New Beginnings Counselling and Psychotherapy

24/12/2024

24/02/2024

If you’re feeling slightly overwhelmed by things, or dissatisfied with where your life and relationships are, I can help you get back on track. You don’t have to go it alone.

Dimitra Tsoukalas is a registered Counsellor / Clinician who has a very nurturing and personalised approach to her work.
She is curious and caring, with a professional approach to supporting people to understand and overcome the issues underlying their symptoms.
She is experienced in working with children, adolescents, families, couples, groups and adults from a variety of different backgrounds.
Building a trusting and safe space for her clients is her primary aim

Furthermore, she is deeply passionate about helping you to effectively cope with various personal, relationship, family and /or professional challenges.
The essence of her work is to facilitate self-growth by helping you to identify the core challenges and setbacks in your life, so that you can overcome them with confidence.
She specialises in creating personalised plans, providing you with tools to empower and guide you in moving forward in achieving your desired goals.
Life's too short to be unhappy, unsure or unfulfilled. Let Dimitra help you learn and develop better ways to handle the issues that are standing in your way now.
She is curious, nurturing and prides herself on being client centered and non-judgmental, which enables her to engage and build a safe place for you to be able to express yourself authentically.
Her clients most appreciate her calmness, sense of humour, warmth, and openness to new ideas.

You can visit her website for more information on her professional experience.
Call me today for a complimentary 15 minute consultation.

New beginnings counselling & Psychotherapy Psychological Services Mental Health Services Anxiety Depression Relationships Couples therapy Childrens & Teenagers Individual Therapy Life coaching Parenting Support Therapist Psychologist Anger Management Trauma Grief Family Therapy Stress Mangement Bull...

09/07/2023

Driving home to this, this afternoon.

What a gift!

The sighting of a rainbow usually elicits feelings of awe, excitement, and joy, as well as magic.

Rainbows are gifts that are full of positive signs and spiritual meanings.

And of course, given that they usually appear after a storm, rainbows are a sign of hope.

New beginnings all around.

I wish you joy, love, prosperity, abundance, good health and hope always.

Love Dimitra 💜

08/03/2023

International Womens Day!

Imagine a gender equal world.
A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
A world where difference is valued and celebrated.
Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all .
Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness about discrimination. Take action to drive gender parity.
IWD belongs to everyone, everywhere. Inclusion means all IWD action is valid.

Why is IWD on the 8th March?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the holiday was first celebrated in New York City on March 8, 1857.
At the time, female textile workers were protesting unsafe working conditions, unfair wages, and general inequality that women were continuously facing. This was the first-ever strike organized by working women.

We thank these wonderful women who pioneered these changes and enabled women to have a voice!

A wonderful song to celebrate all the wonderful women that we are!

I Am Woman Song by Helen Reddy. Access the link below to listen! Take a moment to honour yourself today and all other women.

Love Dimitra 💜

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptW7zOPX2E

02/03/2023

Be Kind Day
BE KIND DAY 2023

Australia’s National Be Kind Day is on Thursday 2nd March 2023.

BE THE CHANGE you would like to see in the world … Buddha

Every day children, young adults & adults are bullied online, at work and at school.

The hateful comments online are increasing.

2-3 young people EVERY week are ending their lives due to bullying.

We must all stand together and stand against them!

Being Kind is about generation change. Our children will follow if we show them that kindness comes first.

HOW TO BE KIND
Make your first thought, feeling, reaction to any situation a KIND one.

Kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

We can all be kinder. Kinder to ourselves, kinder to others - even kinder to the planet. It’s often easy to take things for granted, especially when we’re all moving through life at a lightning-fast pace.

Being kind can provide a welcome break from the aforementioned hectic pace of life. With it, kindness can bring positivity to yourself and others around you too.

National Be Kind Day
Make everyday a kind day!

Let’s start today by being kind.. think kind, act kind.. be kind.
Love Dimitra 💜

27/12/2022

GOAL SETTING 2023!

Before you decide on your goals for the New Year, you may want to do this simple exercise of your year in review.
Life goes by fast and more often than not, we don’t take time to celebrate our growth. Slow down speed racer! The adult kid in you needs a pat on that back, so please give yourself that experience!

As Margaret Wheatley said, “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”

Plus, if you’re always focused on the next thing, you’ll miss the absolutely vital lessons along the way. So take an honest inventory of what worked and what you’d like to improve. The questions below will help you. Think of this phase of journaling like a closing ceremony—a way to look back so that you can spring forward!

1. What’s something amazing you discovered about yourself?
2. What’s the most important thing you learned this year?
3. What accomplishment or experience are you the most proud of?
4. What’s one perspective shift you could make that would lead to more love in your life and in the lives of others?
5. What are you ready to release in 2023? ( one limiting story)
6. What are you ready to experience in 2023?
7. How will you challenge yourself (push yourself out of your comfort zone) to achieve what you desire in the new year?

Now, choose a realistic number of goals or intentions for 2023?
For me, that’s three. Then write a list of all the action items needed to accomplish your goal. And finally, add these tasks to your calendar. If you don’t work them into your schedule or daily practice, they won’t happen.
Goals without actionable steps are just wishes. Make it happen, captain!

Go forth and conquer!
Love Dimitra
❤️🙏

24/10/2022

There’s much to be grateful for.
Warm homes, food in our bellies, people who love us, and the freedom to pursue our callings and dreams.

Focusing on what we have rather than what we don’t, is good for our hearts, as well as our health. Improving immune systems, lowering blood pressure and even helping us to sleep better at night.

Yet gratitude gone deeper…

Where we mindfully pause to dig deep for the golden nuggets of growth gained through troubling times…
Consciously seek out the silver linings inherent in each set back…
And look for the good born from the bad…

This is what will ripen us into the people we were born to become, and enable us to realise our higher potentials in life and in love. Our attention so easily stays fixed on bitterness. “How could this happen to us?” we ask indignant and dismayed. Easily staying stuck in the disappointment.

e.e. cummings once said,
“Always the beautiful answer
who asks a more beautiful question.”

So rather than ruminating and complaining, let’s ask instead,
“How is this happened for us,
rather than just to us?”

“What golden opportunities for growth
are present in this breakdown?”

“How can we turn these letdowns
into gifts of wisdom, goodness, beauty
and grace we now have to offer others
who may be hurting more than we are?”I invite us all to look for the golden nuggets in every setback and disappointment we’ve endured this year.

Let’s relate to them all as a call to rise, and the push we’ve needed to grow ourselves great

Love Dimitra 💜

06/06/2022

The body is our emotional home.

Imagine a home that was always stressed, uncomfortable, painful, and full of unprocessed stuff.

You wouldn't want to return home after a day of work would you? You would stay out and walk around, anything to go back home.

But if you also knew that in that home there was lots of joy, love, abundance, and gratitude you would most likely be OK with going back.

This is what it's like for us in our bodies.

For years the body becomes an unsafe space.

So we use distraction, overthinking, health problems, addictions to get away from it.

But when we tap into those moments of joy in real time, and feel what that feels like in our body in that very moment, our body takes a snapshot and remembers that.

Slowly we return home. Back into the body and whilst there will be discomfort, there will also be love and compassion.

Love Dimitra 💜

14/04/2022

You are allowed to take up space.
You are allowed to take up a lot of space.
You are allowed to have big energy.
You are allowed to be a leader.
You are allowed to be strong.
You are allowed to be vulnerable.
You are allowed to be a mess.
You are allowed to have it together.
You are allowed to be too much for some people.
You are allowed to be big, bold and bright.
You are allowed to win.
You are allowed to lose.
You are allowed to kick ass.
You are allowed to fall flat on your face.
You are allowed to be scared.
You are allowed to be fearless.
You are allowed to take your time.
You are allowed to jump in with both feet.
You are allowed to cry, to scream, to laugh, to weep, to giggle, to gasp, to moan, to breathe, to move without judgement.
You are allowed to be many many things woven together into the beautiful masterpiece that is YOU!
No more judging yourself.
No more holding back.
No more rejecting authentic self.
You are beautiful
You are magical
You are perfectly complex, layered, interesting and unique.
Clear some space today to honour, appreciate and acknowledge YOU and your one million layers.

Love Dimitra 💜

28/03/2022

Caveat: Sometimes a breach in a relationship is just too big to repair, and a relationship ends in its wake. But this post is about how we move though the hurt and reestablish connection.⁣
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To be in an intimate relationship for any length of time, we need to know how to repair. The health of our relationship rests on our ability to move away from annoyed/hurt/angry/disappointed and back toward gentle/calm/kind/open.⁣
⁣
We have to know how to forgive.⁣
We need to make sure we don’t confuse forgiveness with foolishness.⁣
Forgiveness is essential.⁣
⁣
To love someone over time requires that we learn the sacred art of letting s**t go.⁣
⁣
Because missed opportunities will happen.⁣
Because thoughtless acts will happen.⁣
Because sharp tones will happen. ⁣
⁣
These unfortunate things will happen NOT because our partner isn’t “The One” but because our partner is not perfect. ⁣
⁣
And, newsflash, we aren’t perfect either!⁣
⁣
Relational Self-Awareness questions for you:⁣
- How did the big people in your home do repairs? ⁣
- Did they offer apologies? ⁣
- Did they proactively invite their partner to do something fun/engaging/gentle in order to reestablish connection? ⁣
⁣
Many many of us go into intimate relationships having never seen (or experienced) relational repair. Grieve what you didn’t have a chance to witness when you were young. And then get busy learning and growing!⁣
⁣
The heart of repair is CHOICE. ⁣
Choosing connection over vindication. ⁣
Choosing forgiveness over righteousness.⁣
You *could* choose to hold a grudge and remain closed off. ⁣
But instead you choose to move, step by step, back into connection. Tentatively, perhaps, but curiously. Remembering that love is messy and life is hard, and there is a grace in choosing progress over perfection.⁣
⁣
(excerpt Dr Alexandra Solomon)

22/03/2022

Bouncing Back - Resilience
Setbacks are one of life’s certainties and a universal part of the human experience. But there’s good news, too. Research studies, and likely your own experience, show that resilience in the face of adversity can help ensure that you bounce back, reduce the effects of stress, and even buffer against negative mental health outcomes.
More good news? Resilience can be learned.
It’s not easy being resilient when your dreams turn to dust, and your heart feels like someone just stomped all over it.
Sometimes the choice to learn from your mistakes, to stay brave and kind, to keep putting yourself out there, and to forgive life for letting you down (once again) is nothing short of heroic.
Yet even more beautiful than bouncing back, is discovering how to use each disappointment to help you bounce forward.
You can consciously use your loss to cultivate greater wisdom, maturity, compassion, depth, and strength.
Relating to whatever has happened as the bottom you may have needed to finally stop giving your power away, dimming your light, begging for crumbs, or pretending to be less than who you really are.
So that your failure becomes your liberation.
The thing that finally causes you to claim your rightful place in this world, and begin living fully from the deeper truth of your worthiness, your value, your goodness, and your power.
Loss will change you.
Yet how it changes you,
is up to you.
Be more than before.
Whenever something horrible
happens, be grateful.
Each sad and tragic event also
holds the seeds of your awakening.

Furthermore an optimistic mindset is an especially potent tool for promoting positive emotions and buffering against mental health symptoms, and is even associated with improved physical health outcomes.

20/03/2022

Fact check - 30 minutes a day of reflection on gratitude and appreciation increases our immune system by 50%. In contrast, an extreme focus on external threats generates anxiety and decreases our immune system..
💜