Swan Lake Therapy

18/11/2022

Orphaned Part = Split off part of one's Psyche & Being

Created during a time of extreme distress.
The Nervous System perceives threat and the 'threat response' never finds full completion.

The Orphaned Part, from that day forward, will keep an eye out for a potentially similar situation to occur.
We get stuck in a Hyper Vigilant state.

Most humans have dozens (sometimes a lot more) of these parts which become active during the day.
When we can never find relief from the hyper vigilance then we tend to turn to Coping Mechanisms, drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, shopping, s*x, work, etc.

We hear the term Integration a lot in the healing world.
What we are integrating is these Orphaned Parts.
Finding them, locating their origin, understanding them, processing them & welcoming them back Home.

Courtesy of
Ryan Hassan

13/02/2021

If you find yourself becoming overwhelmed during the holiday season, we've developed this booklet with self-calming ideas, skills and strategies:http://www.newpathways.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Self-calm-booklet-NEWPATHWAYS.pdf

13/02/2021

Trauma is often difficult to describe and can be caused by many different events and experiences. Learn more through our Understanding Trauma resource booklet:
http://www.newpathways.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Understanding-Trauma-SEACHANGE_NEWPATHWAYS.pdf

31/01/2021

The ordinary response to atrocities committed against a person is to banish them from consciousness. However, some violations are just too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialect of psychological trauma.

Far too often secrecy of the terrible events prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom.

Symptoms can include alternate feelings of feeling numb and reliving the event. Traumatisation can also give rise to complicated alterations of consciousness, also known as dissociation as well as a range of other symptoms.

Witnesses of a traumatic event can also experience symptoms of trauma.

Denial, repression and dissociation can operate on a social as well as an individual level.

Traumatized individuals need to understand the past in order to reclaim their present and the future...

29/01/2021

Getting yourself back into your body through grounding.

29/01/2021

What happens at the moment of trauma?

30/11/2020

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE. There are NO rules!!

"When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

“What are you struggling with?” he asked.

I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”

I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.

I wanted to have something more substantial.
Something more profound.
But I didn’t.

So I told him, "Honestly? The dishes. It's stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown-ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?

But, my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:

“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”

I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later, I folded my laundry and put it wherever the f**k they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But, at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

THERE ARE NO RULES.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!!!"

Author unknown

15/07/2020

04/07/2020