Dr Alla Demutska

13/10/2025

(warning: death and heavy content)
Because I know what life looks like without them.
I was reflecting recently on why joy is so important to me.
I grew up in the Soviet Union, and when it collapsed, the years that followed were dark and unstable. I didn’t know if we would have food to eat, let alone clothes to wear. Life felt unsafe, frightening, unpredictable.
My great-aunt, who had raised my father like a mother, carried wounds that ran deep. Her own father - my great-grandfather - was taken to Siberia as an enemy of the state by Stalin and vanished. That history branded our family. It stole opportunities, futures, dignity. She lived with bitterness, grief, and resentment, and whenever I visited, her stories were heavy with pain, sadness, and anger. Listening was hard - I felt her suffering and the weight of the past pressing into me.
When I was 16, I walked into her apartment and found her dead in her bed. She lived alone by then. Almost blind, hardly able to walk. The sorrow in that room was suffocating. I called the ambulance and my parents, and then I sat there for hours beside her body, waiting for help to come. I can still see it — the stillness of her face, and the cockroach crawling across it. That image has never left me. Even now, as I write this, I cry.
In that moment, I made a vow:

I will not let resentment eat me alive.
I will not stay trapped in the past.
I will not let bitterness define me.

And I chose a different path - one where I would try to alleviate suffering, and help life become more meaningful and worth living, for myself and for others. Because I know how unbearable life feels when pain is the only lens. I know the heaviness of trauma, the way grief can turn air into stone, the way hopelessness can empty out a person …
 
I became a psychologist not because I was untouched by pain, but because I was shaped by it. I know what it means to live in fear, to sit with despair, to feel like joy is impossible. And I also know the miracle of a moment of beauty, so many of them  - a glimpse of sun playing on the  sea after a long cold winter, the first fresh strawberries, spending time with people I love, feeling my body strong and able..

15/06/2025

It’s not a feeling. It’s not something you wait to feel before you begin.

It’s a decision. A practice. A quiet, radical commitment to not abandon yourself — especially when it would be easier to, when it is your habit.

Self-love is staying with your truth when it is hard.
It’s saying no when you want to disappear into someone else’s comfort.
It’s letting yourself rest when the old voices tell you to earn your worth.
It’s hearing the part that says “I’m too much” or “I’m not enough” — and staying anyway.

Carl Rogers said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

And I think that’s it. That’s the heart of this work.

Because when we betray ourselves — in small, quiet ways — we keep teaching the little one inside us:

Your needs don’t matter. Your voice doesn’t matter. You don’t matter.

And it hurts more than any external rejection ever could.

Self-love is not about becoming the best version of yourself.
That’s another trick of the critic.
It’s not a battle.
You’ are not something to overcome.

It’s about turning toward the parts you’ve hidden or pushed away — the ones that were too loud, too sad, too much, too hurt — and saying:

I see you.
You’re still part of me.
You don’t have to be alone anymore.

Integration over exile.
Kindness over fixing.
Presence over perfection.

And on the hard days, when you forget — you begin again.
Not because you feel worthy.
But because you are.

13/06/2025

Validation isn’t about fixing. It’s about finding each other.

Many of us grew up hearing “you’re too sensitive,” “don’t cry,” or “just be strong.”

We learned to shut down, smile when it hurt, and keep going — even when we were unraveling inside.

But healing begins when we’re allowed to feel.
Not questioned.
Not reassured.
Just met.

Validation sounds simple — but it’s what our nervous system has been waiting for:

👉 “That makes sense.”
👉 “I get why you feel that way.”
👉 “You don’t have to explain.”

These words say: you matter, just as you are.

If no one said them to you when you needed them — I’m sorry.

But you can offer them now.

To yourself.
To the people you love.
To the parts of you that are still waiting to be seen.

Try this:

Share something vulnerable with someone safe.

Ask them to simply reflect, without advice.

Practice staying with each other — gently, honestly.

This is how we begin to feel again.

10/06/2025

The Psychology Behind Why We Stay in Relationships That Don’t Work

Why do so many of us stay in relationships that leave us feeling unseen, unsupported, or unsettled?

It’s not because we’re weak.
It’s often because the dynamics are familiar.

Many of us unconsciously repeat what we learned early in life—especially if we grew up in environments where love was conditional, inconsistent, or unavailable. In those families, we might have learned to earn love by being helpful, quiet, needed, or “good.”

Later in life, these patterns don’t just disappear.

We’re drawn to partners who reflect the emotional landscape we grew up with—not because it’s healthy, but because it feels like home.

Psychologists call this repetition compulsion: the tendency to recreate early emotional dynamics in an attempt to resolve them.

But we’re not resolving them—we’re reliving them.

In this dynamic, we often:

Confuse intensity with intimacy

Accept emotional unavailability as normal

Stay in roles like the caregiver, the peacemaker, or the one who holds everything together

Feel guilt for wanting more

Healing begins with awareness.
Not blaming ourselves—or our partners—but recognising when we’re acting from old survival strategies rather than conscious choice.

When we name the pattern, we interrupt it.

When we stop trying to change others, and start tending to the parts of us that were never truly met, something shifts.

From this place, we start to choose relationships based on alignment, not old emotional familiarity.

Because real love doesn’t ask you to perform, prove, or shrink.
It meets you where you are—and invites you to grow from there.

01/06/2025

When I first heard this quote by Mark Nepo, it was Amy .finlay.jones who read it aloud, as we held space together at the retreat.

I remember the moment vividly—how it opened something in me. I was meant to be guiding, holding, witnessing. But the words found a home inside my chest. I had to swallow hard to keep the tears at bay.

It still speaks to me now. Perhaps even more.

Because this is the very heart of the work:

How do we move through the world with an undefended heart?
How do we stay open—tender, present—without armouring ourselves against the very closeness, care, and connection we long for?

We slip on these invisible layers—sarcasm, avoidance, productivity, perfectionism, numbness—to protect us. But they often dim life’s brightness. Keep the world at arm’s length. Dull the moments that could have mattered.

This quote reminds me that the work isn’t about becoming stronger.
It’s about becoming softer.
Less covered. More felt.

So we can touch life as it is.

The hesitation before reaching for someone’s hand, not knowing if they’ll meet you there.
The tremble in your voice when truth rises faster than your fear.
The sunlight on your cheek—and for a breath, life floods in, and you remember: this is what it means to be alive.

Nothing numbed.
Nothing avoided.
Nothing postponed for a time that may never come.

What do you feel, reading this quote?

18/05/2025

I went to renew my passport the other day. A simple, safe task. But something strange happened—my body was tense, breath shallow, heart tight as I stepped into the Australian embassy.

Cognitively, I knew I was safe. But my body didn’t feel that way.

I grew up in Ukraine, in the long shadow of the Soviet Union—a system where authority wasn’t just respected, it was feared. Where survival meant submission. Where standing out could get you erased.

My great-grandfather, a passionate school director who believed in education, was declared an enemy of the state and vanished into Siberia. My family bore those scars. That legacy of fear was passed down silently, encoded in our nervous systems, in the way we moved through the world.

You don’t have to be told these things as a child. You feel them. You absorb them like air. At that time in my culture, to survive was to be small, invisible. Don’t speak too loudly. Don’t stand out. Don’t draw attention.

I’ve spent years working through these patterns—unlearning what was never mine to carry. But still, moments like this remind me: healing doesn’t erase the past. It allows us to witness it with compassion.

When I did family constellations, I saw it so clearly—how my father’s fear lived inside his body, expressed through rage. How my mother learnt to shrink, to hide. How I learnt to feel safest when unseen.

And yet, here I am. Feeling it, noticing it, not running from it.

Healing is not about never getting triggered again. It’s about recognising when the past shows up in the present—and choosing not to abandon yourself when it does.

What are the traces of your history that still live in your body?

What do you carry that doesn’t belong to you—but still shapes how you feel?

13/05/2025

I never thought I had abandonment issues. I used to believe I was fine on my own, that I didn’t need anything from anyone. But then I started noticing the way I would check my phone, hoping for a message. The way I would wonder if anyone was thinking of me. The way I felt like I disappeared the moment I wasn’t reflected in someone else’s thoughts. 
 
I don’t need constant attention. I don’t need grand gestures. But I do need to feel like I exist in someone’s mind—that someone, somewhere, holds me there, even in the smallest ways. A message. A thought. A moment of “I wonder how she’s doing.” Because when no one remembers me, I feel like I vanish. Like I am of no consequence. Like I could slip away, and the world would go on exactly the same. 
 
They say you die twice—once when your body stops breathing, and once when your name is spoken for the last time. But what if you can feel that second death while you’re still here? 
 
I’ve come to understand that this feeling didn’t just appear in adulthood — it began in childhood. Home never felt safe. I didn’t feel like I mattered, like my thoughts or inner world had a place. I learned early that my feelings were too much, that being visible could invite danger, and that love often came with conditions. So I adapted. I became a child who asked for little, who stayed quiet, who disappeared to survive. And now, as an adult, I know I’m not simply seeking attention —I’m reaching toward a child who never felt genuinely seen. The child who once wondered if anyone might ever care enough to be curious about who she is and what she needs.

I don’t want to need this. I want to believe that my existence is enough, even in silence. But right now, I am still learning. Still unlearning. Still finding my way back to myself, without waiting for someone else to hold me there.
 
Have you ever felt like you only existed when someone else saw you? What helped you start finding your way back to yourself?

03/05/2025

There’s something about dancing that goes beyond movement.

It’s how the body remembers joy, even when the mind forgets.

It’s how rhythm finds its way into places that words can’t reach.

I didn’t grow up dancing.
I watched dancers and dreamed of being one. But instead, I spent eight years at the piano—disciplined, rigid, disconnected. I didn’t love it. I wanted to move. To feel. But there was no room for that.

Later, as an adult, I told myself it was too late. That there was no point if I couldn’t be good at it. My perfectionist mind couldn’t yet hold space for joy without achievement.

But something in me kept pushing.
So a few years ago, I started to dance.
At first, I resisted. I felt silly. Stiff. Ashamed even. But I kept going.
And slowly, it became a way home to myself.

Dancing is my therapy.
It’s where I meet myself in truth—in feeling, in vibration, in presence.

And science confirms it, too.
A 2024 study from Australia found that dancing improves mood more than yoga, strength training, or running. It supports nervous system regulation, alleviates depressive symptoms, and boosts cognitive function.

I dance because I can feel my aliveness again.

Because when my energy is heavy or stuck, music moves what words can't.

Because movement allows what’s hidden to surface—and find release.

Dance is my meditation.

My mirror.

My learning about myself.

A soft spotlight on the parts of me I rarely show.

My relational patterns show up. My fears. My hesitations.
How I respond to closeness, to pressure, to silence.
The same protective strategies I’ve worked through in therapy show up on the dance floor.
There’s no hiding in movement.
Always learning, breathing, feeling.

I want to feel alive in every moment I dance.
Even when it is painful.
I choose this over numbness and disconnection—even when they feel safer and more familiar.

Because life isn’t just about staying safe — it’s about showing up fully, feeling deeply, and being awake to what’s here.

Thank you   for making this happen!

Thanks for beautiful photos  

28/04/2025

For most of my life, I was committed to learning. I devoured books, sought out deep conversations, did endless personal development, absorbed everything I could, filled my mind with models and theories. I thought if I could just learn enough, I’d finally become the person I wanted to be.

But the truth is, my most profound growth hasn’t come from learning more. It’s come from unlearning.

Unlearning the messages I absorbed as a child—that I was too much, or not enough, that I was unlovable, not interesting, not worthy.
Unlearning the coping strategies I developed to survive—perfectionism, people pleasing, staying small, staying silent.


It's like peeling back layers of armor I didn’t even know I was wearing. On the surface, I’ve understood these patterns for a while. I could name them, trace their origins. But the real work happens beneath the mind—on the level of the body, the heart, the soul. That’s where the knots live. That’s where the undoing begins.

And under it all, I’m remembering who I was before the world told me who to be.
Before the fear.
Before the roles.
Before the masks.
Before before before.

Love without fear.
Care without fixing.
Presence without performing.
Gentleness without losing myself.
Visibility without shrinking.

Unlearning isn’t easy. It’s slow, sometimes painful. It brings grief, and often a deep tiredness. But every layer I shed brings me closer to something real.
To something that was never broken.
To myself.

What are you unlearning — and what are you discovering beneath it all?

25/04/2025

Trauma doesn’t always scream — sometimes it lingers in the quiet ways we abandon ourselves.

In the over-apologizing.
In the fear of being "too much."
In the constant need to stay invisible to feel safe.

These patterns aren’t your personality — they’re survival strategies. And the beautiful thing is… what was learned for survival can be unlearned in safety.

✨ You are not broken.
✨ You are not too much.
✨ You are carrying stories that were never yours to begin with.

Let’s bring light to what often stays hidden. The more we name it, the more we free ourselves — and others. 💛

Which of these patterns feels familiar to you?

25/04/2025

25/04/2025

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