On this page you will find more about the themes and influences that run through my work. I have particular experience working with grief and loss, patterns in relationships, loneliness, low self-esteem (including inner voice/thoughts), anger, fertility issues, anxiety and trauma.
My ongoing trainings, and experience with courageous clients over the years have helped me understand more about how our minds and bodies connect. Integrating research from neuroscience and the workings of our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) with our life experiences and attachment patterns offers so much insight into understanding and regulating our emotions, how we think, feel and behave.
Running through all this, is the quality of the relationship we have to our self. This includes our self-talk and our self-belief: the way we talk to ourselves inside, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. These stories affect how we understand our histories, what we believe we can hope for in life, and what our relationships and future ‘should’ look like.
Themes
- Patterns in relationship, with ourselves and others
- Loneliness, difficulties in finding connection
- Trauma
Patterns in relationship, with ourselves and others
Have you ever reached a point in a relationship, or had a relationship end, and thought: ‘It’s happened again!’ ? This can be particularly frustrating when we sense a familiar situation unfolding, yet remain confused about how we got here. We feel powerless to do it differently. These dynamics may be showing up with romantic partners, family members or colleagues at work.
Our life experiences, and in particular our early attachment relationships (with parents, carers or authority figures), affect the way we feel around other people, and influence our behaviour patterns as lovers, friends, parents, family members and colleagues. For example:
- becoming overwhelmed by intense emotions in certain situations
- finding it difficult to identify and communicate feelings
- scrabbling to appease and keep others happy
- becoming ‘cold’ and cutting people off if they get too close
- finding it difficult to trust people, or feeling the urge to test them
- wanting lots of reassurance, feeling embarrassed about this need
- putting everyone’s wishes above our own, then feeling the rage of own unmet needs
The causes of this are not our fault, but we are left with shame, confusion and low self-esteem as the symptoms play out in our lives.
Loneliness, difficulties finding connection
Anyone can experience periods of loneliness. Lonely times can be due to a change in circumstances, such as a move, and is often related to a loss of some kind, a bereavement, a job loss, the breakdown of a relationship with a partner, friend or family member.
Loneliness is a subjective experience, as individuals we have differing needs for social connection. Loneliness is different from being alone; many people are content in their alone time. One of the loneliest experiences of all can be in a relationship with someone who isn’t right for us, or a friendship group or family situation where we feel we don’t fit and cannot be our full selves.
The pandemic may have exacerbated loneliness – we might usually be happy to spend time on our own, but found it harder when this was imposed on us rather than chosen – or perhaps it has been difficult (or even dangerous) to be contained with people in this new way, without boundaries of workplace, school campus and the relief of outside social contact.
The lockdowns also gave a bit of respite from obligations and expectations, and it could be that coming back into contact with other people is bringing anxiety about how we are seen by others, our ‘likeability’.
The persistent, ongoing loneliness of longing for more social contact than we have is a uniquely painful experience. We feel unnoticed as the world moves on. It can be very hard to emerge from this state, because our nervous systems respond to loneliness as a ‘threat’, and from this position it is harder to trust other people, or imagine that things could be different. We may find ourselves retreating from social contact, which is a cruel irony given that safe connection with others is what we are craving.
Trauma
Sometimes we are struggling due to the legacy of trauma, and/or childhood neglect. Trauma may be from a single event, or several specific incidents, or experiences in relationship. This can show up in present life in a variety of ways including (but not limited to) :
- intrusive thoughts or images
- intense or ‘triggered’ emotions and stress response such as anxiety and anger
- physical responses such as panic, stomach upset, sweating, shaking
- difficulties in forming or maintaining fulfilling relationships with other people
- low self-esteem, poor self-image and shame
Someone living with trauma will have survived and managed in the best way that felt available to them. Some of these coping strategies will be helpful, but some may also be harmful, such as using food, alcohol or other substances and self-harm.