Rachel Jane Cooke

Listen in for more info on Q-Con, the Q***r Women’s Sexual Health & Wellbeing Conference, which is happening on the 16th and 17th of Sept in Cork! Yours truly will be giving the keynote, on the pleasure panel, as well as running some workshops over both days. Loads of entertainment, raucous craic on Sat night and it’s all freeeeeeee

Want more info on Q Con? Catch these radio appearances by Ciara!🎙️

Yesterday, Ciara from the LINC team had an amazing discussion on Radio One yesterday with Brendan Courtney about q***r women's sexual health & wellbeing, which can be accessed through this link: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22292528/

But that's not all! Tune in this Friday night after 10pm to 'The Gay Agenda' on CRY FM, where Ciara will be sharing more insights from LINC. 🌈 It's going to be another fantastic discussion about the LBTQ+ community's wellbeing.

Stay tuned for more details, as we're excited to bring you a platform to learn, discuss, and celebrate our health, wellbeing, and pleasure! 🌺💬🏳️‍🌈

Get your tickets for Q Con at: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/q-con-q***r-womens-sexual-health-wellbeing-conference-tickets-687838843497?

***rWomenHealth ***rwomen ***r

TONIGHT at 6.30pm…

We launch - Therapists Challenging Racism + Oppression: The unheard voices
Edited by Neelam Zahid + Rachel Cooke

Wed 19th July 6.30 – 7.30pm

Please join us on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83905955987

With Neelam Zahid and Rachel Jane Cooke

Do join us this Wed!

** Wed 19th July 6.30pm **

PCCS Books invites you to the online book launch of
Therapists Challenging Racism + Oppression: The unheard voices
Edited by Neelam Zahid + Rachel Cooke

Please join us on the night @ https://rb.gy/7crcv
with NNeelam Zahidand RRachel Jane Cooke

Please join us for the online book launch on Wed 19th July!

NZcounsellingandpsychotherapy
PCCS Books

PCCS Books invites you to the online launch of

Therapists Challenging Racism + Oppression: The unheard voices
Edited by Neelam Zahid + Rachel Jane Cooke

Wed 19th July 6.30 – 7.30pm

Please join us on the night on Zoom at - https://rb.gy/7crcv

Please buy, read, share and discuss, link to purchase in bio! News coming very soon about the official launch of Therapists Challenging Racism & Oppression: The unheard voices with

A little more info…

Out 1st June -
Therapists Challenging Racism And Oppression: The Unheard Voices by Neelam Zahid and Rachel Cooke

'This thoughtful and reflective, intersectional book shares vulnerability and visceral experiences. A courageous, tangible plethora of voices previously hidden embody and analyse experiences that highlight the duality of being inside identity while in training and practice. This is a bold contribution that addresses resistance and liberation, freeing who we really are.'
Dr Isha Mckenzie-Mavinga

For more information & pre-orders https://bit.ly/41XKEPB

I couldn’t be more thrilled and proud to announce the publishing of Therapists Challenging Racism and Oppression: the unheard voices, edited by and I. It’s been multiple years and various twists and turns in the making, and now it’s available to purchase (thank you ).

We’ve received some really stirring endorsements from practitioners which has been so moving and encouraging.

This book is about racism and its intersections with other forms of oppression in counselling and psychotherapy, uniquely told from the therapist’s perspective. It aims to capture the nuances and fractures of racial and intersectional trauma, as well as illustrate how many damaging ways conscious and unconscious ideas of race, and other aspects of personhood, are still woven into society. It brings together personal, psychological, societal and political insights to better imagine and further the discourse around what might facilitate meaningful change.

Thank you so much to all of the very courageous contributors, and to PCCS

For all the ethically/consensually nonmonogamous creatures out there (who can join us in Hackney!)

The world is not divided into abusers and victims!
We’ve all hurt people.
That doesn’t mean all harm is the same!
🪞
This tendency to divide the world into binaries - black/white, right/wrong, good/bad, is very common, encouraged by current society, is reassuring to certain parts of our brains in its simplicity… and it’s often deeply inaccurate and destructive.
🪞
Not all harm is abuse either. A person can be deeply hurt by a misunderstanding, or triggered because of their past experiences - feeling very wounded by an experience doesn’t automatically mean the other person behaved abusively.
🪞
We have all been the recipient of unfair, objectionable behaviour that caused us pain at some point. I’m not proposing we see all pain as equal, but that we reflect carefully about how we view it.
🪞
The strength of the painful feelings does not necessarily equate to how awful the other person was/is.
🪞
The nuance and critical thinking I’m suggesting is needed is not the same as victim blaming.
🪞
The vast majority of people who’ve been abusive were abused themselves - that doesn’t justify the abuse however it does help to explain the systems and circumstances that allow and perpetuate unacceptable behaviour.
🪞
I also find it unhelpful to label people abusers - it’s dehumanising in the way that I don’t refer to people as “borderlines” or “anorexics”. This language matters, because it shapes how we understand and treat ourselves, the world and other people. To reiterate, I am not discounting the effects of abusive behaviour.
🪞
How has the victim versus abuser/perpetrator/monster dichotomy shown up in your life? What do you notice about your language and thinking around this?

Often when I see people talking about themselves or others having “trust issues” I wonder what they actually mean.
🧡
There is quite a difference between actively pushing people away by accusing them of cheating on you without evidence / not messaging someone back to punish them / assuming they’re doing things to hurt you / picking fights / being very secretive (or deceptive about yourself… and being cautious.
🧡
If you’ve felt or been betrayed, painfully disappointed, or deceived by people in the past, it’s perfectly normal and healthy to be suspicious. This is self protection from perceived (potential) pain.
🧡
Combine that with a current dating culture that can be characterised by a lot of flakiness, superficiality, lack of transparency, hookups (where one or more people wanted more) and ghosting, it’s no wonder many of us don’t feel super open, trusting or baggage-free.
🧡
Wanting to take time to get to know someone, not sharing a lot of deep, vulnerable thing very quickly, asking for some space, asking for some reassurance - these are all great things to do if your trust has been damaged. They’re great things even if your trust in others is pretty secure!
🧡
Let’s be real that almost EVERYONE is afraid of rejection, abandonment and betrayal - these are universal fears. How that comes out in someone’s verbal communication and behaviour is another story.
🧡
Saying someone has “trust issues” can be used to gaslight them too.
🧡
What’s your experience of how the term “trust issues” is used? How do you manage situations where you feel a fear of betrayal or abandonment?

Much of society eroticises unavailability and having to work really hard for love, while simultaneously telling us that love should happen like fireworks and without any effort.
💥
Most romantic and sexual attraction involves some sympathetic nervous system arousal (fight or flight), initially anyway, but many of us have been conditioned to associate the inconsistency, the highs and lows of being around someone unavailable, with attraction/love.
💥
Rejection is one of the main triggers or fuels for “frustration attraction”. Often, when someone becomes less interested in us, ends a relationship or withdraws their affection it threatens self worth. As a result, we might try desperately to win that person’s attention and approval back, despite clear signs that this isn’t likely to work well.
💥
This might feed into our insecure attachment from childhood, where we learnt that a caregiver was inconsistent in their care (anxious attachment), generally unavailable (avoidant) or volatile/abusive (disorganised/fearful avoidant attachment).
💥
People who have insecure attachment styles are more likely to get sucked into these familiar dynamics as adults, and see another person’s inconsistency or unavailability as attractive. We might stay or flip flop in a relationship that’s doing us harm.
💥
Do you recognise how you might associate feeling unsure of where you stand with someone, or a lack of emotional safety, as romantic or sexual attraction?
💥
Do you know what it feels like in your body to be dysregulated in this way, what are the signals for you?

When you’re experiencing a stress response, eg fight, flight, freeze, fawn/appease or collapse, that’s not a great time to interpret the nuances of your emotions.
👁
Your body is telling you you’re experiencing a threat, but that may not be very relevant to the current situation (it may be that it reminds you in some way of a time in the past you felt or were being threatened).
👁
The basic message here is that feelings are not facts. That statement can sound harsh to some, it might sound dismissive, and it can be especially confusing and scary for people who’ve experienced trauma.
👁
It is not meant to invalidate your feelings, but to recognise that there are all sorts of reasons why we might feel something.
👁
Intuition and gut feelings can be wonderful sources of wisdom, clarity, security and direction. They are also very often changed or suppressed by the body’s stress responses, which will override in the moment to keep us safe (alive).
👁
Take yourself out of harm’s way if there’s an actual threat (if you can), of course, but it can be helpful to wait until the stress response has subsided to make interpretations about someone else’s feelings towards you, or make decisions about a relationship.
👁
Can you think of a time when you believed something was your intuition and later discovered that changed when you were in a more calm, regulated place?

Receiving empathy, patience, care and kindness from others can be frightening. It can also feel repulsive.
🫀
For many people this seems counterintuitive, like why would I not want kindness, I’ve been longing for that?!
🫀
This is incredibly common and normal. It may be that it’s simply so unfamiliar that it takes time to get used to, it may be that we haven’t built enough trust with the person yet and we’re afraid that they’re tricking or manipulating us (esp if that’s happened to us in the past), it could be fear that this person’s empathy will be taken away from us.
🫀
It could be that past experiences led us to believe that we don’t deserve this kind of attention and care, which is called shame.
🫀
Can you relate to finding someone’s empathic kindness scary, anxiety inducing or disgusting? Does this still happen for you?
🫀

Do you tend to get totally preoccupied with your partner’s feelings and experiences? Maybe it happens with other people in your life?
🧡
You don’t have to be completely wrapped up in your romantic partner(s), parents, friends etc to feel loved, cared for and emotionally met by them. In fact, being entangled or enmeshed is likely to strangle the intimacy between you.
🧡
Hollywood sold us the idea that we have to be each other’s everything, and it’s a destructive lie.
🧡
We can’t fulfil every need or role for each other… from friend, to lover, to holiday companion, to therapist, to coach, to gym/sports buddy, to social secretary to personal shopper.
🧡
It’s so important to have space, other people, communities and activities in our lives, to give us the best chance of our needs being consistently met.
🧡
How has this pervasive myth about relationships shown up in your life?

It can be so comforting and empowering to have a better sense of what happened in the past to understand what’s happening in the present, but many of us make the mistake of stopping there.
🪢
We can get very, very stuck re-enacting old patterns and feel shame that things should be different now that we’ve done the excavation work of insight.
🪢
Understanding something SOMETIMES leads to change on its own, but usually lasting change requires dedicated practice, application, accountability and support.
🪢
Reading, research and discussing the past and ideas with people is a good start. Then there’s the follow through.
🪢
Self compassion doesn’t happen because we know what it is, especially when we’re experiencing stress, fear or shame. It takes practicing the steps over and over, and applying them on a daily basis.
🪢
We don’t stop choosing or dating unavailable partners just because we know we have done before, it takes working through a variety of fears and developing skills and resources.
🪢
Where have you noticed yourself expecting things to get better because you have more awareness?
🪢

Covid sucks for a whole lot of reasons. One major one has been people not being able to touch each other.
🫂
There are some fascinating reasons that touch can feel so good and is so important.
🫂
One is that the body is teeming with what are called C-tactile (or CT) neurons. They respond to only ONE thing: a slow touch of exactly 2.5cms / an inch per second.
🫂
Various studies has shown that if a baby is crying and you stroke it at 30cms a second, they’ll keep crying. Change to 2.5, they calm down.
🫂
Why such a specific amount? That’s the speed at which our primate cousins groom each another. These neurons have been around far far longer than humans have.
🫂
They’re looking for that signal that says somebody else is looking out for you, that they care.
🫂
They’re wired deep into your endorphin and dopamine systems and when triggered, they fill you with feelings of warmth, connection, love and safety.
🫂
Touch now seems alien and even frightening to some of us. It’s going to take a bit of time for us to rehabituate. As soon as it’s legal and safe to do so, touch your friends and family!
🫂
Have you noticed yourself experiencing skin hunger? If you haven’t had much touch over the last year, what’s that been like?

I am really, really looking forward to the day when allowing water to come out of our eyes is not equated with weakness or helplessness.
💦
The day when it’s also ok to cry because we feel weak or helpless, which we ALL feel sometimes.
💦
The day when crying is accepted as a way of processing and regulating our emotions.
💦
The day when it’s ok to cry, for any reason.
💦
(This does not encourage or condone emotionally coercive or abusive behaviour, that’s another kettle of 🐟)
💦
What makes you cry?

Got lots of DMs about my last post on crying. Here are some more benefits, for anyone who’s yet to get on board!
💧
Oxytocin is released when we weep, which fosters a greater sense of connection and wellbeing.
💧
Endorphins are pain relievers and mood elevators, yay!
💧
Our nervous system being in a what’s called “ventral vagal”parasympathetic state is when we feel present, calm, safe, curious and connected - connected to ourselves, others and the world around us.
💧
For all sorts of reasons, most of us spent the majority of life in a sympathetic nervous system state (fight or flight = anger or anxiety), or the other branch of parasympathetic activation which is freeze (numb, flat, depressed, dissociated).
💧
Crying is a great way to release stress and get us back to feeling calm, safe and social.

Crying has been so maligned as weakness in much of Western society. This is is TRAGEDY when you consider the function and benefits of weeping.
💧
There are actually three different types of tears:
reflex tears
continuous tears
emotional tears
💧
Reflex tears clear debris, like smoke and dust, from your eyes.
💧
Continuous tears lubricate your eyes and help protect them from infection.
💧
Emotional tears may have many health benefits! Whereas continuous tears contain 98% water, emotional tears contain stress hormones and other toxins.
💧
Many researchers have theorised that crying flushes stress and toxins out of your system.
💧
When there isn’t shame around crying (and even when there is!), most people find it helps them process and regulate their emotions.
💧
How UNBELIEVABLY useful and how very sad that crying is still so often seen as weakness and overreactivity, especially for cis men.
💧
We can do so much better. Crying can help stop people from taking their grief, confusion and rage out on other people.
💧
Cry as and when you need. For all of us.

There is so much more that needs to happen for women to feel, and be, safe. We all have a right to feel safe and respected. We all have a right to live our lives free from violence.

Every damn day of the year. You are valuable, appreciated and deserve respect, love and recognition ♥️

Following on from my last post about grieving a fantasy partner/relationship, I see a lot written about “letting go”.
🎈
This idea that we just need to choose to forget about someone or something, become detached, cut the emotional cord and be free! Sounds catchy, doesn’t tend to be realistic.
🎈
Acceptance and grieving are skills. Skills that very few of us have been explicitly taught, but that we can all practice and develop.
🎈
They involve sitting with the uncomfortable and often conflicting feelings and information, letting ourselves feel angry, sad, scared, jealous or whatever else, and when the grip of those feelings has loosened, we can decide what needs to happen.
🎈
Maybe we decide to leave a relationship. Maybe we decide to have a conversation about boundaries. Maybe we commit to changing our own behaviour. Perhaps we decide that nothing else needs to happen, for now.
🎈
Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation. It doesn’t mean putting up with poor behaviour, or harmful circumstances.
🎈
Grieving isn’t cynicism, hopelessness or abandoning your dreams and desires.
🎈
These are intentional practices that we can make time for and build habits and rituals around. Many of the people I work with tell me that reflecting on and journalling about these topics has been transformative for them.
🎈
Do you have any acceptance or grief practices?

Have you ever experienced not wanting to leave a relationship or stop dating someone because you’d fallen for their potential? You carried on too long in the hope they’d become a great partner, even when their behaviour said otherwise?
✨
It’s so easy to get carried away with the dream of what the relationship could be, what you want it to be. It’s so normal to have a lot of hope riding on a romantic relationship.
✨
Being in love with a fantasy can also really limit us. If you recognise this is a pattern for you, you might find it helpful to read about fantasy bonds.
✨
A fantasy bond describes an illusion of fusion we originally form with our primary caretaker. This fantasy of being at one protects us, helping relieve anxiety and emotional pain at times of distress.
✨
If we continue to seek this as adults, it hinders our ability to recognise or accept genuine, reciprocal love and connection.
✨
Does any of this sound familiar?

Believe people when they say relationships never work out for them - they’re telling you about a pattern that they will not (or haven’t been able to) take responsibility for.
💥
Far too many of us fall for someone’s words, their proclamations, their promises and their potential, when the behaviour doesn’t match up. This can end up being a fantasy bond!
💥
The person may have the best intentions in the moment, they may be intentionally deceptive (or something in between), either way there isn’t the consistency you want and need.
💥
It could be about their attachment style, past trauma, bad experiences, neglectful caregivers, conflicting aspects of their personality and desires at the time... you could spend forever trying to analyse, explain and justify why someone isn’t offering you the love, affection, care or respect that you want. Understanding it is unlikely to change it.
💥
We all have relationship struggles, feel ambivalent and confused at times about what we want, have our own painful histories, insecurities and often traumas. Each of us also needs to take responsibility for ourselves.
💥
There’s a big difference between owning your stuff and having the self awareness to talk about your needs, tendencies, preferences and patterns... and doing a “woe is me” about how things never work out for you.
💥
Woe is me says that someone is not willing or currently capable of recognising the part they play, and doing the work it takes to change that.
💥
This applies to people who actually want longer term relationships, not everyone does and that’s ok!
💥
Have you ever fallen for someone, or stayed in a relationship too long, where the person told you at the start that “you deserve better” or they “always mess relationships up”?

I’ve been getting a lot of messages about what constitutes acceptable q***rness.
🦩
You don’t *ever* have to prove or justify your sexuality, gender or relationship structure!
🦩
I hear of someone being bi or gay for a period of time being referred to dismissively or disparagingly as “a phase”, as if that makes it any less real. It doesn’t!
🦩
There is no set amount of time or commitment that makes your q***rness genuine.
🦩
Of course it can be important to explore if you might have changed to fit in, or as a reaction to feeling rejected, for example, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong, or that it’s bad.
🦩
As always, this does not apply to situations of abuse, active harm, coercion or lack of consent.
🦩
Enjoy your q***rness however you please!
🦩
Have you experienced judgment in relation to your personal q***rness?

***rlove ***rness ***rsex ***raf

With hindsight, different choices can seem so very obvious.
🫀
The self doubt, self criticism, guilt and shame that can come from looking back at our former selves and behaviour can be painful, harmful and incapacitating.
🫀
There is a purpose for these emotions - on some level, if we can pinpoint how we were “bad”, “inadequate” or “wrong”, we can (hypothetically) avoid such mistakes in the future. We can avoid pain.
🫀
However it rarely works out this way. Instead we feel deflated, small, disempowered and experience self loathing. This can become a very ingrained habit. It doesn’t serve us, yet is familiar.
🫀
We can be compassionate when we explore our past selves.
“What was I learning?”
“What was difficult for me at that time?”
“What felt important to me at that moment?”
“What was I experiencing?”
“What made that choice the best I could manage back then?”
🫀
Being more generous and gentle in our present evaluations of our past doesn’t need to mean letting ourselves off the hook. We can be kind and firm about whether making a change for the future would be helpful. We can choose to make amends, do things differently, or simply accept what occurred.
🫀
What questions might you, or do you already ask to treat yourself with kindsight?

Many of us struggle to stay with someone else’s difficult emotions, never mind our own.
🫂
We feel an urge to try to fix the problem, to have the person see the bright side, we feel angry with them for not doing (or feeling) something else, or maybe we project our own anxiety or distress at seeing someone who we care about upset.
🫂
Often allowing someone to have their feelings is the best support we can provide. We don’t try to change where they’re at or give advice (unless they’ve asked for that). This is holding space and validating someone’s emotional experience.
🫂
This doesn’t have to mean you agree with their behaviour or opinions, nor even their feelings about the situation! It means you’re showing respect and care for them, allowing them to feel accepted and heard as a (often conflicted and messy, as we all are) human.
🫂
What can validating someone’s feelings
sound like?
“It makes total sense to feel that way”
“This is such a difficult experience for you”
“That really sucks right now”
“Thank you for sharing with me, I’m here for you”
“It sounds like a lot to be holding”
“I’d feel angry too if I was in your position”
“I really get how you’re feeling about this”
🫂
How do you like to validate others’ feelings or have yours validated?