Katrina Alilovic - Counselling Psychologist

30/01/2023

10/11/2022

ADHD - I've been hearing versions of this lately. And it's a problem.

It means you're relating to some new information, processing it and feeling it makes sense and begins to provide you a previously unknown framework to help understand yourself. However, the judgement from others and the risk that you will be ridiculed, shut down or shamed for beginning to explore a topic, a deeply personal topic and, possibly, finding your place. That you might begin to feel the beginings of relief and dare to consider that this might be a piece of the puzzle in terms of self-understanding and even self-acceptance only to quickly shut down to avoid the negative scrutiny is heart-breaking. Keep going, seek out those who support and validate you. Be curious about yourself.

Text: Words on a teal blue square "Learning about ADHD, feeling like it makes sense and explains a lot, but drop it because you worry that you're just "attention seeking"

07/11/2022

Beautifully said…

The word resilience gets a bad rap because we are TIRED AF of pushing through, surviving, and being strong. But the ability to push through difficulties is not actually resilience. That ability you have to make it through and keep going is perseverance, endurance, persistence, determination, grit, stamina, etc. And it is definitely a superpower! But it's a superpower that requires support, refueling, and (let's face it) a drastic change in our society's structures if they are going to be sustainable. Afterall, we do want to. be able to push through and do those hard things that are driven by passion, but we're tired of having to push through out of necessity.

Resilience is something else. Resilience is our nervous system's ability to recover from difficulties. And it's not something we choose, just like we don't choose our survival response when we're being chased by a bear and our body takes off running or collapses.

Yes, there are things we can do to nurture a more resilient nervous system in ourselves and children and friends: connect with others, be with others who love and support you for who you are without trying to change you, receive support and love from your community, fold nervous system support practices into your daily life, such as breath work, meditation, HearthMath, Safe Sound Protocol, Apollo Neuro, singing, humming, chanting, playing a wind instrument, drumming, and so much more!

Having low resilience is no one's fault. And we don't nurture RESILIENCE in children or anyone else by forcing them to be grateful, rejecting their emotional responses to experiences, or telling them to "look on the bright side."

Building and nurturing true resilience is about connecting and belonging with others, allowing our full range of emotions to be seen and heard and valued, and creating self-sustaining practices that feel good.

Let's change the narrative. We are TIRED of pushing through and making it work. Let's nurture resilience instead.

06/11/2022

Here's a link to an engaging and informative panel interview discussing ADHD, including a psychiatrist and two people who have been diagnosed with ADHD

Australia only recently implemented guidelines around the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.

16/07/2022

The more stressed you are the more you have to divide the world in to simple terms to cope.

12/07/2022

A little break in the Self-Compassion Nudge is needed as I'm not feeling well. Practice, practice, practice.
See you soon.

05/07/2022

Self-compassion Nudge

Any day is a good day for a bit of self-kindness. I’m taking a break from FB lives for a few days but will be back on track this coming Friday 8 July.

26/06/2022

Challenges of parenting

There's a reason why parents of big kids shut down when their kids hit the teenage years.

There's a reason why moms stop talking to other parents at pick up lines and dads avoid people at all cost

You know that phrase little kids, little problems. Big kids, bigger problems? It is so true.

And if you are lucky enough to raise a teenager that never drank or smoked or did drugs, if you are lucky enough to have a child that never got arrested for a misdemeanor or snuck out or cheated on a test, if you are lucky enough never to feel like you were just a complete and utter failure as a parent because of the behavior of your kid despite your best efforts, consider it just that: lucky.

Because for most big kids who do something bad, it is usually not from bad parenting as much as the teen making a bad decision.

And we need to sit on that for a second. Kids who make bad choices often come from a loving home and from great parents.

Before we rush to judgment. Before we roll our eyes and start mentioning all the things we think those parents did wrong. Before we fill ourselves with righteous indignation.

We need to remember that it could be our kid, and how do we want people to treat us?

Sure, we need to be conscientious parents and raise our kids to the best of our abilities. Kids raised by engaged parents have the best shot at developing into productive adults.

But unless you have severely neglected, abused, or traumatized your child, we need to recognize that sometimes teenagers lose their way despite our best efforts.

It's their brain wiring. It's outside influences. It's rebellion. It's seeking control.

It's growing up.

Addiction can be genetic. Violence could be linked to a traumatic event not related to the parents. Stealing could be attention-seeking behavior. Lying is testing boundaries. Mental health is a complex issue impacted by a wide variety of factors.

But also, teenagers have been found to be poor decision-makers if they feel pressured, stressed, or are seeking attention from peers, so while with one friend a teen may say no to alcohol, at a party with peers they want to impress, they may engage in binge drinking in a spur-of-the-moment request.

Rather than blaming the parents, we need to rally around families who need support instead of pushing them further underwater.

If you see or hear of a kid that did something bad, try to refrain from saying things like, "Their parents need to....." or "Kids today....." or "My kids never...."

Those phrases are not constructive to a parent who is in the trenches.

I still believe as parents we are the number one role models for our kids. I still believe that we can arm our children with information and boundaries so they grow up into productive adults.

But I also believe that most of us are trying our best and parent with the best of intentions.

I speak from experience. Sometimes good kids just make bad decisions. Sometimes good kids have addictions. Sometimes good kids are hurting and don't know how to express it. Sometimes good kids cave under pressure. Sometimes good kids want to impress their peers so they do something bad.

And oftentimes these good kids come from good parents, great parents, loving parents.

There is enough guilt when it comes to parenting. Did I do too much for them? Not enough? Did I give them too much freedom? Was I too overbearing? Many parents spend the rest of their lives wondering where they went wrong when raising their kids.

So, the next time your local rumor mill starts running with the bad behavior of a child coming from a "good" family, maybe resist the urge to spread the gossip to another friend.

Instead, maybe use it as a discussion springboard with your own child.

And if you are feeling extra generous, reach out to that parent who is most likely beating themselves up for their child's behavior, the one who feels isolated, the one who is staying up all night examining every parenting decision they ever made.

Because they could use some support, too.

We have to dig deep within ourselves to understand each other.

xoxo,
Whitney Fleming Writes

25/06/2022

When someone else has done all the work there’s no point in reinventing the wheel.

Thank you ICPNUK for this post on spiritual bypassing.

We’ve been taking a very lightheaded look at spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity in our last few posts, but this depiction portrays the result of imposing this on others who may be feeling desperate to have their feelings and situations heard and acknowledged.

The term spiritual bypassing was first coined by the Buddhist teacher and Psychotherapist John Welwood in the early 1980’s, and defined it as the "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks." Welwood began to notice that people (including himself) often wielded spirituality as a shield or means of defense mechanism. Rather than working through hard emotions or confronting unresolved issues, people would simply dismiss them with spiritual explanations.

Some examples of spiritual bypassing may be -

⚠️ Only focusing on the positive or being overly optimistic

⚠️ Believing that people can overcome their problems through positive thinking

⚠️ Thinking that you must “rise above” your emotions

⚠️ Believing that spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer are always positive

⚠️ Focusing only on spirituality and detaching from the present

⚠️ Intellectualising traumatic events and always seeing them as “learning experiences” or that there is a silver lining behind every adverse event

Spiritual bypassing shields us from things that are too painful to deal with, but this avoidance comes at a cost. Ignoring or avoiding the issue can make stress worse in the long-term, as we suppress authentic feelings and emotions, and adopt an incongruent way of being leading to cognitive dissonance.

Spiritual bypassing can also lead to -

❗️Anxiety

❗️Lack of personal responsibility

❗️Feelings of shame

❗️Spiritual narcissism

Spiritual bypassing can also be a tool to dismiss the emotions and experiences of others. It can be used as a tool to gaslight others and silencing them around people and events that have harmed them.

Rather than being allowed to express their pain, people who have been harmed are told by others that they are being a ‘negative person’.

25/06/2022

Day 10 The Self-Conpassion Nudge

I didn’t go live today. I went to a conference all about adhd and didn’t put structure in place to remind me to go live. I got home, remembered and didn’t feel like it. I was tired. I rested and now an early night.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Here’s the self-compassion break

https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/self-compassion.break_.mp3

Take good care, Katrina

22/06/2022

End of Week 1 of Self-Compassion Nudge

7 days of talking about self-compassion and more importantly practising self-compassion in our daily lives.

How has it been for you? What thoughts and feelings have you noticed when listening to me talk about being self-compassionate or encouraging you to do the practices?

How self-compassionate are you?

It might be worth doing this self-compassion test to get an idea of where you are at with being kind to yourself. Then you can do it again at the end of the 52 days and compare the results.

Here is a link to a self-compassion test https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-test/

Join me as we start week 2, another 7 days of focussing on building in greater self-compassion, less self-judgement and a general attitude towards ourselves of wanting to create ease and relive struggle and suffering.

Warmly, Katrina