The Holding Space - Hobart Counselling

22/04/2024

Support and advice.

11/01/2024

PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia) has been invited to make a submission to the House of Assembly Select Committee on Reproductive, Maternal and Paediatric Health Services in Tasmania. As a perinatal mental health and wellbeing organisation that values and champions the expertis...

31/12/2023

11/12/2023

Join us in 2024 💕

08/12/2023

Our wonderful 12 month program is back. Get in touch if you’re interested 💕💕

03/08/2023

Fantastic idea!!!

Being a new mum can be a lonely time so we’re introducing Mums Club. Every Wednesday from 1.30-3.30 you’re welcome to come along for a casual drink or bite to eat to meet other like-minded mums (at least you know you have good food & coffee in common 😉).

Starting from 16 August, Mums Club is suitable for all mums of newborns to pre-walkers 👶🏻👧🏼

Book here 🥰 https://sisterhoodhobart.com/book-now-1

06/02/2023

Parenting gently is both hard and counter cultural. But it is so worth it. Often the key to doing it well is learning to reparent the tricky parts of ourselves with that same gentleness.

Therapy can help. Reach out if your inner child is longing for a gentle hug from you💕🌿

There are lots of ways in which the way I parent is atypical. But the only one that consistently gets me blowback from others is my decision to parent gently. When I was pregnant with my first child, I thought that people would give me grief about breastfeeding or not using screens or avoiding gendered indoctrination or splitting household labor equally with my spouse.

Nope. What gets me the most judgment as a parent is my decision to treat my children as human beings with emotions, and to honor those emotions as if they matter.

Imagine a world in which we thought it was normal to leave our bereaved spouses alone in a bedroom to cry. Or where we punished our friends for expressing frustration. Children have less experience in the world, less understanding of emotions, and yet we expect them to show more awareness of both than we would ever demand from adults. In situations where we give adults support and nurturing, we give children abandonment and shame.

If you're trying to practice gentle parenting in a society that values neither gentleness nor parenting, solidarity.

And if you occasionally slip up under the immense weight of the burden, if you sometimes find you're not up to the monumental task of controlling your own emotions so you can help your child with theirs, I want you to know that you're not alone. All the social media content on gentle parenting makes it look like it's easy, and anyone without an abusive disposition can do it.

The reality is it's the hardest thing I've ever done. If it's hard for you, too, it's not because you're failing.

Controlling your own emotions after a day of struggling to do everything right, only to be met with a massive meltdown, is exhausting. It requires incredible emotional intelligence and self-control. On the days where you pull this off, pat yourself on the back.

And on the days where you don't? Remind yourself that our children do not need us to be perfect. One of the best things we can do for them is to show them how to behave after we mess up. Teach them how to apologize and take accountability; then show them they are worthy of receiving both from the people in their lives.

Relationships cannot, and should not, be perfect. Show them what to do when the imperfections bubble up and you'll prepare them well for the many times they have to apologize in their own lives--as well as the many times they must assess whether an apologetic person really means it, or is just manipulating them.

Photo by Prchi Palwe on Unsplash

05/01/2023

This is so important! Unfortunately a lot of us parents struggle to implement structure because we are not practiced in setting and holding boundaries. This is something we can work on in counselling!

31/12/2022

Proud of you. You’re still here. You did it 🥰

25/12/2022

I will never not share this striking image.

The Christmas story, for me, is first and foremost a birth story. It's about a woman giving birth without adequate support, in a society that didn't care about her needs, at a violent and scary time. Like so many millions of women today.

It's about a woman choosing to take on this terror as an act of pure and unselfish love.

And key to the story is the fact that we forget about the woman as central to this story, as the only necessary element. As we talk about Jesus and camels and wise men and drummer boys, we forget about the woman in agony at the center of the narrative.

To be a mother is to suffer. Three babies have taught me this. This suffering has value and meaning. It is real. But we sweep it under the rug in favor of the trivial narratives about men on the outskirts of the suffering--the presents they brought, the entertainment they provided, what they thought of the woman's suffering.

So I think we should put Mary back at the center of the Christmas story, whether we believe the story to be literally true, an interesting allegory, or a useless cultural artifact.

Birth, no matter how it goes or what it looks like, connects us to something eternal--to an unbroken chain between the birthing people of now, the birthing people of then, and the birthing people of the future. It connects us to our ancestors. It is the only way we can become ancestors.

It's difficult for me to take seriously the claims of male religious leaders who insist they have a unique connection to God that the literal givers of human life lack. But I suppose that, when you can't give life, when your body can't sustain life, controlling women is a consolation prize. False narratives about male and female roles might compensate for a power you lack.

As we talk about powerful men and gods and angels this Christmas, don't forget about what really happened: A woman gave birth. A woman did the work. And men became the story's stars.

Put the birth story back in Christmas. And stop hiding from the power of making human life.

Image from: https://www.birthundisturbed.com/the-creation-of-man
Words my own (reshared from last year).

18/12/2022

🌿🌿

10/12/2022

An important reminder ♥️

Navigating Christmas can be particularly difficult with a new baby or if you’re struggling with perinatal mental illness.

You’re not alone.
Go gently where you can x