Life Matters Counselling & Psychotherapy Centre

09/03/2026

Have you listened yet?

Dr. Laurence Heller on the Trauma Therapist podcast with Guy Macpherson. Listen now to hear more about NARM and the upcoming NARM book Healing Shame and Guilt (coming in May from North Atlantic Books).

Listen online ▶️ https://www.spreaker.com/episode/how-to-work-with-shame-with-dr-laurence-heller--70260848

Apple podcasts ▶️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-work-with-shame-with-dr-laurence-heller/id899009517?i=1000751755105

Spotify ▶️ https://open.spotify.com/episode/7bW6kdq3xWXPo0YNj0fjOv

09/03/2026

For many of us, tracking and managing others’ emotional states began early, as a way to stay safe, connected, or out of harm’s way. Long before we had the capacity to know or name our own inner experience, we learned to organize ourselves around the feelings of others.

This was an intelligent adaptation to early circumstances. And just because we learned to do this early on does not mean we need to continue taking responsibility for other people’s lives or emotions for the rest of our lives.

NARM was designed to support this kind of exploration. When the time is right, it also supports our process of disidentifying from the strategies and adaptations that are no longer needed.

09/03/2026

09/03/2026

Genuine curiosity sits at the heart of NARM.

Rather than offering our interpretation of a client’s experience, we ask exploratory questions and stay open to what our clients are discovering for themselves.

This stance supports agency. It invites clients into their own process, rather than placing the practitioner in the role of authority over their client's inner world.

When we shift from interpretation to inquiry, the tone of the work changes. The relationship becomes more collaborative. Insight grows from the client’s own awareness, rather than being provided from the outside.

09/03/2026

It can feel counterintuitive to see self-rejection as protective.

Yet, for many of us, turning against ourselves once created a sense of safety. Rejecting ourselves first meant not having to risk rejection from someone we depended on for our care and survival.

What shows up as self-criticism now might have begun as an attempt to preserve connection and love, and to maintain a sense of control.

Want to learn more about the adaptive nature of shame and self-rejection?

📘 Healing Shame and Guilt is coming May 12.
Preorders are available now: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/804584/healing-shame-and-guilt-by-laurence-heller-phd-and-stephan-k-niederweiser/9798889842897/

09/03/2026

The newest NARM book is coming soon...

📘 Healing Shame and Guilt is now available for preorder.
Reserve your copy here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/804584/healing-shame-and-guilt-by-laurence-heller-phd-and-stephan-k-niederweiser/9798889842897/

27/02/2026

Secure functioning is the foundation of a healthy, lasting relationship. It’s about creating a partnership where both people actively protect and prioritise each other’s emotional safety. As Dr. Stan Tatkin explains, our brains are wired to detect threat, so feeling secure with one another isn’t accidental, it’s intentional❤️

26/02/2026

Burnout is more than stress or exhaustion—it’s often rooted in the survival strategies we developed as children when our core needs went unmet. These strategies helped us adapt and survive, but as adults, they can set us up for depletion, resentment, and disconnection.

In this free webinar, NARM Post-Masters Fellow Janet Bystrom Micek, LICSW explores how our Adaptive Survival Styles show up in the workplace and contribute to burning ourselves out. Drawing from the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), Janet invites us to reflect on the deeper patterns that keep us stuck in cycles of overworking, caretaking, or striving for perfection—and how self-acceptance and compassion can begin to shift these patterns.

To sign up for more NARM Post-Masters Fellows Present Webinars, check back regularly at https://narmtraining.com/pmf-present/--------------------------------...

26/02/2026

26/02/2026

In our last two posts, we talked about how trauma-informed work is usually described as either top-down or bottom-up.

Bottom-up approaches prioritize bodily experience and nervous system regulation.
Top-down approaches focus on meaning, cognition, and how we interpret experience.

NARM is distinct in that it works with both approaches simultaneously. Rather than privileging one pathway over the other, NARM practitioners pay attention to the ongoing dialogue between body and mind, sensation and meaning, regulation and understanding.

This integrated approach supports working with complex and developmental trauma in a way that addresses both how experience is organized in the body and how it is understood and lived in the present. Integrating both pathways helps support lasting and sustainable healing.

26/02/2026

Over the years, I’ve noticed a recurring question among therapists encountering PACT for the first time. It usually sounds something like this: How does PACT fit with what I already know? How does PACT integrate with other models?

03/02/2026

When we understand that each day isn’t one more day,
but one less,
everything begins to change.

Time stops feeling endless.
Moments stop being wasted.
People stop being taken for granted.

In Buddhism, this awareness is called maranānussati—mindfulness of impermanence and death. Not to create fear, but to awaken gratitude and clarity.

When you truly see that life is finite:

you argue less

you love more honestly

you forgive faster

you stop postponing what matters

You start choosing presence over pressure.
Meaning over ego.
Peace over noise.

✨ Nothing becomes darker when you remember impermanence—
it becomes precious.

So value the people you love.
Protect your time.
Speak what is true.

Because every day is not an addition—
it is a reminder.