Bright Consciousness Psychotherapy & Mindfulness

15/11/2025

13/11/2025

Watching the aurora right now. Being in the moment and what a moment. Feeling so awed by nature. Grateful 🙏

12/11/2025

Some great stuff in this episode - what’s going on under the hood with ADHD. The melatonin piece was really a penny dropping moment for me

Dr Shyamal Mashru is an award winning psychiatrist and ADHD expert having assessed and treated thousands of people with ADHDWorking in both the public and pr...

12/11/2025

Standing outside my therapy room this morning - wishing all my clients could be here to experience the wonder and awe of nature

12/11/2025

This! We learn from our mistakes.

It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up.

And when we can meet ourselves just exactly where we are with a growth mindset, then we develop the flexibility that lets us try again and again just as many times as we need. And we learn how to offer ourselves self-compassion when we make a mistake or when we fall short of our own standards.

It’s ok to have high standards and to have high compassion to keep coming back and trying again.

Don’t wait to be ready. Start. Stay.

Don’t wait for the motivation. It’s ok to hold the complexity of something inside that has a desire AND something inside that hesitates or feels fear. Often when we let it all be heard and felt, then we find we can just begin.

Learning to feel our felt sense and our feelings is a skill - and it can be taught.

And if you start a bunch of different things, don’t beat yourself up. You have multiple projects in various stages of development. That’s a good thing! Can it be ok for your focus to shift? Can it be ok to trust yourself?

11/11/2025

11/11/2025

09/11/2025

Worth reading this piece from Rachel Haack on the roots of estrangement.

It’s such an interesting subject and one that’s close to my heart. Working with estrangement often feels like trying to turn back the tide of online misinformation. It can feel like fighting a losing battle.

And yet helping people to repair their relationships with their parents or with their adult children is hard but joyous work.

This is where being a coach and a psychotherapist can be really helpful. They are two different skillsets and two different ways of working.

So often I am helping people work through their past trauma, their blocks to forgiveness and their relationship anxiety issues. So many threads can make up these tangles. I get to help people to prepare for meeting with their estranged family members. I love this work!

Just as Rachel talks about the pathologising of discomfort, I’m also helping people to face their feelings, to learn how to turn towards them and to feel them, letting them start to be more present in their bodies in the moment, and building up their inner resilience to be able to respond to themselves with compassion.

Working with core values is such an important piece of that work. So many people have not really explored what is important in their lives and yet being authentic and true to ourselves is a huge part of being congruent.

Exploring codependence and rescuing behaviours is an important part of the work too. So many people are projecting and taking too much responsibility for how others are feeling.

And while there are some great books on these subjects, at the end of the day it needs to be learned experientially. It can help to have someone beside you on your journey to offer accountability, as well as challenging you and encouraging progress.

Something is shifting in the way families relate to each other. More parents and adult children are cutting contact than ever before. And it’s not just personal, it’s cultural.⁣
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In my new Substack essay, I unpack some of the big forces shaping this trend:⁣
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• postmodernism and power frameworks in family life⁣
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• social contagion and influencer culture⁣
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• safetyism and the pathologizing of discomfort⁣
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• the “luxury of disconnection” made possible by affluence⁣
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• and what we can actually do about it⁣
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It’s a longer read, but I think it’s worth it.⁣
We can’t change the culture overnight—but we can live differently inside it.⁣
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📖 link is in my profile, and under Substack highlight ⁣
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or visit:⁣
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rachelhaack.substack.com⁣
⁣

07/11/2025

02/11/2025

A great way to feel happier is to try a new activity or take a different approach ✨ Join us for and get daily ideas to help you find new ways forward http://actionforhappiness.org/new-ways-november

30/10/2025

It’s ok to cry. Tears are the body processing pain and trauma.

Crying is a bioregulatory process. When we cry, our body releases built-up activation, the physiological charge of pain, fear, or grief.

Tears, breath, and sound all help shift the nervous system from isolation toward connection.

If someone is present and attuned, the act of crying allows the system to move from overwhelm toward integration, restoring balance.

In pain, crying doesn’t just express distress; it alsohelps the body find safety again.

Yep, in our corporatized Western mainstream left-brain culture, crying is considered a sign of weakness. It asks, "How dare you need to come back into balance?"

Interpersonal Neurobiology says, "Balance is my birthright."



IMAGE: detail from my watercolor, "Crying Under the Window," while it was in process. It depicts when I was so worn down from too much abuse and not enough care that all I could do was lie in bed and cry. I was 14 years old.

26/10/2025

Stacking dopamine, starting with little tasks and building to the bigger ones. Tons of self-praise - time to break out the happy dance for every single thing you do. Shift your mindset away from self-criticism towards acceptance and self-compassion. Remember scrolling hijacks your dopamine! And if today is a sofa and pyjamas day, don’t beat yourself up … 🌸

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