Positive Moves Wellbeing

05/08/2025

Our health does not exist in a vacuum. The systems we live in shape the adaptations we adopt to maintain connection and safety.

Symptoms are rarely due to individual pathology but rather a response to the features inherent in our environment. If we do not attend to systems that surround us, we risk perpetuating an unhelpful belief an individual is the source of the problem rather acknowledge the collective responsibility we share.

Physical, social, and relational environments impact our internal human system. Patterns of emotion, behaviour and cognition are shaped by our

- family dynamics and structures
- social connections and interactions
- organisational structures
- culture and community
- physical environments

In therapy our work is to explore how particular adaptations may have been required. It can be complex and messy work and the reality is “symptoms” rarely arise from a “within-person” deficit. Layers of experience across the lifespan, and adaptations intended to keep a person safe and connected, can underlie present-day symptoms.

We collaborate and consider how environments, resources, relationships and connection can support and sustain healthier humans. Our environment can restrict our humanity or it can support us to thrive and be whole.

01/04/2025

Regulation has become a widely used term when referring to emotions and nervous systems but there is an inherent risk when we confuse the concept of regulation as demanding calm rather than connection. Healthy human beings have the capacity to feel deeply and maintain a connection with themselves and others. Feelings of awe and wonder, intense disappointment, loss, anger and frustration are also places where we can connect and be truly felt. We risk depleting our vital source of energy when we equate regulation with suppression, denial or repression of our feelings.

Restoring a sense of safety in the body - letting the full spectrum of human emotions know they can be safely contained and expressed - means building our capacity to recognise, understand and express our emotions and adapting our responses to life. Constant micro-adjustments without avoidance, shame or dismissing builds this capacity. Life is messy, and so are our emotions. Let’s not pretend a calm exterior is an indicator of a healthy regulated inner experience. Such pretence can come at a terrible cost.

25/03/2025

11/02/2025

In therapy we witness the compounding costs of attachment wounds - needs that went unmet, needs that were met with blame, shame, and hidden beneath layers of protective coping responses. When these needs remain unmet in adulthood we continue to miss opportunities to accumulate more adaptive information. The absence of what should have happened can continue to be a barrier to connecting with the good stuff here in the present. A weekend event facilitated by and brought to life what happens when the needs of our younger self are met with courage, compassion and connection using our breathe and sound vibration as the vehicle of delivery. Thanks so much for tending all those little parts with such care.