Cindy MacFarlane Mental Health Counseling Solutions

11/24/2025

11/24/2025

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” ~ Henry David Thoreau , Walk the path quotes

10/12/2025

When someone is drowning, that’s not the time to teach them how to swim.

Sometimes people don’t need advice.
They don’t need a lesson.
They don’t need you to explain how they ended up in the water.

They need you to reach out your hand.
They need to know someone sees them, that someone cares enough to pull them out first.

You can teach later.
You can talk about how to stay afloat once they’re breathing again.
But in the middle of the storm?
What they need most is compassion, not correction.

Because when a person is fighting just to keep their head above water,
your empathy might be the only thing that saves them.

©️Caty Sanders

09/06/2025

A great perspective for anyone wishing to shift their perspective…

I heard something today that felt like someone quietly rearranged the furniture in my soul.

Gabor Maté, in a conversation with Mel Robbins on her podcast, said:
“No two children grow up in the same home. Even with the same parents.”

And he’s right.
By the time each child is born, the people raising them have already changed.
A father may be softer now, or more guarded.
A mother may be freer, or more worn.
The marriage may be blooming… or quietly cracking.
Money might be scarce, or finally enough to breathe.

And then there’s *us*—the children.
We come with different hearts, different fears, different ways of hearing the same words.
One child feels loved in the quiet; another feels abandoned in it.
One thrives under structure; another wilts.
The same hug, the same house, the same parents—yet completely different worlds.

It made me think about the stories we carry.
How we assume we all lived the same childhood because we shared a roof.
But we didn’t.

We were each raised by a different version of our parents… a version shaped by time, by trials, by joy, by fatigue.

And maybe part of growing up - truly growing up - is making peace with this.
To forgive the versions of our parents who couldn’t give more.
To honor the versions who somehow gave anyway.
And to understand that the love was real, even when it looked nothing alike.

Because you see, love isn’t static.
It’s a living thing, it's changing, faltering and blooming; just like the people who give it.

Here’s my video reflection and excerpts of the interview: https://youtube.com/shorts/l3NUPuoX5AM

09/01/2025

Say what you want but I have a system.