Eve's Counselling

05/12/2025

We’re so happy to share our very first themed Shared Journeys gathering… A warm, festive Christmas Coffee Gathering for adult women in Dorset ☕️.

There are moments when life feels busy, pressured, or a little overwhelming. Our December gathering is an invitation to slow down, step away from the noise, and simply breathe again.

This space is for women seeking a moment of calm, connection, and warmth. A chance to settle with a hot drink, ease the weight on your shoulders, and be around others who understand the demands of life.

There’s no pressure to share, no group introductions, and no expectations. Just a cosy room, comfortable seating, gentle conversation if you want it. We’re creating an atmosphere that feels calm, welcoming, and unhurried. A space to just be, whether you feel like chatting or resting quietly... the simple comfort of pausing for a while.

As therapists who care deeply about comfort, safety, and genuine connection, we’ll be there to welcome you, hold the space gently, and offer support in a way that feels natural and unforced.

If you’d like to join us for this first festive gathering, you’re warmly invited.

📩 Message us privately to register your interest.

Full details, including dates, times, and locations, will be shared privately with those who reach out.

More themed coffee meet-ups will be announced soon…
and we can’t wait to welcome you.

With love,
Mel & Eve 🤍

21/11/2025

14/11/2025

You are not "broken" you are just hurting. And need someone to listen with compassion and care.

05/11/2025

What are your needs? Take time to figure this out. It really helps.

It allows us to meet our own needs in a gentle way, with care, compassion and communicate them to others. Giving ourself what we need is the most powerful thing we can do, it can have a ripple effect on people around us.

Don't assume people know what you need (or use 'should') as this can cause further problems. People are not mind readers. We have to tell people how we feel, what we need, the reasons why and be willing to admit whats ours.

When our needs are not met we feel fear, hurt, anxious and angry. We can hold onto these feelings and get stuck in a mind body loop, playing out what has happened over and over, our body reacting with stress and tension. When these feelings and physical sensations show up, use them to figure what needs are not being met.

Do you need trust, respect, honesty and loyalty?
Do you need to feel significant, valued, appreciated and acknowledged?
Do you need to feel seen for who you are, understood or heard?
Do you need to be supported, encouraged and treated fairly or equally?
Do you need to feel useful, loved or cared for?
Do you need to belong?

24/10/2025

Early warning signs in a relationship from a Hampshire Domestic Violence Service for teenagers, young people and adults of all ages.

💔Many of the signs that people may interpret as being attentive, caring and romantic ARE actually WARNING SIGNS of future abuse:

1. Constantly asks you where you are going, who you are with, when will you be back. This may start off being attractive because someone is concerned about you and your whereabouts. But can become intrusive and oppressive.
2. Wants to spend as much time as possible together, wants you all to him/herself. Has negative opinions about family and friends, and tries to convince you not to spend time with them. Encourages you to drop out of any outside activities and not to engage with external agencies and services.
3. Gets serious very quickly and wants to settle down together, get married, have children etc after only a few months. Puts pressure on you to accept these arrangements.
4. Come on really strong, is extremely charming and an overly smooth talker.

🚩 Other signs may reveal an underlying lack of respect for you, your wishes and needs:

5. Blames others for his/her feelings or problems. Fails to take responsibility for the consequences of his/her own actions.
6. Has unrealistic expectations and expects partner to be able to meet all his/her needs.
7. Makes all the decisions and doesn’t take into account your needs or wishes. It may take some time to notice that you are not making any decisions, as at first you may just be whisked away on dates. However, if you mention that you do not want to do what your partner has planned - they become angry or upset. This is a sign that they have no awareness of your needs.
8. Gets very upset or acts hurt if things don’t go his/her way, takes offense when others disagree with an opinion, gets very upset at the normal inconveniences of life.
9. Gets angry if their wishes are not fulfilled, or what they want to do is not anticipated.
10. Refers to people of your s*x with negative remarks, shows a lack of respect towards all women/men.
11. Unable to handle emotional or s*xual frustrations without becoming angry, sulky or withdrawing.

🗣️There may be clues in the way your partner talks about your or their past:

12. Secretive about past relationships or talks about how they were treated terribly by the ‘evil ex’.
13. Not allowed to see their children from a previous relationship, blames the ‘evil ex’ For this.
14. Accuses you of flirting with other men, does not like you talking about previous relationships or spending time with other male friends, becomes jealous easily. Although this may be presented as a sign of his/her love for you. It is not, it is a sign of possessiveness and lack of trust.

National Domestic Abuse Helpline. Call for free and in confidence, 24 hours a day: 0808 2000 247.Use our chatbot to chat to us and find information.

PARAGON is part of The YOU Trust and is their domestic abuse, s*xual violence and stalking team.
https://paragonteam.org.uk/

Paragon Dorset
0800 032 5204
ParagonDorset@theyoutrust.org.uk

16/10/2025

A new video - a brief moment to meet me.

Southbourne, Bournemouth.

15/10/2025

Our identity is shaped and influenced by others throughout our life. Our beliefs about ourselves have often been imposed by those around us, our environment, the culture and society we live in. We are affected by what people say, how they behave and how they react and respond to us. It is so easy to compare ourselves with others and feel less than. The impact of this is we can feel stressed, anxious, depressed, isolated, hopeless and stuck.

You can choose to challenge other people’s negative or critical beliefs and actions, as they are not accurate and do not reflect who you are. We have all made mistakes and won't always get it right. This is what makes us human. You can have a different relationship with yourself which is gentle, forgiving and understanding.

You have courage and can be assertive. You are valuable and worthy of respect. You are wise, resilient and capable. You are organised and responsible. You are different and interesting. You have something to offer. You can connect with others. You don’t deserve to have experienced what you did and you are not to blame.

Imagine being in control, creating an identity and way of being based on your own beliefs and what you might learn about yourself in the process.

28/09/2025

As a counsellor I am here to support you with what you are experiencing in your current relationship or past relationships. The following post is not relevant to relationships where there is abuse, violence, stalking or a dynamic of power, control and coercion.

Relationships can have conflict or rupture. Whether it’s a plutonic relationship such as non - romantic companionship, intimate and romantic, or physical. There are a variety of relationships from acquaintances to family, friends and work. We are biologically wired for connection, deep research focusing on the evolution of our brain and body supports this.

With rupture comes the opportunity for repair, but repair is a skill and not easy. Do you initiate repair? How open are you to receiving repair? Even when its clumsily or imperfect? Many people don’t know how to repair as conflict wasn’t modelled in a healthy way. Our ability to repair can be influenced by the blueprint for relationships we internalised from those around us when we were born and developing.

The important thing is we can make changes. There is a direct link to wellbeing and repair. If you want to learn more about how we relate to others, the origins of our automatic responses and explore rupture and repair in relationships. Contact me.

Call now to connect with business.

20/09/2025

Did you know our brain can generate between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day and 70% of these tend to be critical and negative.

BUT we are all born with a capacity to heal.

Psychologist Dr Rick Hanson stated "Positive experience washes through the brain like water through a sieve”.

Let me help your brain and body focus on positive experiences, rather than hyper-focusing on threat. In sessions I do this by respecting and honouring your inherent abilities, capacity and characteristics that are present when you face difficulties.

I take time to pause and focus on your moments of calm, relaxation, hope or joy so your nervous system can rest and regulate. I will encourage you to expand and embody the felt sense to take a snapshot your system can return to when in times of distress. Embody means focusing on body sensations to make emotional and psychological healing more likely to happen.

11/09/2025

How Imagination Shapes And Influences Our Reality - the bridge between the physical world and our internal world.

Imagination allows us to leave our everyday routine and think about many things that are more interesting. We may imagine rewriting the past or rehearse the future. We imagine multiple themes such as love, food, s*x, conflict, different jobs, travel, solutions to problems and other people’s experiences. It is the space between what we watch on screen, read in books, see in art and listen to on podcasts. We desire and create in our imagination.

But what if our imagination is broken or horrible and distressing?

As a culture we are suspicious of imagination, comments like “you have an over active or wild imagination” contribute to this. BUT imagination is crucial to our health and wellbeing, it can improve our quality of life. It is a filter for all experiences through which we see ourselves and express ourselves. It influences our perception - what you see and how you see.

It makes sense then to say imagination can help us understand ourselves, other people and the world around us. It can give us relief from emotional pain, enhance pleasure and enrich our relationships. It allows us to be creative, imagine future possibilities, have hopes and dreams.

Imagination And The Pathway From Absence Or Distress - To Healing.

Some people suffer through reimagining or reliving past events, may experience shame and are tortured by frightening images of things that have happened or may happen in the future. This affects emotions and physical sensations. Which in turn has an impact on health and being around others. Some people suffer from a failure of imagination which results in an inability to imagine choice, think things will be better and have hope.

The good news is....we don’t have to surrender to a lack of imagination or let images take control and have power over us. We can begin to tolerate and move through distress to a place where you can experience feeling safe and rest.

If we harness the power that visualising has to influence our behavior and emotions, we can make the outcomes we want more likely. Why and how does this work? Because imagining creates neural pathways in your brain similar to those activated by real life events. You can work on your body and brain responding in a way that is helpful and healing.

The Use Of Imagination In My Counselling Sessions.

In counselling we will find a safe way to encourage and grow your imaginative capacity to create a new story, have a place to go, make goals and envision a new future. We can consciously and deliberately practice using our imagination to emotionally regulate, stimulate calm and soothe your nervous system. You can try this out in everyday life and expand your range of thinking, feeling, perception and action.

Learning new things and techniques in counselling creates new neutral pathways in the brain and being in the body. So you can recover, feel safe, build resilience, handle conflict, overcome stress and manage mental and physical health problems.

Call me to find out more.