Sarah Tolmie Life&Love - Holistic Community Care

10/01/2026

Fabulous new spiritual co-op with beautiful magic goodies and crystals and yummy scents and jewelry and ceremonial specialties has opened up on the corner below me. Elemental & Co. welcome to the corner and all the best.

22/12/2025

Festive Love and Summer Blessings
Thank you for your community and connection this year.
Here is my end-of-year message and some FREE resources to get you through the festive season.
Merry Christmas - Happy Holidays - Summer Love Blessings
Peace Be With You All
xox
Sarah Tolmie

Hello dear ones.Thank you for your community and connection this year. My happy place is to be in service to life & love. Whether that is in relationship repair, recovery, reconnection, and re-creation; or supporting families at end-of-life in my funeral and sacred deathcare practice; or in celebra...

17/12/2025

Many gold nuggets of wisdom in this summary 💗

Marriage often begins with hope, romance, and promises. The hard part comes later—not in falling in love, but in staying in it. In Staying Married is the Hardest Part, Bonnie Comfort confronts the unglamorous, unspoken truths of long-term partnership: conflict, disappointment, fatigue, and the quiet erosion of connection. This book does not offer clichés about perfect communication or magical fixes. It offers something rarer: practical, heartfelt strategies for sustaining love when life—and your partner—become complicated.

Comfort writes from experience and observation, blending psychological insight, counseling techniques, and real-world examples. Her central premise is that commitment is active work. Love alone does not guarantee endurance; understanding, adaptability, and self-awareness do.

1. Conflict Is Inevitable—How You Handle It Matters
Disagreements are natural, but escalation, avoidance, or contempt can erode intimacy. Learning to argue constructively, with respect and curiosity, is essential.

2. Marriage Requires Emotional Literacy
Understanding your own triggers, needs, and emotions—and those of your partner—is a cornerstone of relational health. Ignorance is costly.

3. Expectation Management Prevents Resentment
Idealized notions of marriage—constant passion, effortless harmony—set couples up for disappointment. Comfort encourages realistic, evolving expectations.

4. Communication Is a Practice, Not a Skill
It’s not enough to “talk.” Couples must practice listening, expressing vulnerability, and checking assumptions repeatedly over time.

5.Forgiveness Is Active, Not Passive
Sustaining a relationship requires letting go of past grievances without pretending they never happened. Forgiveness is a decision to move forward, not a feeling.

6. Intimacy Is Multidimensional
Physical closeness is important, but emotional, intellectual, and spiritual connection often sustain long-term partnership when passion fluctuates.

7. Shared Purpose Strengthens Bonds
Couples who cultivate common goals, values, or projects experience greater resilience against external stressors.

8. Individual Growth Benefits the Marriage
Personal fulfillment, hobbies, and self-awareness prevent stagnation and dependency. Healthy boundaries and autonomy fuel intimacy.

9. Maintenance Is Constant, Not Seasonal
Relationships thrive when nurtured daily through small acts of care, gratitude, and attentiveness—not only in crises or anniversaries.

10. Commitment Includes Choice, Every Day
Marriage is not a static state. Choosing to stay, to understand, and to invest is a continual, conscious effort—even when it is hard.

What makes Staying Married is the Hardest Part so compelling is its honesty. Comfort does not sugarcoat the difficulty of long-term commitment, nor does she place blame solely on one partner. The book emphasizes partnership as a dynamic, evolving practice—sometimes messy, sometimes painful, but always worth the effort.

Staying Married is the Hardest Part is essential reading for couples navigating the middle years of partnership, parents balancing love and life, or anyone who wants a realistic, compassionate framework for enduring commitment.

This book is not a promise of effortless harmony. It is a guide to staying present, engaged, and loving in the ongoing challenge of building a shared life—reminding us that marriage is less about perfection and more about perseverance.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4oVaXBm

You can ENJOY the AUDIOBOOK for FREE (When you register for Audible Membership Trial) using the same link above.

15/12/2025

Christmas… it’s beautiful. And it’s a lot.

So much love. So much history. So many people, opinions, emotions, expectations, traditions—and let’s be honest—triggers—gathered around one table.

If you’re feeling both excited and slightly on edge heading into the festive season, you’re not alone. This time of year amplifies everything: the good, the hard, and the unresolved.

I’ve written an article to gently support you through holiday gatherings and family reunions—with practical, relationship-wise strategies drawn from Gottman work, nervous system care, and real life.

It’s not about fixing people or confronting old wounds.
It’s about coping wisely, protecting connection where it matters, and getting through with your wellbeing—and relationships—intact.

January is for therapy.
December is for kindness, realism, and breathing.

🎄 Read the full article here:

Surviving (and Maybe Even Thriving) the Holidays:A Love-Centred Guide to Christmas, Family, and Keeping Your Sanity Ahhh, the festive season. Twinkly lights. Full calendars. Too much food. Too little sleep. Big love, big feelings… and sometimes big explosions.

10/12/2025

Good reminders as we come into holiday season and end of year reflections and transitioning into a new year.
Xx
Sarah

Adjust these things now to enjoy a better quality of life straight away.

09/12/2025

Feeling the end-of-year crunch? Kids wild? Inbox exploding? Zero time for your relationship?

Here’s the truth: Healthy couples don’t always have big conversations or slow date nights — sometimes they just snack.

Short bursts of connection, tiny rituals, quick touches, small kindnesses.

And those micro-moments are what get you through the busy seasons intact.

A couple brought cake to their therapy session this week… and it became the perfect metaphor for surviving love when life is nuts.

I turned it into a new article full of practical, Gottman-informed skills you can start using today.

👉 Read it here: https://sarahtolmie.com.au/snacks-on-the-run-relationship-skills-for-when-life-is-full-time-is-tight-and-love-needs-fuel/

xx Sarah

The Snack Box that Became a Relationship Teaching There’s a rhythm couples know well — those seasons where work ramps up, kids get sick, Christmas barrels toward you like a glitter-covered freight train, and life starts asking more of you than you actually

09/12/2025

Esther. Speaking an uncomfortable but necessary truth! ❤️‍🩹

05/12/2025

In my holistic therapy practice I often ‘prescribe’ prayer - it can be a secular non-faith endeavor, unless you do have a religious faith - and my go to best prayer for self soothing, calm and affecting positive shifts in outcomes is Ho’oponopono- loads of research on this practice as effective for healing and forgiveness, (beginning with forgiving and being compassionate with self first).
It goes like this:
“I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you”.
Send each sentence to your heart centre - do one sentence slowly per in/out slow breath. Do for 2 or 5 or 10mins. You can hold in your attention a specific problem/person/event - or allow it to be a generalized overall cleaning of your entire energy body.
X### Sarah

Prayer is not just a spiritual practice; it physically changes the brain. Research using MRI and EEG scans shows that intentional prayer activates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for focus, discipline, and emotional regulation.

At the same time, prayer reduces activity in areas linked to stress and fear. This can explain why people who pray regularly often report better mental health, improved resilience after trauma, and stronger self-control. These changes are specific to relational, intentional prayer, especially when directed toward a personal God, rather than general meditation or mindfulness practices.

Neuroscience now confirms what believers have long known: prayer has measurable effects on the mind. It reshapes neural pathways, promoting calmness, clarity, and emotional balance. The act of connecting with something greater than oneself helps the brain handle stress and regulate emotions more effectively.

This research bridges faith and science, showing that spiritual practices influence brain function in real, measurable ways. Prayer is both a mental and spiritual tool, transforming the mind and nurturing the heart. It is a reminder that intentional spiritual habits can create lasting neurological and emotional benefits.

03/12/2025

Couples who 'truly trust' each other regularly use these 7 phrases, says Harvard-trained psychologist—they're 'relationship goals.' Find the link in the comments. ⬇️

01/12/2025

No.4 is not often mentioned but one with picking up on - a shared interest or curiosity in arts and culture.
Your welcome 🥰

I'm a psychologist who studies couples: People in the happiest relationships have 5 things in common with their partner. Find the link in the comments. ⬇️

25/11/2025

A good summary of the common challenges and the strategies for wellbeing.
X
Sarah

The best time to start saving your marriage is straight away!

25/11/2025

**Love in All Brain Shapes: Why Today’s Couples Must Understand Their Neuro-Architecture**

Neurodiversity is showing up in our relationships more than ever — not as a problem, but as a map. We’re all wired differently, and knowing your partner’s neuro-architecture may be the most powerful relationship skill of our time. Here’s what I’m seeing in the therapy room… and why it’s giving me hope. Sarah xx

Read article here: https://sarahtolmie.com.au/love-in-all-brain-shapes/

By Sarah Tolmie - Life & Love Holistic Community Care: Sarah Tolmie is a relationship therapist, grief educator, and sacred deathcare practitioner, supporting individuals, couples, and families across the full arc of living, loving, and dying. Through her integrated Life & Love practice, she weaves therapeutic support with holistic funeral care and personalised ceremony to help people navigate connection, loss, and life’s deepest transitions with meaning and compassion.