll know it’s happening when you get a flash of anger and tears flood your eyes...

This is an attempt to discharge that energy— the body attempting to self regulate.

Let the tears flow.

Your body is working *for* you.

Notice how calm and regulated you feel after

The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps' For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. But why? And how did the habit disappear?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

CREDIT Attachment Nerd

Much confusion out there in parenting techniques that are agnostic of physiology. Two examples: PCIT (Parent Child Interaction Therapy) and Triple P Parenting (Positive Parenting Program) emphasize positivity and connection, but on the backend—when behaviors become challenging—are built upon the status quo of viewing behavior through a compliance/non-compliance lens that results in the use of verbal rewards and punishments (ignoring) as consequences to motivate a change in behaviors. Our programs need updating and I wrote Brain Body Parenting to suggest how we update based on today's neuroscience and development research, not 5 decades ago.

Thank you for the lovely graphic and for highlighting these words from The Dance of Anger.

BELONGING

Last year I watched the glow in a boy’s bright-eyes slowly fade…
Until not even ashes remained…
A boy who had been a confident, vivacious, gentle soul,
Turned defensive…broken… void of joy…

He needed a different environment…
He needed a different soil…
He needed to belong….
Replanting was required.

Fast forward three months:

Today I watched that boy,
A boy in the midst of his crew of friends,
Confidently embracing a quiet, steadfast belief of his worth in the world…

I heard his hearty laugh-
Infectious… Soul-filled… Alive…

Connected interactions…
Uncomplicated joy…
BELONGING…

Replanted:
Life floods his veins again…

And I am reminded:

Plants require different environments for nourishment.

Some thrive in scorching deserts.
Some demand the drenching of river banks.
Some prefer the rockiness of worn mountain paths.

Shade… Sun… Loam… Clay….
Each blossoms in a different space…

They are all beautiful…
They are all valuable…
They all have the potential for unimaginable growth…

In the right soil…
Where they BELONG…

Sometimes replanting is essential for living…
Change is essential for growth…
Belonging is essential for breathing…

We are uniquely crafted human beings,
Requiring unique environments to feed our souls.
Our beauty and strength lie in our diversity and in our capacity to flourish in distinctive terrain…

We all thrive in different soils
We all shine at different times
But we are all wired to belong…

Change can feel daunting.
It takes courage to venture into the unknown.
But if you are withering, take that leap…

Replant yourself.
Find a soil that feeds your soul.
Find a soil that breathes life through your veins.
Find where you BELONG.

In BELONGING we grow.
In BELONGING we heal.
In BELONGING we find laughter again.

With love and gratitude for a diversity of soils,
Naomi ♥️

Emotion Dysregulation Decoded Whether it's tantrums, defiance, anxiety, sadness, or even trauma it's important that EVERY parent learns how to decode their child's emotional worlds so they can respond in appropriate ways. Once we learn how the brain, body, and emotions work together we become so much more skillful at parenting!i...

You might think you're in control of unwanted emotions when you ignore them, but they control you.

Internal pain always comes out—always. The best way to cope with amplification is to sit with your emotions. Giving yourself a small moment of reflection to process a tough emotion can improve your relationships and your day to day experience as a whole. Try to really see yourself in that moment.

Ask, how can I best support myself in this moment? What do I need? The answers to these questions could be as simple as taking a few deep breaths, placing your hands over your heart or belly, going for a short walk, or making a cup of tea.

Happiness comes in cycles. It will find you again 🚲

Image: https://instagram.com/hello.shannon

First responders and Front Line Workers…

They play a crucial role in supporting our communities. When people think of them, they might initially imagine healthcare professionals like nurses and doctors, and EMS.

But front line workers also include mental health therapists, childcare and youth workers, military, teachers, police officers and so many more.

These wonderful people lend listening ears, build relationships, help people find food, housing, and work - the list goes on, but the work is different each day and life changing in every way. They take on a very human and difficult line of work.

It’s imperative that we provide all of them with tools to maintain their own mental health wellbeing.

Momentum Counselling is here for these wonderful people. We have created a space just for you!

Join us virtually every Monday from 6-8pm.
Our hope is that our front line workers can take
away some new insights, tools, and techniques to help them to understand and manage their unique needs and experiences.

Being in a group of people who have shared experiences can be moving, healing and empowering. ♥️

Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Facilitators: Kimberly Masliuk-Giddings, Clinical Director & RCSW and Jennifer MacKinnon, CCC
Register: https://bit.ly/3fGAOzl

Today we have our Women’s Circle of Strength held at our Edmonton office from 10:00am-12:00pm. Circle of strength is about feeling supported by others, sharing your story and gaining tools.