Innercircle Counselling

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Innercircle Counselling

A place for gentle healing, real conversations, and rediscovering your strength.

I offer person-centred, trauma-informed support for adults navigating anxiety, life transitions, boundaries, family dynamics, and the impact of past trauma.

06/02/2026

Stop striving.

When things feel uncertain, my instinct is often to step in and try to manage the outcome. To hold it all together. Striving can look responsible, even faithful, but underneath it is often fear. Fear that if I stop, everything might unravel.

I’ve been sitting with the story of Mary at the wedding where the wine runs out. She notices the problem and names it. And then she does something quietly powerful. She entrusts the matter to Jesus. She doesn’t stay in it. She doesn’t try to manage the process. She releases it.

Jesus takes what is offered and changes the substance of the matter itself. Water into wine. A miracle that doesn’t require striving, only trust.

That story feels like an invitation inward. To stop fighting internally. To quiet the mind. To let go of the need to control to feel safe.

I’m learning that striving often comes from thirst. It is based on a deep longing to feel steady and secure. But control has never satisfied that thirst for me. Trust does.

Surrender, I’m discovering, isn’t passive. It’s choosing to leave the matter where it belongs. It’s making space to be emptied of what I’m gripping so something new can be poured out.

If this resonates, perhaps it’s an invitation for you, too. Not to try harder, but to rest deeper. To trust the One who still turns water into wine.
Lisa xx

28/01/2026

Control is not peace.

That line stopped me in my tracks this week.

When anxiety rises, control often feels like the solution. If I can manage the moment, the conversation, the outcome, maybe I’ll feel calm again. Control promises relief. It whispers that peace is just one more adjustment away.

But control isn’t peace. It’s tension dressed up as safety.

Peace is settled. Control is exhausting.
Peace trusts. Control clenches.
Peace rests. Control strives.

For many of us, control has been a faithful companion for years. Especially when things feel uncertain or when the stakes are high, like in relationships we care deeply about. It makes sense. Control often grows out of love, fear, and the desire to protect. But what begins as self protection can quietly become self imprisonment.

I’m learning that when I try to control my environment to calm my anxiety, it might settle things externally for a moment, but it never brings rest internally. The anxiety always returns, often louder.

True peace asks something different of us. It asks for surrender. For submission. For trust. Not because the situation is easy, but because God is faithful.

Sanctuary isn’t found in managing outcomes.
It’s found in loosening our grip and letting God hold what we cannot.

If control has been your go to, you’re not failing. You’re human. But control will never give us what it promises. Peace comes when we choose to rest instead of tighten, to trust instead of manage, and to bring our anxious hearts back to God, again and again.

24/01/2026

Lately, I’ve been noticing how often our strongest reactions aren’t really about the moment we’re in.

In counselling, there’s a phrase: hysterical is historical. It speaks to the way past experiences can quietly shape present responses, often outside of our awareness.

What I’m becoming more aware of is how much changes when we pause. When we slow down rather than react, we can begin to notice what’s underneath. Not to judge it or get rid of it, but to understand it.

In approaches like inner child work and parts-based therapy, healing begins with the way we turn toward these places in us. With curiosity rather than criticism. With compassion rather than control. With courage to stay present.

What I’m learning is how deeply this kind of work aligns with soul care. When we invite the Holy Spirit into these moments of noticing, we are not analysing ourselves in isolation. We are being accompanied. God meets us with gentleness, helping us listen to what has been carried for a long time.

So often, the reaction itself is not the problem. It’s information. An invitation to attend to something tender, with care.

Healing doesn’t come through force or fixing.

It begins when we slow down enough to listen and allow God’s presence into the process.

22/12/2025

I’m taking a break for Christmas.

I spend a lot of time encouraging people to slow down and listen to what they need, so this is me doing the same. Practising what I usually invite others into.

This season can be a mixed bag of feelings. If it’s helpful, the Jolly, Grounded, and Still Me Christmas workbook is there to dip into. No pressure. Just something to come back to if you want. The workbook is available via the link - http://innercirclecounselling.com.au/jolly-grounded-and-still-me-2

I’ll be back on the 5th January, 2026 🤍

20/12/2025

As Christmas approaches, many of us are moving through a mix of connection, responsibility, and expectation.

Jolly, Grounded and Still Me is a Christmas workbook created to support reflection and self-care through the season, particularly as we navigate relationships and gatherings.

If this feels like something that could support you, the workbook is available via the link -

innercirclecounselling.com.au/jolly-grounded-and-still-me-2

If someone comes to mind as you read this, you’re welcome to share it with them.

Blessings
Lisa

05/12/2025

If you’re ending the year feeling flat, weary, or running on fumes, you’re not alone.
I’m right there too.

This time of year can look loud and sparkly on the outside, but underneath, a lot of us are just tired. The kind of tired that sits in your bones. The kind that makes you stare at your calendar and wonder how you’re meant to show up for anything when your social battery is blinking red.

Maybe you expected to feel excited about the holidays or finishing work.
Instead, you feel anxious, heavy, or just… blank.

If that’s you, I want you to hear this clearly: nothing is wrong with you.
You’ve carried a whole year. You’ve held pressure, people, deadlines, emotions, change, and a dozen little things no one else sees. Your body is simply asking for what it needs: slower moments, softer edges, and permission to not be “on.”

You don’t have to push through with a smile.
You don’t have to perform joy.
You don’t have to match the pace of the people around you.

It’s okay to step back.
It’s okay to protect your energy.
It’s okay to let this season be quieter than others.

Rest is not a reward at the end of a perfect year. It’s a requirement for being human.

So if you’re feeling the end-of-year wobble, take a breath. Let yourself land. Offer yourself the same gentleness you’d offer someone you love.

You’ve made it this far.
And you don’t have to finish the year at a sprint.

I see you. I’m with you. And you’re doing enough.

Innercircle Counselling

05/11/2025

Uncertainty can feel heavy, the knot of worry, the restless “what ifs,” the questions without answers.

It’s natural to want control, to try to solve everything right away. But some moments aren’t meant to be solved; they’re meant to be experienced.

Sitting with fear or uncertainty doesn’t mean giving in. It means noticing it, naming it, and allowing it to be part of your present moment.

You don’t have to have all the answers today. You don’t have to rush what you can’t yet see. Sometimes, simply being present with yourself is enough.

A gentle note: this post speaks to emotional uncertainty. The inner moments that ask for patience and presence. If you’re in a situation that feels unsafe, please don’t sit in it alone. Reach out for support.

💚

04/11/2025

We spend so much time trying to move away from what hurts by distracting, fixing, and scrolling. But sometimes, healing begins when we pause.

Discomfort can feel heavy: the tight chest, the restlessness, the lump in your throat. It doesn’t always mean something’s wrong. Often, it’s your inner self saying, I need to be noticed.

What if the goal isn’t to make it disappear, but to stay with it gently?

Breathe through it. Feel it. Let it exist without rushing to tidy it up.

You don’t have to find meaning. You don’t have to like it. You can learn to give yourself permission to be with it.

Over time, the edges soften. You realise you can survive hard feelings; they rise, crest, and fall. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is sit with the feeling.

A gentle note: this post speaks to emotional discomfort; the inner moments that ask for patience and presence. If you’re in a situation that feels unsafe, please don’t sit in it alone. Reach out for support. 🌿

31/10/2025

World Teachers’ Day

Today, we're celebrating the teachers who give so much of themselves, often quietly, unseen, and far beyond the hours people imagine.

You carry so much more than a curriculum.
You wear countless hats: teacher, mentor, mediator, cheerleader, social coach, and sometimes even the steady adult presence
a child longs for.

You step into the mud of real life with young people, holding space for their stories, calming their storms, and helping them find their feet again.

You advocate for their needs, notice when something isn’t right, and stay long after the day has ended, planning, marking, worrying, caring.

Your work reaches far beyond the classroom walls. You shape hearts, build confidence, and nurture hope.

From Inner Circle Counselling, I want to say thank you.

For showing up.
For staying present when it’s hard.
For the compassion you pour into the next generation.

You are the everyday superheroes who don’t wear capes. The impact you have can’t always be seen, but it’s deeply felt in the lives you touch. 💛

24/10/2025

Not every thought that crosses your mind is the truth.

Our brains can create quick, automatic thoughts, especially when we feel stressed, anxious, or uncertain. These thoughts often sound harsh or absolute, but they’re usually echoes of old fears, not present realities.

When you pause to notice them, question them gently, and replace them with kinder truths, you begin to shift from self-criticism to self-compassion.

You don’t need to silence your thoughts, just learn to listen with curiosity and care.

✨ What’s one gentle truth you can remind yourself of today?

14/10/2025

Spring reminds us that change is an integral part of life. Trees don’t hold their leaves forever. Buds don’t stay closed. The season always turns.

But for us, change can feel harder. Our nervous system holds tight to what’s familiar, even when it no longer serves us. It does this to protect us, to keep us safe in the familiar. That’s why new beginnings can stir fear, resistance, or even grief.

Yet when we soften our hold, we make space for possibility; for fresh hope, new rhythms, and beauty we couldn’t see before.

Change asks for courage, patience, and compassion. It’s rarely simple, but it’s how life grows.

. .

13/10/2025

Gardens need sunlight, water, and good soil to grow. We do too.

Healing and growth are often supported in connection with safe people, supportive communities, or relationships that help us hold hope when it feels heavy.

Growth is possible alone, but it’s stronger in community.

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Brisbane, QLD

Telephone

+61407711446

Website

https://innercirclecounselling.com.au/

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