MJB Counselling

MJB Counselling Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from MJB Counselling, Mental Health Service, The Green, Norwich.

My name is Melanie Hoggett and I'm a registered experienced integrative therapist working in private practice in Freethorpe, Norwich, Norfolk, using an holistic approach & a variety of therapeutic techniques to bring healing for a wide range of issues.

Snow is so beautiful ❄️ I'd love to take more photos, but my raynauds hands were screaming at me to put my glove back on...
03/01/2026

Snow is so beautiful ❄️ I'd love to take more photos, but my raynauds hands were screaming at me to put my glove back on. A good tip for getting snow clumps off dogs with hairy legs is to use a standard whisk. Stay warm and safe everyone.

When we are constantly looking at screens, we can fall into a felt sense of life being small. So, I invite you to step o...
02/01/2026

When we are constantly looking at screens, we can fall into a felt sense of life being small. So, I invite you to step outside and give your sight a full visual experience and a feeling of expansion. Life is so much more nourishing when we are not limiting ourselves. Give yourself permission to take up space.

For those of you needing a sea sensory experience after being indoors yesterday. I can thoroughly recommend Caister-on-s...
26/12/2025

For those of you needing a sea sensory experience after being indoors yesterday. I can thoroughly recommend Caister-on-sea. It's much quieter than other popular beaches nearby and has a large carpark, which is free this time of the year. For those with dogs, sadly there are a couple of dead washed up seals, so just to warn you.

Here's to starting new Christmas traditions associated with joy and laughter. Use all your tools to calm your nervous sy...
24/12/2025

Here's to starting new Christmas traditions associated with joy and laughter. Use all your tools to calm your nervous system that gets triggered by past uncomfortable emotions. Release childhood negative programming and conditioning to release pressure, expectations and duty. Soothe the younger parts of you that are expecting the past to repeat in the here and now. You have the power to create a new experience. Merry Christmas from MJB Counselling 🎄 🎅🧑‍🎄

14/12/2025

🌬️ 4 Layers of Anxiety in the Body & Mind

Anxiety isn’t “just in your head.” It unfolds through a series of body–brain responses that shape how we feel, react, and make meaning.
Understanding these layers helps us meet anxiety with compassion instead of criticism — for yourselves and your clients.

Here’s a breakdown of the four layers you’ll see in the graphic:

1️⃣ Trigger

A real or perceived threat activates the anxiety response.
Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s subtle — a tone of voice, a memory, uncertainty, or a shift in the room.

2️⃣ Body Activation

The nervous system reacts first.
Heart rate increases, muscles tighten, breath shortens, or the stomach drops.
The body says “danger” long before the mind speaks.

3️⃣ Anxiety Narrative

This is when the story kicks in:
“What if this goes wrong?”
“What if I can’t handle it?”
Catastrophizing, looping thoughts, and predictive fear all stem from this layer.

4️⃣ Integration

This is where healing happens.
Grounding the body, slowing the breath, and gently reframing thoughts helps regulate the nervous system and restore a sense of safety.

✨ When we understand these layers, you can support clients in a more integrative, compassionate way — something we understand deeply at the Academy of Therapy Wisdom.

💬 Comment “Safe” below, and we’ll send you the link to Jules Taylor Shore’s FREE webinar on Experiential Therapy Techniques—a powerful resource for deepening your work with the nervous system and emotional regulation.

14/12/2025

For people who fear abandonment or rejection, setting a boundary isn’t a simple communication skill, to them it feels like a direct threat to connection.

And that fear isn't about being logical, because the lives in your nervous system.

So when connection feels fragile, unpredictable, or conditional, your body reacts with very specific lesson you learned from your past. Keep people comfortable so they don’t leave.

Whatever the story, your system learned that connection depended on self-sacrifice in order to survive.

So as an adult, setting a boundary, something healthy, appropriate, and necessary, doesn’t feel empowering to you. It feels dangerous and not safe. It feels like saying, “If I protect myself, I might lose you.” And that is scary.

It's a terrifying equation for a nervous system that has been shaped by abandonment.

Your body is not reacting to the boundary itself.
It’s reacting to old memories, those times when saying “no,” expressing a need, or showing discomfort actually did lead to punishment, withdrawal, or emotional distance.

Your nervous system is protecting you from what it remembers.

08/12/2025

What it took to survive has created a bind. It was adaptive ‘then’ to avoid comfort or self-compassion, to shame and self-judge before attachment figures could find them lacking, but now it has come to feel believable that others deserve or belong or are worth more – while, at the same time, it also feels that these ‘others’ are not to be trusted; they are dangerous.

04/12/2025

Every time we step back from toxic behavior, we’re doing more than avoiding pain; we’re reclaiming our voice, our energy, and our dignity.
Trauma tried to shrink us, but each boundary we hold reminds us that we deserve respect, safety, and space to breathe.

25/11/2025

When grief isn’t about death, it’s often unseen and misunderstood. Learn about the hidden pain of living loss, so you can heal or support others grieving a non-death loss.

20/11/2025

When your nervous system is out of balance, it can show up in so many ways. Maybe you feel constantly on edge, or your digestion is off, or you’re just exhausted all the time. These are signs that your nervous system might need a little care. The good news? You can learn to regulate it.

Regulating your nervous system starts with awareness. When you notice your body feeling tense, your heart racing, or your mind spiraling, that’s your cue to pause and check in. Ask yourself:

What’s happening in my body right now?

What’s my breath like?

Am I feeling safe, or is my limbic system sounding the alarm?

This kind of awareness is the first step to shifting out of survival mode and into a more balanced state.

Here are a few simple practices to help regulate your nervous system:

Deep Breathing: Slow, deep breaths activate your parasympathetic nervous system, helping you calm down. Try inhaling for 4 counts, holding for 4 counts, and exhaling for 6 counts.

Grounding: Use your senses to bring yourself back to the present moment. Notice 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.

Movement: Gentle movement, like stretching or walking, can help release tension and reset your nervous system.

I’d love to hear how you’re working with your nervous system.

14/11/2025

Yes, this is a learned behavior.

And, yes, this one can feel tricky, because the need to belong can make it feel like we *have* to abandon parts of ourselves to be accepted by our communities.
No one fully fits anywhere, right?

Well, when we look at healthy systems, people are allowed to exist as unique individuals within the system and still be loved and accepted. Which means that I would be allowed to feel differently than you about things, and I'd be allowed to have different preferences, boundaries, and to take my own life-route and still be seen as worthy and lovable by my people.

For those who did grow up in healthier, more highly functional systems (and it's a spectrum), they don't believe that being 'different' threatens their belonging or ability to seen and loved by others in the system. And if they have moments of feeling that way, they can talk about it.

For those of us who were raised in more co-dependent systems, we learned that we had to be a certain way in order to receive love.
We learned we had to adapt our needs because others couldn't handle them. And as adults we still operate with that lived experience in our bodies - that if we do something that goes against the system, we'll be cast out (which can feel like life or death in our bodies).

So we've learned to turn against our own intuition and knowing and live a life to please other people. And this is where we find the most psychological suffering - because even when we can't see it at first, it IS a choice, and it is the ultimate form of abandonment; self-abandonment.

To begin to heal is come back to yourself.
To develop a working relationship with your intuition and to begin to trust your inner compass. It takes some time and finessing, but it won't lead you astray. And the more time we spend in this space, the less time we spend downplaying our real selves to fit in.

Did you knowThe EQ School can send daily texts to your phone? It's great if you’re trying to spend less time on social media but still want pointed reminders that help you check in with yourself, and to remind you of why you’re doing the work.
https://hdly.me/theeqschool

07/11/2025

Fawn is the art of keeping the peace, people-pleasing, apologizing too much, and smoothing things over. If this feels like your default, it’s not because you’re weak. It’s because you learned that keeping the peace was essential to survive.
Healing is about teaching your nervous system that it doesn’t have to be on guard anymore.

Address

The Green
Norwich
NR133NY

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

Telephone

+447810547169

Website

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