Arise Counseling Corp.

01/05/2026

Free SCHOOL REFUSAL ICEBERG
Tomorrow many children go back to school after the holidays.
For some families, this does not look like excitement or new uniforms. It looks like tears, stomach aches, anger, shutdown, or a child who suddenly cannot face the school gate.

This is often called school refusal, but for many children it is not about refusing. It is about stress. It is a child showing that something at school feels too much right now.

What adults usually see is the behaviour. What we do not always see is the anxiety, fear of failure, bullying, sensory overload, exhaustion from coping, or past experiences that made school feel unsafe. Pushing harder rarely fixes this. Listening, slowing down and looking underneath the behaviour is what helps.

If a child is struggling to return to school, they are not being difficult. They are communicating in the only way they can. Behaviour is a message. The question is whether we are ready to listen.

Comment REFUSAL and we will send you a message with a link to a free printable PDF of this resource.

01/02/2026

12/31/2025

Many of us long for the love we never learned to give ourselves.

And often, we end up expecting our partners to heal what only we truly can.

Because if you can’t hold yourself in warm regard, you’ll go looking for someone else to do it for you.

You’ll start to use your partner’s affection as a prosthetic for your own shaky self-worth.

This pattern almost always traces back to an abandonment wound.

If we weren’t given unconditional love as children, we begin to chase it in our adult relationships.

But adults do not give other adults unconditional love. That’s not how mature relationships work.

We can all act in ways enough to harden the hearts of those we love.

As adults, our task is to turn inward and give ourselves the unconditional love we missed out on as children. To learn how to build the inner warmth and compassion we’ve been seeking in others.

Because until you can hold yourself in warm regard, no relationship will ever feel truly enough.

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Losing a loved one to su***de is difficult and can come with a lot of complicated emotions. There is support available to help survivors of su***de loss like you, your friends, and family cope with…

12/28/2025

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