Accepting Nurturing
How do you feel about being nurtured or looked after? How do you feel if someone does something for you (that you like/enjoy), without asking? I’ve been...
Uncontrolled empathy
This is the second in my series on Empathy as a Skill, and I want to talk about balanced and grounded empathy.Part one is here:...
Self care in crisis
It’s hard sometimes. I see the genocide in Palaestine, Congo, Sudan. I see the cost of living crisis, the rise of facism, the transphobia everywhere. And...
Empathy as a skill, part 1
I asked over on LinkedIn what people wanted to hear me write about in May, and Empathy as a Skill won the poll, so here’s a newsletter on it! There’ll be...
How do you evaluate your evaluation?
How do you evaluate your work? This question was asked to me by my therapy tutor a couple of weeks ago. I was in a practice supervision session - we did a...
You can’t hate yourself into someone you love
‘You can’t hate yourself into someone you love’ ‘If being hard on yourself worked it would’ve worked by now’ Both these things are true, and might even give...
What are your warning signs?
Plan for your bad days on a good day. It’s easier, and is a way to practice being kinder to yourself. By thinking about warning signs and what you can do to...
April is Stress Awareness Month
(I'm sending this out as I don't think it sent a couple of weeks ago, sorry readers, apparently I failed at scheduling emails) The hashtag for this year's...
Let's talk about Mindfulness
Note: I'm not sure I managed to schedule this to go out on Wednesday as normal. Sending this out now as a test, apologies if you receive it twice. I've been...
Free: You're not responsible for other people's feelings
Every so often I remove the paywall from a paid article, to give you all a peep behind the curtain, and to share a piece I'm proud of. That's what I'm doing...
Value-based Self Care
It was 2020, I was still figuring out who I was outside my family, and lockdown was in full swing. In therapy I was spending time unpicking my upbringing and...
Ideal vs actual self
Last week I wrote about my playing with manifestation. I made a to-do list based on ‘where I wanted to be in a week’s time’ and then I sat down and figured...
On manifestation
I’m gonna get a little witchy, if you’ll allow me. Manifesting is such an interesting concept to me. It’s similar to affirmations, in that they both can be...
Ending a therapy session
I’m getting more and more practice in being in the therapy role, having now qualified to the point where in practice sessions I can say ‘I’m a trainee...
Just because you triggered a feeling, doesn’t mean you’re resonsible for it
This turned into a piece on boundaries and closure. TW for talk of estrangement from family I saw a tiktok yesterday, which has since been taken down. It was...
The tension of the moment self care advice
I want to talk about something I think we miss when we give out in-the-moment self care advice, and that's why to do the thing. A disclaimer, or a...
Compliment yourself
When was the last time you complimented yourself, without caveat. No buts, or ifs, no deflecting to talk about something or someone else. Just complimented...
cPTSD And Me
This is my first email from Buttondown! This is why it looks different. You can still see my archive and read online here if you prefer. I had to do a...
On giving yourself permission to rest
Note: this is the last substack I’ll publish. Next week’s newsletter will come from buttondown.email. All my subscribers will be magically moved over, paying...
On the validity of feelings
How much time do you spend figuring out if your feelings are valid? I’ve spent a lot of time unpicking my feelings to see if they’re valid, or...
