Month: August 2021

Get Grounded

Get Grounded

Grounding is something we can do when we find ourselves emotionally overwhelmed, anxious or experiencing a trauma re-triggering event.  When we have experienced a traumatic event, it is fairly common that we might experience flashbacks or intrusive memories of the event or aspects of the event that can be very unsettling.  Sometimes it might feel that we are back in the midst of the event, literally as if we were reliving the trauma, whilst other times we might find that our thoughts are a jumbled series of future-focused fears that other bad things will happen to us, and it feels impossible to stop the racing, escalating thoughts.  It feels like anxiety, only worse.  Other people have difficulties with dissociating – where they have learned to take themselves far, far away from their discomforting thoughts, feelings and sensations and they appear (and feel) very separate to the world.  They can become disorientated, disconnected and physically numb.

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Exercise and mental health

Exercise and mental health

I’ve decided that whilst in lockdown write some blogs focusing on some aspects of health and wellbeing that significantly impact on our mental health but that sometimes don’t get enough air-time in sessions.  Last week I wrote about sleep (click HERE to read that) and this week we’re going to talk about exercise.

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Sleep and mental health

Sleep and mental health

Sometimes I think my clients are doing some kind of internal eye-roll when I ask them, as I do most sessions, “so how has your sleep been?”  It’s almost as if they think I’ve run out of things to explore and so I’m opting to talk about something really basic and dull!  The thing is, we are beginning to fully understand the deeply important role sleep has in terms of protecting mental health and conversely, the significant negative impact that poor sleep plays in conditions like anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, ADHD, PTSD and OCD.

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The Lockdown Rainbow Edition

The Lockdown Rainbow Edition

This week’s blog comes to you on day 3 of Melbourne’s 6^th lockdown.  SIXTH.  That’s bonkers!  I was listening to a podcast today where the guys talking were joking about what the future generations would want to know about the “COVID years”.  It was recorded last year following the end of Melbourne’s second (and painfully long) lockdown and there was a sense of hope and of being over the worst of the experience.  Little did they know that almost a year later we would be in a strikingly similar situation.  For people in NSW right now, I can imagine the world feels similarly heavy and uncertain.

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Toxic positivity

Toxic positivity

I am 100% down with having a positive outlook on life – I would definitely subscribe to the ‘glass half full’ perspective.  However, as with most things in life (including chips and wine!), when positivity is dished out in excess it can become toxic.  Toxic insofar as it denies the true, messy complexity that is the experience of human emotions.

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