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Tuesday 9:30am - 4:30pm Wednesday 9:30am - 4:30pm Thursday 9:30am - 4:30pm Friday 9:30am - 3pm

Kintsugi Counselling

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Australia
Nowra, NSW
Kintsugi Counselling

Empowering you to authentically (re)claim your story with self-compassion 💬 Follow for reflections on healing, identity & motherhood Reflective. Grounded.

I’m a social worker/counsellor supporting survivors of interpersonal trauma and mothers navigating the complex, transformative journey of matrescence. My work centres on helping you find healing, authenticity, and empowerment - to (re)claim your story and reconnect with who you are beneath the roles, expectations, and wounds.
🌿 Trauma & Motherhood Counselling | Compassionate.

04/12/2025

Self-care isn’t a trend.
It’s tending to your needs.
It’s remembering your worth.
It’s coming home to yourself.

Self-care has become a buzzword - another thing we're told we should master if we want to be calmer, healthier, more productive, more ‘together’.

But somewhere between the marketing and the ‘must-dos’, we lost the heart of what self-care actually is.

Real self-care isn’t an aesthetic.
It’s not a lifestyle performance.
It’s not something you earn.
It’s the quiet, everyday practice of recognising your own needs - and meeting them with respect.

For many people, especially those who are mummas and/or have experienced trauma, this is harder than it sounds. If you grew up learning that your needs were too much, or that caring for yourself was selfish, it makes sense that self-care feels complicated.

But here’s the truth:
You are worthy of care.
Not because of what you do for others -
but because you are human.

Self-care might look like rest.
Or boundaries.
Or nourishment.
Or feeling what you feel.
Or choosing gentleness over self-pressure.
Or allowing joy without guilt.

It doesn’t have to cost money.
It doesn’t have to look pretty.
It just has to honour you.

💫 What’s one small act of care your body, mind, or heart is asking for today?

01/12/2025

So many women move through life with a quiet ache - a sense that somewhere between the caring, the giving, the holding-everything-together, a part of themselves slipped out of view.

Not lost.
Just… forgotten.
Softened into the background of everyone else’s needs.

This isn’t a personal failing.
It’s a cultural pattern.
We raise women to be selfless, to equate worth with service, to prioritise the emotional needs of others long before tending to their own.
And over time, the self doesn’t disappear - it simply becomes inaudible beneath the noise.

But identity is not fixed; it is fluid, living, responsive.
And the parts of you that feel far away are often the ones most longing to return.

Reclaiming the forgotten self isn’t about becoming who you were before.
It’s about honouring who you are becoming now - with your values, your lived experience, your tenderness, your depth.

Self-connection grows in small, steady acts:
A moment of quiet.
A boundary honoured.
A need acknowledged.
A desire spoken out loud.

💫 What is something you used to love doing that feels so far away now? How can you bring that back into your life today?

27/11/2025

Perfectionism in motherhood comes at a quiet cost. The endless striving - to be calm enough, patient enough, productive enough - can erode our sense of self, feed cycles of guilt and exhaustion, and chip away at our mental health and wellbeing.

What if your worth wasn’t measured by how much you do, but by the authentic embodied presence you bring to your life and the lives you touch?

✨ Where might you offer yourself grace today, instead of striving for perfection?

25/11/2025

So many of us learnt to survive by striving -
by aiming higher, working harder,
and never letting ourselves slip.

Perfection became protection.
Self-critique became familiar.
And gentleness… often felt out of reach.

But there is deep relief in realising that
you don’t have to be flawless to be worthy.
You don’t have to hold everything together alone.
You don’t have to keep proving yourself to yourself.

Letting yourself be human is not a step backwards -
it’s a soft return to who you were
before you learnt to armour up.

If these words land for you,
take a breath.
Loosen your grip.
And remind yourself that
good enough can be enough.

23/11/2025

So many mothers carry guilt like a second skin - the quiet ache of never doing or being “enough.” But this guilt isn’t a personal flaw. It’s a social inheritance.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that a good mother is endlessly selfless, patient, and available - that her needs must always come last. This impossible standard keeps women striving for an ideal that was never meant to serve us.

True care begins when we question the stories we’ve been told.

When we remember that meeting our own needs doesn’t make us less - it makes us whole.

✨ Where could you begin to soften the rules you live by, and mother in alignment with your own values,not the ‘shoulds’ the world hands you?

22/11/2025

We are not born without boundaries - we are taught to let them go.
Conditioned to be agreeable, selfless, and endlessly available.
To care for others, even when it costs us ourselves.

But boundaries are not rejection - they are direction.
They help us tend to what matters most, including our own wellbeing.
They protect the relationships we value, by ensuring we show up from a place of truth rather than resentment.

When we set boundaries aligned with our values, we begin to live - and love - with integrity.
We stop scattering our energy in all directions and start nurturing what truly sustains us.

Boundaries are not a withdrawal of love.
They are one of the most empowering expressions of it.

✨ Where might you begin to honour your needs with the same tenderness you offer others?

25/10/2025

There are seasons when it feels like we should be further along -
more healed, more certain, more ourselves.
But becoming isn’t linear.
It’s slow, tender work - the quiet unfolding of who we are beneath the noise and expectation.
Like the sea, we move in rhythms.
Ebbing, flowing, returning - again and again - to the truth of ourselves.
So if today feels still, or messy, or in-between -
trust that you are arriving, even here.

If you paused for a moment, what part of you might need the sea’s gentleness right now?

22/10/2025

Motherhood often brings quiet questions that few of us are prepared for. Who am I now? What matters most to me?

How do I hold all the parts of myself - the woman I was, the mother I’m becoming, and the person I’m still discovering?

We give teenagers room to grow through adolescence - we expect confusion, change, and redefinition.

But when a woman becomes a mother, we rarely offer that same compassion or cultural space for her transformation.
Matrescence gives language to what so many mothers feel but can’t name. It’s the process of becoming a mother - a lifelong evolution that reshapes every part of us: our identity, relationships, body, and sense of meaning.

When we understand matrescence, we begin to see mothers differently - not as struggling or “losing themselves,” but as growing into something profoundly new.

I’ve written more about this in my latest blog: Matrescence: The Hidden Journey of Becoming a Mother.

You can read it here 👉 https://www.kintsugicounselling.com.au/post/matrescence-the-hidden-journey-of-becoming-a-mother

30/09/2025

✨ We’ve been taught that being hard on ourselves keeps us strong. But what if the truth is the opposite?

Being gentle with yourself can feel radical in a world that prizes perfection and endurance. Yet, choosing compassion is a quiet act of power. 🌸

Self-compassion isn’t indulgent - it’s revolutionary. It nurtures resilience, fuels authentic growth, and teaches us that our worth isn’t measured by how much we do, but by how we care for ourselves along the way.

🌿 Curious to see how it can shift everything? → https://www.kintsugicounselling.com.au/post/the-radical-act-of-self-compassion-reclaiming-yourself-beyond-perfectionism

You are worthy of compassion, always. 💛

03/09/2025

Your body has been speaking to you all along.
That tightness in your chest. The brain fog that won’t lift. The sudden tears that feel “out of nowhere.”

These aren’t flaws or signs you need to “push through.” They are signals from your nervous system, letting you know it’s working in overdrive.

Research shows that chronic stress and trauma shape how we think, feel, and connect with others - not because we are weak, but because our survival system is doing its best to keep us safe.

And yet, women have been socialised away from trusting these signals. From a young age, many of us learn to dismiss our hunger, silence our emotions, and ignore the messages of our bodies in order to meet external expectations. So, reclaiming connection with our body is a radical act of self-return.

When we listen in, we are not just “managing stress.” We are challenging generations of conditioning and rebuilding a relationship with ourselves that is rooted in trust, compassion, and sovereignty.

These are 8 common patterns that show up when the nervous system is overwhelmed. By gently responding to them with care, you are reminding yourself that your needs matter, that you matter.

Because healing doesn’t start with fixing what’s “wrong” with you. It begins with listening, understanding, and responding with compassion.

✨ Which slide resonated most with you?

Address

3/62 North Street
Nowra, NSW
2541

Opening Hours

Tuesday	9:30am - 4:30pm
Wednesday	9:30am - 4:30pm
Thursday	9:30am - 4:30pm
Friday	9:30am - 3pm

Website

http://www.kintsugicounselling.com.au/

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