Bird House Counselling

30/01/2026

When the Past Steps Forward: Healing the Inner Child 🧸

Have you ever reacted to something in a way that felt bigger than the moment? Maybe a sudden wave of fear, a flash of anger, or a deep retreat into silence that didn’t quite match the present.

Often, that isn’t the adult you responding—it’s the younger you, the one who first learned the world could be unsafe.

From a therapeutic lens: When a trauma response is triggered, your nervous system can respond from the developmental age at which the wound occurred. It’s as if a younger part of you steps forward to protect you, using the same tools that helped them survive back then.

Healing begins not by silencing that part, but by turning toward it with compassion.

A therapist helps by creating a safe space where that inner child can finally be heard, seen, and comforted—often for the very first time.

This gentle process might include:

👉Noticing the trigger and softly asking, "How old do I feel right now?"

👉Speaking kindly to that younger self: "I see you. You make sense. You are safe now."

👉Reparenting with care: Offering the comfort, reassurance, and safety that was needed then but wasn’t available.

You aren’t broken. You are adapted. And now, as an adult, you have the ability to become the safe presence your inner child has always needed.

When that young part feels held, the trauma response slowly softens. It no longer needs to shout or hide, because it finally feels protected—by you.

Healing isn’t about erasing the past.
It’s about returning to your younger self with love and letting them know:
"I'm here now. We're okay."

26/01/2026

Anger: The Bodyguard of the Heart 💔

We often think of anger as a primary force—a raw, fiery reaction to being wronged. But beneath its heat, anger is almost never the first feeling. It arrives as a protector, standing guard over something more tender.

As researcher and author Brené Brown has shared, "Anger is a catalyst. It's an emotion we feel when something gets in the way of a desired outcome or when we believe there's a violation of what we think is right. But underneath it, there's always something softer."

That "softer something" is usually one of three core feelings:

Fear – of loss, of threat, of the unknown.

Hurt – from rejection, disconnection, or wounding.

Sadness – from grief, disappointment, or helplessness.

Anger steps forward when these feelings feel too vulnerable to feel alone. It gives us a sense of control when we feel powerless, and energy when we feel drained.

Psychologist Harriet Lerner writes in The Dance of Anger that anger is “a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self.” It’s a signal—not a problem to eliminate, but a message to unpack.

So the next time you feel anger rise, try gently asking:
"What are you protecting?"

You might find a younger part of you that’s scared.
A heart that’s bruised.
A hope that’s aching.

By listening beneath the anger, we don’t just manage the flame—we heal what sparked it. We move from reaction to understanding, and from conflict to compassion—starting with ourselves.

24/01/2026

When Your Light Grows Dim: A Gentle Reminder 🔦

We’ve all felt it—that quiet dimming within, like a flashlight whose beam grows faint. Life, with its weight and wear, can drain our inner brightness. We may feel less visible, less vibrant, less us.

But here is what a caring therapist knows:
When someone’s light dims, you don’t throw them away.
You help them recharge.

From a counselor’s heart, this isn't about “fixing” what’s broken. It’s about returning to the source. It’s sitting beside someone and gently asking:
“What drains you?”
“What used to light you up?”
“Where does your energy go, and how can we help it return?”

In therapy, this often looks like:

Finding the drain – exploring unresolved pain, unmet needs, or patterns that quietly deplete your energy.

Reconnecting to your power source – remembering your values, strengths, and the small moments that bring peace or joy.

Learning how to recharge – not just once, but building habits and boundaries that protect your light day to day.

A therapist doesn’t hand you new batteries. They help you locate your own—sometimes buried under worry, sometimes forgotten in the dark. They create a space safe enough for you to pause, to breathe, and to remember:
You are not a used-up thing.
You are a being of light, and light can always return.

Dimming is not a sign of failure.
It’s a sign of being human.
And just as a flashlight needs care,
so does a soul.

If your light feels low today, be gentle with yourself.
Recharging is not selfish—it’s sacred.
And sometimes, it begins with letting someone sit beside you
and believe in your glow
until you can believe in it again.

22/01/2026

When Vulnerability Meets a Closed Heart 💔

Sometimes, you gather the courage to speak your truth softly. You choose words not as weapons, but as offerings, hoping to be heard, to heal, to connect.

But not every heart is ready to receive them.

You may express a feeling with clarity and care, only to be met with defensiveness, dismissal, or silence. It hurts. It can feel like your vulnerability was misplaced—like you handed someone a delicate gift and they didn’t know how to hold it.

Here is the gentle truth:
Your willingness to be vulnerable is a strength.
Their inability to hear it is a limit—not in you, but in their emotional capacity.

Some people have not yet learned the language of feeling. They may hear emotion as accusation, depth as threat, and need as burden. It doesn’t mean your truth was wrong. It means their listening was not deep enough to meet it.

You can speak from your heart and still not be understood.
That says nothing about the value of your heart,
and everything about the walls around theirs.

So what do you do?

👉Honor your courage. You did the brave thing. You chose truth over silence.

👉Release the expectation that vulnerability must always lead to resolution. Sometimes its purpose is simply honoring yourself.

👉Protect your tenderness. Not everyone deserves access to your inner world. Let their response guide you toward safer spaces.

Your feelings deserve expression—whether they are received or not.
You can be soft and strong.
You can speak your truth,
and still hold yourself when it isn’t met with the grace you offered.

Your voice matters, even if, for now, it echoes in a space that cannot yet respond.

20/01/2026

Feeling the World in High Definition: ADHD Sensitivity 💫

Living with ADHD often means experiencing the world in high definition—not just with your mind, but with your whole being.

It’s more than distraction. It’s sensitivity:

👉Sounds aren’t just heard; they’re felt the buzz of lights, the overlap of conversations, the hum of a room.

👉Emotions arrive not as passing thoughts, but as full-body experiences—yours and others’. You might absorb the mood of a space like a soft echo.

Textures, lights, scents—they don’t just register; they leave an imprint. A tag on a shirt isn’t a small itch; it’s a persistent whisper your skin can’t ignore.

This isn’t being “too sensitive.”
It’s having more receptors open to the world.

It can feel overwhelming like wearing no skin in a storm of stimuli. You might need to retreat, to quiet the world so you can hear yourself again.

But this sensitivity is also a rare way of connecting, noticing subtleties others miss, feeling music in your bones, sensing unspoken truths in a room.

If this is you, be gentle with yourself. Your system is taking in more, so it’s natural to need more quiet, more space, more softness to balance the bright, loud, textured world.

Your sensitivity isn’t a flaw in your wiring.
It’s depth of feeling.
And in a world that often skims the surface, that depth is a gift.

Honor your need for calm.
Let your sensitivity be a teacher, not a trespasser.
You feel more because you’re built to perceive more and that is a form of bravery all its own.

18/01/2026

16/01/2026

Feel Your Feelings, Don't Think Them Through 🌀

We often treat our feelings like a problem to solve. We try to think our way out of what we feel—analyzing, justifying, rationalizing. We "process" by staying in our heads.

But healing doesn't happen in the mind. It happens in the body. In the breath. In the quiet, wordless space beneath the story.

When you feel sadness, anger, fear—don't immediately ask "why?"
Instead, ask "where?"

Where does it live in you?
A tightness in the chest?
A weight in the belly?
A tremor in the hands?
A held breath in the throat?

Go there. Gently. Place a hand on that place. Breathe into it. Not to make it go away, but to be with it. To let it know it's allowed to exist.

Feelings aren't wrong. They're messengers. They're energy moving through. When we think them, we trap them. When we feel them, we let them move.

You don't have to have the words.
You don't need to make it make sense.
You just need to let it be felt.

This is how we release—not through understanding, but through sensation. Through presence. Through allowing.

Give yourself permission to feel without fixing.
To be with what is, without a plan to change it.

The way through isn't around.
It's in.

14/01/2026

Healing the Child Within: Where True Love Begins 🌱

Unconditional love isn't something we find outside first—it's a flame we learn to tend within.

That journey home starts with inner child work: turning toward the younger parts of ourselves we’ve tucked away—the one who felt too much, the one who was told to be quieter, the one who learned to earn love.

When we pause and listen, we might hear a whisper:
"Was I enough? Am I safe? Do I matter?"

That’s where love truly starts—not in grand gestures, but in small moments of return.

It looks like:

Speaking kindly to yourself after a mistake, like you would to a small child

Honoring your feelings instead of dismissing them

Giving yourself permission to rest, play, and be—without needing to produce or prove

Setting gentle boundaries that say, “I matter too”

This isn’t self-indulgence. It’s re-parenting—giving yourself the safety, validation, and steady love your inner child needed but might not have received.

As you offer that unconditional presence to the child within, something shifts. You stop seeking love to fill a void and start embodying love from a place of wholeness.

When your own heart is held with compassion, you can love others from overflow—not from emptiness. You stop asking them to heal what only you can soothe.

The love you’ve been searching for has been waiting inside all along, in the quiet gaze of the child you once were… and still are.

Begin there. 💛

12/01/2026

Keepers of the Flame

Sometimes, we forget our own light. We move through shadows, convinced our inner sun has set.

Then, a rememberer appears.

They don't bring new light. Instead, they gently remind us: Your light was always here. I can see it.

These guides, like Jade Louise of www.jadelouise.com.au create safe spaces not to fix us, but to help us rediscover our own glow. Their work, grounded in empowerment, helps wipe away the dust that obscures our inner light.

For those who've felt "wrong" in a world built for one kind of bright, this guidance is revolutionary. It whispers: Your light isn't wrong. The room needs adjusting.

The rememberer offers tools, not to rebuild you, but to clear the path so your authentic light can shine through. They hold the memory of your wholeness when you can't.

That ache you feel? That longing for warmth? That's not absence. That's your light itself, pressing to be seen.

When you find a rememberer, whether a professional like Jade, a friend, or a mentor, let them point you back to the light within.

You are not a dark house.
You are a window.
And the dawn you're waiting for is your own.

It never left.

10/01/2026

When Being "Available" Leaves You Feeling Used

If you often find yourself overextended, resentful, or feeling taken advantage of, you might be living out an old, familiar role: the reliable one, the giver, the peacekeeper.

From an inner child perspective, this isn’t just a bad habit—it’s a survival strategy. Many of us learned as children that our worth was tied to our usefulness. That love was conditional on how much we could help, how little we complained, or how well we accommodated others’ needs.

Your inner child learned: “To be loved and safe, I must be endlessly available.”

Now, as an adult, that wired-in belief can lead you to say “yes” when you mean “no,” to prioritize others’ comfort over your own well-being, and to confuse being needed with being valued. The result? Emotional exhaustion and a quiet feeling of being used, because the relationship isn’t reciprocal—it’s transactional from your own nervous system’s blueprint.

Healing begins not with building higher walls, but with turning inward. It’s about gently meeting that inner child who learned to trade availability for affection. You can offer them a new truth: “Your worth is not what you do for others. You are valuable simply because you exist.”

When you start to reparent yourself—setting a gentle boundary, honoring your own need for rest, recognizing that you are worthy of receiving, not just giving—you aren’t being selfish. You are teaching that young part of you a new form of safety: one built on self-respect, not on usefulness.

True availability is a choice, not a compulsion. It flows from a full cup, not an empty vessel.

If you see your own patterns in this post and are ready to explore them in a safe, non-judgmental space, I offer compassionate counselling in Bannockburn. Reach out to Birdhouse Counselling to begin the conversation.

08/01/2026

You Are The Adult You Always Needed

There’s a moment in healing when you realize something profound: the safety, understanding, and unconditional love you longed for as a child… can now be given by you.

To your own inner child.

That young part of you who felt scared, unseen, or too much is still within. They’ve been waiting, not for a hero from the past, but for the compassionate adult you’ve become.

You don’t have to change the past. But you can change how that past is held—now.

When you feel that old shame, fear, or loneliness rise, try this gentle shift. Pause, place a hand on your heart, and whisper inside:

"I see you. I'm here now. You are safe with me."

This isn’t just self-care. It’s sacred reparenting. It’s you giving your inner child the very thing they needed most: a reliable, kind, present protector.

The adult you are today is more than enough. You are the safe haven they always needed.

If you're ready to deepen this connection in a supportive space, inner child work can gently guide the way.

07/01/2026

Movement loading…

A real man doesn’t protect his mates’ reputation over a woman’s safety.
A real community doesn’t whisper when abuse screams.

In 2026, we’re stepping into the arena — not replacing the voices that rose, but standing beside them with accountability and action.

This is another core objective for Femme Pire — from 2026 moving forward — because awareness matters, but intervention changes history.

Movement loading.
Are you ready to step in with us? 🩷🧡🔥

Step In. Step Up. Stand Firm.