What’s different about me?

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Well I didn’t go to Cambridge or Oxford coming from Yorkshire, well you just wouldn’t, would you! Of course academia is important but as Jimi Hendricks said, “Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens”.  When I asked myself what’s different about me, it has to be my lived experiences, going through, overcoming and putting all I’ve learnt together in supporting others, just like you to thrive not just survive.

 

Over the years I've learnt what it is to be a Human Being with all my facets, learnt to be happy in my own skin, despite and in spite of what life has thrown at me and its thrown a lot.  Yet I put this all under the heading 'life' because that's what we're all in 'life' were living, breathing Beings.  Going beyond previous levels of functioning, understanding and self-awareness by accepting and integrating both negative and positive aspects of trauma, grief, loss, living a process of change that transformed my life.  Most people who contact me just want to feel better, not everyone one wants to transform their whole life, yet  by focusing on Emotional Intelligence, EI for short, can transform anyone's life.  Because let’s face it we all have emotions, and they can either make or break us, can mean the difference between living a life that is emotionally rich, resilient and integrated with post traumatic growth or a life of flatness, fear and uncertainty. 

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Lets talk about EI

 

The thing we all have in common is a life with emotions, what's different is how we each live our personal lives, we can be  drowning in a sea of emotions and still gain emotion intelligence.  As children we learn from observing the behaviours of others, since actions speak louder than words, as children grow and develop they adopt and model the behaviours of the significant people around them. We've all heard people say "this is how we/I've always done it", and if we never stop to think about 'how we do'  then we carry on doing what we do and getting the same results. 

 

As we become adults

 

If you're similar to me then I was never taught anything about emotions, how to handle them, what they are and how they can be harnessed to empower the feel good factor. As an adult if we never stop to think about our EI we carry on with what we know.  A bit like a vacuum cleaner when the bag is full the vacuum carries on making all the right noises but without picking up the flotsam and jetsam, it won't until we stop and empty it.  Our minds work a little like that, in that once full it can't take in any more and stay healthy.  As our brainpower continues to work what's already in there just gets more and more tightly packed. As our lives continue, we get full to bursting and if we carry on without conscious reflection or sifting through we'll probably burst, or more usual have a meltdown, panic, live with the uncomfortable low mood or anxiety or both, behave passive or aggressively, have angry outbursts or sit tightly packed with no wiggle room and shutdown not functioning well.  As I said not healthy. 

 

 

Older & Wiser!

 

You can rise like a phoenix from the ashes, ascend, rise out of the dark void, unlock the emptiness, have energy, find meaning and purpose for your living and with creativity be connected to yourself and others at the level you choose to be.  Relationships are everything to human beings we don't live in a vacuum and need others, but if you live with an abusive partner and feel like you can't get away, or being coerced into doing things you don't want to, the relationship itself becomes the void. This is true of the relationship you have with yourself, your friends, family, work colleague, siblings or any relationship you are part of.  Ask yourself are you kind to yourself? Are you compassionate with yourself? Are you gentle with yourself? If you're reading this the answer is probably not, this can be due to experiences you've had in your lifetime, such as difficult childhood, childhood sexual abuse, neglect or just didn't ever get your needs met because your caregivers didn't know how.  You may have low self-esteem or confidence or never built emotional intelligence, or had it, but lost it to another experience in life a breakup, death or traumatic event that left you feeling lost or not yourself anymore. 

 

Specialisms 

 

Experienced in many areas of counselling and emotional health, my energies and focus over the past 20 years have been on supporting others to alleviate the symptoms of trauma and the life-changing ripple effects left behind, such as anxiety, grief and loss.  Including through death, and whilst we will all go through a bereavement in our lifetime a death can hit us like a tornado and be traumatic. Its not something to get over in a short space of time. The death of a spouse can leave you feeling lost and alone, the death of a child is a parents worst nightmare come true, the loss of a friend can leave a hole that can't be filled, such loses are not something to 'get over' but need working through.

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Presently as well as my private practice I work in a Children's Hospice in the role of lead counsellor, supporting families going through the toughest of times. Within a specialist trauma and bereavement service, supporting families from diagnosis, living with a child with life-limiting and life-shortening conditions to painful palliative care and the traumatic bereavement process following death. 

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Trauma by its very nature robs us of gaining or holding onto our emotional intelligence  

 

 

Therapy with me

 

Is practical, realistic compassionate and very passionately human, meeting you where you are in life, your journey to healing, beginning from where you are here and now. From a relational perspective, I offer you a grounded presence of safety, listen and hear you, offering time and attention within an empathetic, and confidential environment. A space to support you to untangle, understand and discover aspects of yourself that perhaps you haven’t noticed and put to good use before. This will lead to you making informed choices and taking mindful actions, whilst shifting and mastering your emotions, so they are not the master of you. My focus is on you, I will support you, using my experience, awareness, skills, and knowledge, to enable you to feel better, work out any old and outdated emotional patterns or unresolved past traumas which may be holding you back here and now, who you are and who you want to be, where you want to be in the future.

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The ultimate aim to re-empower you to regain and maintain balance in your mental and emotional worlds long after therapy has ended  

 

Supporting you ethically, lawfully and competently.

 

I went back into academia at the age of forty because as a passionate nurturer and to be a safe professional counsellor we need to slow the pendulums of the mind, strike a balance between academia and lived experiences to support you  to find your  personal  peace and contentment.  Whilst I have been successful, achieved qualifications and become a professional counsellor I have continued learning, growing and developing my knowledge and understanding of what makes us tick, what it is to live as a peaceful and contented human being in a richly satisfying emotional world. 

 

Professional credentials

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• Advanced Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling - CPCAB Humanistic  

• Advanced Certificate in Clinical Supervision Including Online and Telephone Working

• Complex Trauma Certificate 1 (C-PTSD) - Janine Fisher

  • Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma - Janine Fisher

• Complex Trauma Certificate 2 (C-PTSD) - Janine Fisher

  • Working with Complex Trauma & Dissociation

  • Healing the Shame of Our Fragmented Self - Janine Fisher

• Internal Family System - Frank Anderson.

• On-Line and Telephone Counselling

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Experience:

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• Cruse Bereavement Care - Bereavement 60 hour Program

• Victim Support Serious Crime Training - Supporting Victims of sexual Abuse and Domestic Violence

• Doncaster Alcohol Services  (DAS) - Supporting people misusing and family members affected by

• Shaw Trust supporting Disadvantaged Families with child disruptive behaviours and parents with practical daily activities.

• Bluebell Wood Children's Hospice - Lead Counsellor supporting families through the toughest of times

 

Many many other continuing professional development to many to write here, portfolio available at first session.

 

I am a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and adhere to their ethical framework and additionally rising to the challenge updating and adding to my competencies and undertaking training to offer Online & Telephone Counselling. This enables me to offer my services professionally and competently remotely.  Recognised by my ethical body BACP and the Association for Counselling and Therapy Online (ACTO).   I have gained the specific awareness, skills and knowledge to work as a Counselling  practitioner and Supervisor via telephone and e-counselling.  You can be confident my remote services are as professional as in-person support. 

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Facing difficult challenges can leave you feeling 'as if ' it's almost impossible to move or progress from feeling stuck or to be you, the you, you’ve always wanted to be or make goals to work towards. You don't need to be alone when distressed, confused or bereft, together we will make sense of what's happening to you, explore and find solutions you can live with more readily and/or find acceptance in things that can't be changed. 

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If your ready to start healing, set sail into post traumatic growth, find meaning and purpose and begin living the life you want.  With a creative, curious, compassionate, experienced and knowledgeable counsellor with lived experience of post traumatic growth, contact me here.

 

I offer a free half hour telephone or video call so you can meet me before our first session.  Contact me at pendulumofpeace8@gmail.com or telephone, text, WhatsApp message on 07867938630 and lets connect and realise the possibilities and your potential.