“Is Therapy Right for Me?”
Home About counselling About creative therapy About Sensory Processing Sensitivity About me Book a session FAQ’s Blog Home About counselling About creative therapy About Sensory Processing Sensitivity About me Book a session FAQ’s Blog Is therapy right for me? Are you wondering if therapy is right for you? Do you find yourself struggling with anxiety, burnout and low motivation? Perhaps you are experiencing relationship struggles, which make you feel disconnected from your life? Maybe you feel unseen and unheard, lonely? Life is a complex journey and it can often seem very overwhelming, especially when going through big life changes. And there might come a point where we feel the need for a little extra support. If you are wondering whether counselling could be the right choice for you, you are not alone. Below you might find some answers to the question, hopefully providing you with more knowledge into what counselling looks like and what you can expect. What is counselling? Counselling is different for everybody, just like all therapist are different too. There are still many misconceptions about counselling, which might be the reason you are questioning if it is right for you. Everyday we encounter huge amounts of information, advice, explanation or quick fixes, which can add to the feelings of anxiety. Counselling is neither of these things. Is is not about lying on the couch anymore, but a place where you can explore yourself in a safe place. Exploring the places that hurt and that can be scary. You will not be alone. Together, we can explore different paths, ways of thinking and to find ways to reflect on what is causing the distress that has brought you to therapy in the first place. A process. Counselling is an interactive process we enter together, as it is a relationship. One that will provide you with a safe space to discuss your thoughts, emotions and experiences. It is to be a supportive environment where you can be heard. Whether you are dealing with the issues described above or when you are simple feeling a bit down and like to understand yourself a bit better, counselling can offer valuable insights and strategies to help you cope with life’s challenges. Therapy is like an ongoing process with a series of mini breakthroughs, realisations and possibly an a-ha moment. There is no fix and no cure, as you are not broken. I have no magical wand to make things better, but I am here to help you and to guide you. We will take time to get to know each other. I am here to listen. I will ask questions, shed light on your strengths and might gently challenge certain thoughts. I won’t tell you what to do, but guide you to solutions I believe you already have within you. We will work at your pace. It is not easy; for some it might be easy to talk, for some it might take longer. I will help you to feel at ease and suggest other ways of expressing yourself when I think it is useful. It is your time and we can find a way how to use that time that will work for you. I am here to help you discover you already have the strength and, both inner and outer resources to deal with it all. It is up to you to use and apply what you have learned during the sessions. It is about you and your challenges. What are the benefits of counselling? Still wondering if therapy is right for you? Here are some of the benefits you might experience when going to counselling. Emotional support: The emotional support counselling can offer is one of the primary benefits. Everybody will need someone at some point to hear them. I can help with exploring the more complex feelings and thoughts you might be experiencing, which can bring on more clarity. Tools for understanding: I am equipped with lots of theory, tools, strategies and experience, that I might suggest we look at if I think they will help you build a better understanding of how and why you operate the way you do. A safe space for expression: Talking openly and freely about your feelings can be liberating. It might not be possible straight away for some, but in a counselling session, you are in a safe place to try to express yourself in any way that feels ok to you. This can be particularly helpful when you feel you cannot open up anywhere else. Or because you simple can’t find the words for what you are feeling. I might suggest creative techniques like journalling or imagery to help you explore the depths when there are no words. Self discovery: Through the counselling sessions, you will embark on a journey of self discovery, you will learn to look at patterns in your behaviour, in your thinking and together we will try to make sense of it all. This can lead to more self-esteem, better relationships and really understanding who you are. So, is counselling right for you? This is a very personal question and only you can answer it. If you find yourself often anxious, burnt out, swamped or drowning in challenges that feel impossible to change and hopeless or if you simply want to improve your mental wellbeing by understanding yourself better, counselling can be a vitally important resource. It does take courage to take the first step – remember, seeking help is not a sign of weakness but rather one of strength. And the first step is often the hardest. You are not alone on this journey either. We will be there together. If you need further guidance on starting your counselling journey, I would be happy to help you where I can. You can reach out to me here or book a session here. I am looking forward to meeting you. Eefje “In a world that often feels empty, a simple question can spark
“How to Set Healthy Boundaries with yourself”
Home About counselling About creative therapy About Sensory Processing Sensitivity About me Book a session FAQ’s Blog Home About counselling About creative therapy About Sensory Processing Sensitivity About me Book a session FAQ’s Blog Setting boundaries with yourself is the first step toward healthier living. Setting healthy boundaries with yourself foremost, will support you to live a more balanced life and equip you to deal with and relieve stress and anxiety. Setting healthy boundaries, we have heard it so many times before. Everyday we encounter huge amounts of information, advice, explanations and quick fixes. However, when the space around us is lost and we cannot see below the noise of the world anymore, you might find yourself stuck, frustrated with how we are or how we are living and have lost our way. We are left feeling exhausted, stressed and anxious, which can lead to burnout. Consequently, this often leads us to struggle to see a future where we can make the changes that we need within ourselves, our relationships and our work. What are boundaries? Boundaries are similar to a protective barrier. This makes me think back to explaining what perimeter is to children. It is the fence around the field as you do not want the horse to escape or to get hurt. So our boundary with ourselves is like this perimeter, that helps us to figure out what we will and will not accept in our lives (the field, or meadow). It helps us to define our needs, values and priorities. It can help you with making decisions, it will influence your behaviour and is so incredibly important in maintaining our mental and emotional wellbeing. There are different forms of boundaries; they can be physical, emotional or digital. They all define how we relate to other and ourselves. Boundaries is like a mechanism that protects our wellbeing and strengthens our sense of safety. Different types of healthy boundaries: Physical boundaries are boundaries that protects your personal space and sets rules around physical touch. Emotional boundaries are boundaries that helps with protecting your feelings and emotional health. Time boundaries help with allocating and valuing your time, avoiding overcommitting or doing something you really do not want to do. Digital boundaries are there to help you manage your online presence and interactions. Why do we have to start with ourselves? It does start with setting boundaries with yourself as we can only control our own actions and behaviour. Setting healthy boundaries is a skill that is vital in todays world. It can help you with relieving stress, be clearer with your communication, foster better relationships and ultimately help you with not getting in a burnout by our world that constantly demands our attention and energy. Shift from suffering to caring. Our suffering and recurring personal and emotional issues we all experience in our daily lives, often lack boundaries. Think of it as a way of looking after ourselves, holistically, which takes in account how we eat, sleep, exercise, communicate, treat others. This will cause us to think about what we need. A way of being kind to ourselves, to look after ourselves, before we look after those around us. Counselling can help to figure out where your need is most urgent, how to attend to those needs by learning about your own boundaries. Focus inward Focusing inward can help with figuring out what it is that we need and where you need to set healthy boundaries. Journalling can be a powerful tool to support you on this journey and can lead to the change that you are looking for: Get more clarity; as mentioned, boundaries helps with clarifying what it is that we need, our values, priorities and goals. These allow you to make choices that start to correspond with who you truly are, rather than getting swamped by the faced paced world with expectations and obligations. Get more energy by recognising your limits. This could be a boundary around how much work you take on, how late you stay up or how often you say yes to yet another night out. You can protect that energy for what is really important to you. It will also help you to recharge and reconnect with yourself. Get more agency over your own life. When the focus is on your own needs, you create more space for joy, creativity and real connection. You do not need to feel like your life is passing by without taking part in it, instead, you will find yourself getting more intentional with everything that you do. What are other benefits of setting boundaries? Setting boundaries not only improves our own mental and emotional wellbeing, but will filter into our external world as well. That can be at work, with your relationships, spouse or children. It can help to reduce stress as you will learn to clearly communicate your limits and needs, which will alleviate overwhelm and anxiety. When you communicate clearly, you also reduce the risk of being misunderstood. Others will exactly know what to expect from you and you will now what you can expect from them, it create mutual respect. Overextending yourself; staying up too late, saying yes to another project, helping out another person again, will lead to exhaustion. Setting boundaries ensure that you prioritise yourself and your limits, preventing burn out. Five steps to setting healthy boundaries with yourself. Self reflect. Journalling is a great way to reflect on yourself, your relationships and your world. Identify what areas are feeling overwhelming at this moment or where you feel taken for granted. Understand where your limit is and your need. Communicate clearly. Firstly with yourself. Be honest about your limits. Write them down, speak it out loud, practice to reinforce them. Remember, it is ok to say no to what doesn’t fit with your boundary. It is not a weakness to have limits, but a powerful tool to reclaim yourself. When you are ready,
Anxiety and how our ‘TA drivers’ influence us profoundly.
When we experience high volumes of stress we often run on our default script. In Transactional Analysis this default script is influenced by our ‘drivers’, which are there to make us feel ok.
Feeling detached from life? What stress can cause.
Home About counselling About creative therapy About Sensory Processing Sensitivity About me Book a session FAQ’s Blog Home About counselling About creative therapy About Sensory Processing Sensitivity About me Book a session FAQ’s Blog Feeling detached and lost? What stress can cause. What is it like to feel detached from life? Feeling detached from life can manifest in lots of different ways. It can build slowly and out of awareness due to the relentless cycle of demands, expectations and not feeling valued, and it is not uncommon to find ourselves feeling numb, detached, completely exhausted and utterly lost. Understanding the numbness, the detachment and whirlwind of other emotions, is the first step forward as it can stem from factors like burnout, a lack of boundaries or the overwhelming stress of life. The experience of numbness. Caring too much, feeling too much, brought me to the point of not caring at all. When I realised I didn’t care about the things that were once important to me anymore, I withdrew. I went through the motions of the expectations at work, but I felt flat. I was disengaged from friendships, I didn’t have the energy to do the things I once enjoyed and I lost my spark, including my creative spark which was an integral part of my being. The ‘be strong’ and ‘try hard’ (as described by Taibi Kahler in TA theory) parts inside me is what kept me going for way too long. Again. Something deeper, burnout? This was a signal that something deeper was going on, such as a burnout – a state of physical, emotional but most of all, mental exhaustion by prolonged stress. The mental exhaustion is not just me being lazy or tired; it is a cumulation of a silent predator, chronic stress. Caused by overwhelming responsibilities and expectations. And when there is no compassion from others and you feel not valued, it hits harder, deeper. We can deal with a lot of stress as human beings, we can even thrive on a good amount of it. But when the value, appreciation and meaning disappear, it was impossible to keep up with the stress. Photo by Nima Simyari Other contributors to becoming detached. Other contributors to feeling detached, numb, flat and exhausted can be the lack of boundaries. When we have no boundaries around our time and energy and the things we love to do, we risk running on empty to the point of emotional numbness. The societal pressure of always having to be ‘doing’ something, more and more, creates a state of constant alertness in our bodies, which can also lead to a disconnection of our feelings and needs. A feeling of ‘nothing matters anymore’ and becoming detached from life. This lack of boundaries and always having to succeed not only affects our productivity, it will also impact our relationships and our sense of self. Our own worthiness. The power of the pen. A powerful tool that has helped me in those turbulent times to build some understanding of my feelings and myself was journalling. Writing and other expressive ways are effective and proven methods to explore and process emotions and thoughts. It allowed me to express with imagery, pictures and words that I didn’t have inside to express my inner world thoughts. It can help shift through the constant chatter, to externalise complex feelings and to gain an insight in what I was experiencing. There is no right or wrong way to do this. As a visual person, pictures and phrases that ‘spoke’ to me, helped to prompt my own thought process. The key was to let things come out the way they wanted, not having to be perfect or not even to have to make sense. Even the actual motion of writing and being creative is already a great way to calm the nervous system. Photo by Wanli Remlinger Try these ways of journalling. If you are interested to try out creative journalling, you could consider these 3 different ways of starting: 1. Use questions as prompts, like: what does numbness feel like to me? Where in my body do I feel it the most? Where can I give myself 10 minutes to just sit, how would that feel? 2. Use pictures from magazines: if you have any magazines lying around, flick through the pages to see which pictures jump out to you. Do not try to rationalise why, just cut them out and stick them down in your journal. Use these pictures as a prompt to start writing. What did you feel when you saw the picture? What does the picture provoke in you? What does it tell you? What thoughts came up? What do you associate with the picture? Tip: In today’s world, you might not have any magazines at home. You could use google to find pictures as well. Sit with yourself and take a few breaths. Focus on the most prominent feeling you feel in this moment. Use that feeling as a search topic. Print out the pictures that speak to you the most and continue as described above. 3. Using words and phrases that might have come up in the same google search is another way that can help you get started with writing. What do those words mean to you? What feeling do they provoke inside of you? What other thoughts come up when you read them? Seeking support. While journaling can be a great tool to develop a better understanding of your inner world and thoughts that might swirl around, it is equally important to seek support through therapy. I can help and support you in exploring your feelings. These feelings can help you navigate the nuances of burnout and/or to identify the causes behind you feeling detached from life. Together we can explore which areas need tending to, how we can name the feelings you feel, to discover what your values are, which