Kym Madden Counselling

19/09/2025

Is your life changing? At times of voluntary or involuntary change, it can really help to have a caring professional to support you. Counselling is a sign of health and resilience, not weakness.

I endeavour to provide a gentle, clear, compassionate approach that meets you where you're at, and respects your needs and best hopes. I am a mature age counsellor who will not judge nor share any information. Sometimes all we need is to speak aloud what is in us.

I draw upon acceptance and commitment therapy, internal family systems and solution focused brief therapy to help you build greater meaning, connection, and fulfilment in times of stress and change.

In-person, telephone, and online sessions available. No obligation for number of sessions. Please see www.kymmaddencounsellingandcoaching.com for more information, or contact me on 0438 357 772

16/09/2025

Thoughts from a local counsellor ....

Too much of a good thing? An antidote for you to consider

We have come to rely on our minds for getting through our days, organising ourselves and our families, assessing how we are doing, fixing things that go wrong, and planning our future.

Our minds are indeed wonderful in so many ways.

However, problems will often come from how we are thinking about ourselves, a relationship, or a situation. How we are looking at something makes a significant difference to what we experience. Yet changing this lens can seem impossible.

Also, we can restlessly turn over things in our mind. Trying to figure out what's happened and what the best solution might be. Many of us have all seen firsthand how our minds can entrap us.

What can we do when we are struggling? One antidote I put to you is this: see if you can find your heart in all of this.

The first step is to shift from your mind to your body. Notice what discomfort or pains you have, and where you feel it most. Are you carrying stress or tension in your muscles? if yes, which part is feeling it the most? If you scan your body, what do you notice? Can you acknowledge these sensations and feelings for just a moment or two? Just notice them there and let them have a little space so that they can move through you when they are ready to do so. By resisting them, we are locking them into our bodies.

The second step is to gently turn your attention inwards to your heart area. What emotions are you feeling right now? If you can, name each as you notice that feeling. Sadness, fear, anger, frustration. Whatever is there is your heart, notice it.

The last step is to ask your heart what heart quality will help you at this moment. Our hearts have natural qualities that support us.... qualities that connect us with our spirits and most essential self. For example, trust is a heart quality.... trust in yourself, in people, in situations, in the way life is unfolding. There are many pure heart qualities: love, compassion, hope, gratitude, forgiveness, openness, and respect. They come without conditions, when from the heart. It is only the mind that adds conditions or limitations to them.

This is a time to be gentle with yourself, to ask open questions. What heart quality do you need right now? What is in low supply? What would support you in this present moment if you opened more fully to it? Again, name it and allow it, to the extent you can.

Invite clarity, be willing for it, but set it aside. It will come when you are ready. There is no need to hunt for how to make it happen. Opportunities will arise. Simply return to your tasks.

When you sit in your heart space like this, you are opening to more of you. You are honouring the whole self. This will support you.

I hope this suggestion might work for you when you are caught in life's many challenges.

Please know that I offer a friendly shoulder if you'd like a counselling session for whatever reason. More about this at www.kymmaddencounsellingandcoaching.com

Illustrator unknown: credit to the creator and a thank you.

12/09/2025

Not old and not young. How fortunate to have this gap in life. A place of gratitude and opportunity. Meryl Streep puts it like this...

20/06/2025

What if AI meant this?

What if the new era of AI means that we as humans are being challenged to become more human and less like robots ourselves?

To find new ways to open our hearts, be more compassionate, wiser, more connected with ourselves and others, accept our unique human qualities and value them, to transform our grief over life's many losses into a deeper meaning of life? To make a more humane world than the world has yet known.

Can we step up? Let the robots do the 'boring' work.

18/06/2025

No matter how hard life gets, waking up with an open mind and open heart is what counts. Even 1% improvement is to be celebrated. Thanks for the photo, Sam Samantha Palmer

16/05/2025

SPECIAL OFFER

Are you at a crossroad?

If you are wishing to speak with someone about something important...I am offering online sessions at a lower price in June.

Just $80 per hour (no rebate available, normally $120).

Note: Online only – telephone or video counselling sessions only using What’s App. Will need to download this app (free). Fully encrypted, private sessions.

Individuals only, not couples

Valid only between June 1 - August 31, 2025

Free initial consultation available – see if I am right for you

I am an experienced local counsellor (in my 60s) with wide life experience. Offering compassionate counselling, no judgement, treating you as a whole person not just the issue you wish to discuss.

Work at your own pace. Flexible how often, and how many sessions.

Offering sessions on weekends as well as during the week.

For more information, see https://www.kymmaddencounsellingandcoaching.com

Message anytime - kymmadden1@gmail.com
0438 357 772

11/05/2025

What KIND of 60-year-old do you want to be?

You may not want to be 60. Maybe you like being 50, or 40 sounds much better to you.

However, being 60 will be your fate unless you have a worse outcome.

So what kind of 60 is for you?

Here are three questions to consider.

1. How old do you want 60 to be?

How will you identify yourself….young or old (or in-between)? How will you refer to yourself and others at 60? How will you see your capacity, your attractiveness, your weaknesses? Will you treat changes you see in yourself with compassion? Will you see yourself improving in important ways? Will you be ageist in your thinking and your words? Will you notice the benefits of your age?

2. What qualities do you want in your 60s?

Which of your personal qualities and characteristics would you really like to cultivate or ‘dial up’, once you are past the high-pressure years of career and family? What specific strengths and abilities will serve you best over the coming years, in the face of change and opportunities. How can you best deal with inevitable losses in life? What qualities are you pleased to have, and want to shore up:

3. How will you keep growing?

What are you going to be open to, and be flexible about, in your 60s? Will you allow for new pleasures? What new ways will you expand your mind? How will you look after your body? How can you give to yourself and others?

Deciding the kind of 60 you will be can be life-changing.

Yet most of us just fall into old ways of doing things. We allow ourselves to run down, to get just a bit stale. We see the best years as behind us. We communicate this and are treated like this. What a waste of this decade!

Let's give ourselves much more grace than this.

Turning 60 is an opportunity to live with intention and adopt a growth mindset. To live more fully. The 60s can be the best decade of your life if you let it.

If you are ready to give some thought to your 60s, consider counselling. I keep time each week for new clients because it's no fun waiting months for an important conversation.

www.kymmaddencounsellingandcoaching.com
kymmadden1@gmail.com

05/05/2025

About Listening

It's a day to celebrate when you can sit down with your partner and be open to hearing difficult things.

The urge to defend is nearly always present.

What helps you come from a place of inner security, so there's no need to protect yourself when conversations get hard?

It's from a place of 'being enough' in yourself that you can ask clarifying questions and show you do understand (or are willing to understand).

Trust takes time. It takes being there for another. And allowing another to be there for you.

Again and again.

If you aren't there, there's small steps you can take today.

01/05/2025

Perfectionism is a problem we can try to do something about

When your son or daughter feels upset, do you wonder what's triggering it?

It's not uncommon for there to be a sense of never being good enough. You probably have experienced this too.

It is a gnawing resistance to being comfortable in our own skin. Wanting to be someone or something other than what we are.

Some call this angst perfectionism, others call it low self esteem. They are not quite the same but they do point to a restlessness within, and self-rejection too.

What you can do as a parent is to learn more, so that the support you do provide is as compassionate as possible.

Your child is changing all the time and with positive experiences and personal growth, will come through this painful phase.

Perfectionism among young people has skyrocketed, but experts say there are ways to quiet your inner critic.

18/04/2025

How are you this Easter?

If you need a shoulder this weekend, please reach out. We all have times when we genuinely some support... All of us.

Family members or friends will be there for us if they can.

If you don't have this option, I have some times for counselling. Not only me. Lifeline and beyond blue, too.

Be there for yourself.

Enquiries kymmadden1@gmail.com. More info at

Counselling and Coaching Sunshine Coast Help with two of life’s biggest problems – low mood and procrastination.No GP pre-approvals

15/04/2025

What we thought would happen didn't

When we face separation from someone we truly loved, we realise the truth that life is a journey not a destination.

May all those in pain today feel some comfort.

Sometimes, it’s letting go that makes one strong.

14/04/2025

When in a relationship, it's easy to forget this

The first thing to try.

From therapist and author Russ Harris:
“Often asking for what you want doesn’t require [anything but politeness].

You have a right to ask for what you want; and your partner has a right to be spoken to politely. So make your request a friendly one, without snapping or criticising, or demands, threats or insults.

Many people find this hard to do because they won’t let go of stories such as these:
"I shouldn’t have to ask. They should just do it."
"I’ve tried asking nicely. She never listens."
"Why should I have to ask nicely? He doesn’t deserve it."
"If I ask nicely, they’ll ignore me. They only ever agree when I get angry. "

Are you willing to unhook from these stories? They may be partly true – or even totally true – but how does it work for your relationship when you hold onto them tightly?

Regardless of what has happened in the past, the fact remains that the simplest way to get your needs met and build a healthy relationship is to ask nicely.”

If you are struggling, share it with a friend or a counsellor. We need all need support at different times.

www.kymmaddencounsellingandcoaching.com
kymmadden1@gmail.com