Awake Counselling

14/04/2026

That part of you that says you’re s**t at things?

It’s not telling you the truth - it’s trying to protect you. It learned early on that if you expected less, you’d hurt less when things didn’t work out. Smart survival strategy. Not so useful now.

The thing is, you’ve learned thousands of things in your life. You learned to walk, to talk, to survive whatever came your way.

You’re capable of learning. That critical voice isn’t evidence of failure - it’s evidence of a part that’s scared.

What if instead of fighting it, you got curious? What does that part need from you to feel safe enough to try?

13/04/2026

A number of new posts coming up, with very real and raw statements from the various people that come to see me (apologies for some of the language). Let me know if it resonates with you?

09/04/2026

If you’re a man - or you love a man - who is quietly struggling to find his way, his people, or his sense of purpose in a world that keeps offering very loud and very wrong answers… this is for you.

You are not broken. You are not weak for needing support. You are not less of a man for feeling lost, sad, angry, or unsure of who you are. These are not signs that something is fundamentally wrong with you - they are signs that you are human, and that you deserve the same care and attention you would offer anyone else you love.

There is a version of masculinity that includes vulnerability, emotional intelligence, accountability, and genuine connection. It doesn’t come with a luxury watch or a highlight reel. It’s quieter than what’s being sold to you online - but it’s real, it’s sustainable, and it actually feels good to live from the inside.

Therapy is one space where that kind of work happens. So are honest friendships, communities built on shared values, and a willingness to be curious about your inner world rather than afraid of it.

If you’re ready to explore that - or even just curious - I’m here, and the door is open. 💙

07/04/2026

The Manosphere doesn’t just harm the men it recruits. The harm radiates outward.

It harms women. It harms the LGBTIQA+ community - my community. It harms anyone who doesn’t fit a very narrow, very loud, very monetised definition of human worth. What I watched wasn’t just provocative content - it was a coordinated, profitable system built on contempt, conspiracy, and the reduction of entire groups of people to targets.

As a trauma-informed therapist, I see the downstream effects of this every week. I sit with people who have been on the receiving end of that contempt - whose sense of safety, identity, and worth has been eroded by exactly this kind of culture. And I also sit with men who built their identity around these ideas and are quietly falling apart beneath the surface, disconnected from themselves and the people around them.

We can hold compassion for both.

Compassion isn’t the same as agreement - it’s the ability to see the hurt underneath the behaviour.

But compassion also requires honesty. This content is harmful. The normalisation of misogyny, homophobia, and conspiracy thinking has real consequences for real people. We are allowed to name that clearly, and we should.

We can - and must - demand better for our young people. 🧡

02/04/2026

Why do young men and men get drawn into extreme online communities?

It’s not stupidity. It’s not weakness. It’s psychology - and deeply human psychology at that.

These spaces offer something our nervous systems are literally wired to seek: a sense of tribe, the feeling of being heard, a clear identity, and a sense of purpose. The research on belonging tells us that social exclusion activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. When boys and men feel unseen, that pain is real - and these communities are very skilled at offering relief.

The problem was never the need. It’s how it’s being met.

When we don’t help boys and men build emotional literacy - the ability to name, feel, and process what’s going on inside - they become vulnerable to anyone who offers a simple story about why they’re struggling and who’s to blame. Add the monetisation of anger and the algorithm’s appetite for outrage, and you have a very powerful machine.

Therapy, genuine friendships, and intentional choices about what we consume can be life-changing. The content we engage with shapes our neural pathways, our worldview, and ultimately how we treat others and ourselves.

What we feed our minds matters. 🧠

31/03/2026

Watching Manosphere on Netflix the other night left me sitting with a lot of feelings - discomfort, frustration, and honestly, a deep sadness.

As a man who was once a boy trying to figure out who he was and where he belonged - I get the pull. The need to be seen. To belong. To matter. Those needs are real, and they don’t go away just because we get older.

What these figures understood - and exploited - is that belonging is one of our deepest human needs. They just weaponised it. They wrapped it in expensive cars, dominance, and contempt for anyone seen as lesser. And for a boy or a man who feels invisible, overlooked, or lost - that package can feel like a lifeline.

But it isn’t. It’s a trap dressed up as strength.

Boys and men deserve better than rage, material things, and someone to look down on as a way of feeling worthy. They deserve real connection. Real support. Real models of what it means to be a man - one that includes kindness, accountability, and the courage to be vulnerable.

This one hit home for me. And I think it’s worth talking about. 💙

29/03/2026

26/03/2026

What does ‘I’m triggered’ actually mean?

It’s a phrase we hear a lot - in conversation, online, in the media.

Sometimes it’s used lightly, to describe annoyance or discomfort. Sometimes it describes something much deeper and more serious.

The clinical meaning of a trigger is specific: it refers to something - a sound, a smell, a tone of voice, a situation - that activates a trauma response in the nervous system. The brain detects a signal it associates with past danger, and the body responds as though that danger is happening right now.

This is not an overreaction. It is the nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do - protect you.

The challenge is that when we use ‘triggered’ to describe mild irritation, we can accidentally minimise the experience of those for whom being triggered means their body has entered a genuine survival response - complete with flashbacks, dissociation, racing heart, or emotional flooding.

This doesn’t mean people’s discomfort isn’t real. It means language matters.

In therapy, I’ll often be exploring what triggers actually are, how they show up in the body, and what we can do when they arise.

23/03/2026

Not all distress is a trauma trigger - and that matters.

One of the most compassionate things we can do is learn to tell the difference between discomfort and a trauma trigger.

Discomfort is a normal part of being human. Feeling annoyed, frustrated, or upset when something doesn’t go our way is not the same as a trauma response - even if it feels intense in the moment.

A trauma trigger, clinically speaking, involves the activation of a survival response rooted in past experience. It often has a quality of the past colliding with the present - a sense of urgency or danger that feels disproportionate to what’s actually happening.

Both matter. Both deserve care.

But learning to distinguish between them helps us:

∙ Understand ourselves with more accuracy and compassion;
∙ Communicate our needs more clearly in relationships;
∙ Identify when we might benefit from professional support;
∙ Avoid inadvertently dismissing the experiences of trauma survivors;

In therapy, we slow this down. We get curious about what’s happening beneath the surface - not to judge it, but to understand it.

Because understanding is where healing begins.

19/03/2026

Triggers live in the body, not just the mind.

When we talk about being triggered, it’s easy to think of it as an emotional or psychological experience.

But triggers are fundamentally a body experience first.

When the nervous system detects something it associates with past threat - even unconsciously - it activates the body’s survival response. The amygdala, the brain’s threat-detection centre, signals danger before the thinking brain has had a chance to assess what’s actually happening.

This is why people who have experienced trauma can find themselves:

∙ Heart racing with no clear reason;
∙ Suddenly flooded with emotion in an ordinary situation;
∙ Feeling the urge to flee, freeze, or shut down;
∙ Disconnecting from the present moment;

None of this is weakness. None of this is ‘being dramatic.’

It is the nervous system responding to a perceived threat based on memory - often before conscious awareness even catches up.

Understanding this is one of the most important shifts in trauma recovery.

When we stop judging our responses and start getting curious about them, something begins to change.

What does your body tell you when it feels unsafe?

16/03/2026

Working with triggers - from reaction to response.

One of the most powerful shifts in trauma recovery is moving from reacting to a trigger to being able to respond to it.

This doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual, supported process.

When we’re in the grip of a triggered state, the thinking brain is often offline. We’re in survival mode - and in that moment, logic, reason, and even compassion for ourselves can feel inaccessible.

What helps is building capacity over time:

∙ Recognising the early signs that a trigger is activating;
∙ Developing grounding practices that bring us back to the present moment;
∙ Understanding the story beneath the trigger - where it comes from, what it’s protecting us from;
∙ Processing the original experience so it carries less charge;

This is exactly where modalities like EMDR therapy, IFS, and somatic approaches are so valuable. They work with the nervous system - not just the narrative - to help the brain and body update their response to past experiences.

Being triggered doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means part of you is still carrying something that hasn’t yet been fully processed.

And that is workable.

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