Lydia Nicholson Therapy

20/12/2025

The importance of witnessing grief and the value of rituals in grief.

20/12/2025

Christmas is not a happy or easy time for everyone

A seasonal reminder, for the weekend of the shortest day, that Christmas and the winter holiday season isn't always 'merry.'

If this season of jollity and connection jars for you, snags at your raw edges or catches your breath with loss, I'm sorry.

You're not alone. In fact, you're almost certainly near other people pretending to feel jolly whose hearts are numb, or empty, or broken.

I'm sorry the festivities leave little room for the things that matter most to some of us: memories of happier times, companionship that doesn't insist on good cheer, space for the names of the people or relationships we are yearning for.

In our compassionate community here, there are kind souls who help us hold our pain for a while. Thank you to all those loving hearts.

However you get through the season, I wish you moments of inner gladness, sparks of hope, and a sense that you matter whatever your mood. If you find yourself unexpectedly merry, I hope you'll be able to relish that moment. If you find it too hard to pretend, then don't. Instead, give yourself permission to sit with your distress. And remember that others often wonder how to help - so invite them to sit with you if you would welcome company.

We can get through this. We can do hard things. We are doing hard things - this is just another one.

Sending love.

Photo is a December sunset. A moment of radiance. One of those soul-supporting . I hope you'll find yours xx

22/10/2025

“Bring your people with you”

13/10/2025

Doing the best we can is enough

In this beautifully animated clip from Dirt! The Movie, Wangari Maathai tells an inspiring tale of doing the best you can under seemingly interminable odds. ...

03/09/2025

Grief is the bed-fellow of life and is too often assigned only to the final chapter. Acknowledging grief and loss in our living lives can offer the opportunity for self- compassion and a gentler moving forward with a kinder inner understanding of our sadness.

There’s a particular kind of grief that often goes unnamed. It’s not the grief of losing someone we love or even the grief that accompanies a devastating diagnosis.

19/06/2025

19/05/2025

Spirituality, I love this definition

05/05/2025

The unfixable - other people’s happiness

20/04/2025

Beautiful blessings and wisdom regardless of your beliefs 🙏🏻 Indeed, life is short and worthy of treasuring

EASTER BLESSINGS

"On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry -- old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling -- and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.

We don't realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren't put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously.

May the spirit and light of this Easter morning and the special spirit and light of this abbey at Corcomroe bless us all, watch over us and protect us on our journey, open us from the darkness into the light of peace and hope and transfiguration."

JOHN O'DONOHUE
Dawn Mass Reflections at Corcomroe Abbey

Excerpt from his books: Walking in Wonder (US) / Walking on the Pastures of Wonder (UK)
https://johnodonohue.com/

Dawn at Corcomroe Abbey
County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

16/02/2025

I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, for sure. This is a great reminder to try and let go of needing to be liked.

As a counsellor I’m not everyone’s preferred flavour of therapist. Shop around, do some taste testing before you decide which therapist is best for you.

YOU CAN’T BE EVERYONE’S CUP OF TEA

There will always be someone in this life who just doesn’t like you, no matter how hard you try to please them.
There will always be something that you say, or do, which causes offence or division.
Whether you meant to or not.
There will always be someone who finds fault in you, your life or your words.
You may never find out why, please don’t waste your precious time trying to.

You can’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

Then there will be those who like you on impact.
A little fizz of energy that passes between you.
Silently, unseen, bonding.
Those people will not only like you but they will like you fiercely.
They are your people.
Whatever spare time you have, spend it on them.

You can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but you can be someone’s first sip of a cold drink on a sunny day…

Or a warming hot chocolate when you come in from the rain
or the pop of a long awaited champagne cork
or a stiff shot of tequila when things go awry

Find your people,
love them hard.

Donna Ashworth
from ‘to the women’ just released as a celebratory new version, with 70 new poems ❤️ : https://amzn.eu/d/f75763G

Art by IRA WHITTAKER