Jo lawrence-Mills Psychotherapy

15/07/2025

IF YOU FEEL UNSEEN…

Feeling unseen, unheard, or misunderstood might be one of the most painful human experiences. Like a child crying out to their mother and being ignored or ridiculed. It can feel like… dying.

A chronic sense of "not feeling heard" deep within your system may actually reflect years of silencing your own voice, suppressing and ignoring your own needs, staying small and adapting yourself to the feelings and expectations of others. Keeping silent to keep yourself safe.

Many of us learned to hide our true selves as a survival strategy in childhood—a way to avoid conflict or rejection. We essentially created a false self in order to survive. This kind of self-abandonment, known as "fawning," feels safe in the short term, but over time it erodes your connection to your authentic self and creates rage, resentment, and ultimately depression.

When you repress your true feelings—saying "yes" when you mean "no," staying silent when your deepest heart longs to speak—it’s not just your spirit that suffers. Neuroscience now suggests that suppressing emotions, especially anger, activates stress responses in the body, and chronic stress can lead to or exacerbate all kinds of physical issues like fatigue, autoimmune and digestive disorders, and even heart disease.

The body holds the weight of unspoken truths.

But healthy anger—the kind that arises when you speak up for your needs and boundaries, and for those of your loved ones—is not something to fear. It’s your deepest inner truth coming to life. When you say "no" with clarity, strength, and love, or when you say "yes" with compassion and conviction, you’re honouring the parts of yourself that have been buried. You’re honouring your deepest feelings and intuition, instead of smushing them down or pretending your perspective doesn’t matter.

This kind of anger is healthy and a very profound form of self-care. You are no longer at war with yourself. You are letting the truth move through you—not as a weapon, but as a compass and guide. There is no violence in this kind of anger. No division.

Speaking up isn’t just about being heard by others. It’s about hearing YOURSELF, perhaps for the first time in your life. It’s about living in alignment with what is real for YOU—no longer pushing down your emotions to please others, no longer hiding behind a mask of false "niceness," and no longer fearing that your truth is too much.

When you embrace your authentic self in this way, you heal the divide within. You liberate yourself from the terrible burden of repression.

You don’t have to shout to be seen; you only need to stand firmly in your reality, unapologetically.

And when you do, you’ll find that even if others aren’t seeing, hearing, and understanding you, you are seeing, hearing, and understanding yourself.

And from there, you are more able to walk away from those who won’t listen, and unite with those who will.

When you speak up, you discover who your true friends and allies really are.

The feeling of being chronically unseen and unheard may simply diminish when you find this kind of validation and support.

Even if nobody else hears you but you. (And the earth, all the planets and stars, and the whole Universe.)

- Jeff Foster

12/02/2025

07/09/2024

Stay Present 💛

When we flee the present moment, seeking solace in new dreams and fantasies, our pain only intensifies.

For we abandon ourselves.

We leave ourselves for the future, forget our true home and become spiritually homeless.

We wander in the desert of our addictions.

To truly heal, which means “become whole again”, we must turn inwards, feeling the raw burn of our unmet expectations, shattered hopes, losses and failures.

Running from this pain only heightens our agony in the long run.

Our egos must collapse under their own weight.

Authenticity must win in the end.

Humbled, we embrace our pain fully. We infuse our wounds with attention, which is love.

We let ourselves be seen.

We start our lives again.

The path to peace
always leads back
to the one who’s walking it.

- Jeff Foster

12/03/2024

VULNERABILITY 💛

You don’t have to be “vulnerable” all of the time, with everyone you meet.

You don’t have to unload your vulnerability 24 hours a day – to strangers on the street, to people you have just met, to the public on Facebook.

You never, ever have to share what you do not feel ready to share.
And maybe you never feel ready to share, and that's perfect too.

Let’s not make ‘being vulnerable’ into a new dogma, or a new religion, or another ‘should’.

You are allowed to have strong boundaries around your vulnerability. You are allowed to withhold your precious, fragile, sensitive heart, your deepest, most private and secret feelings and longings and thoughts and fears, until you are ready and willing to share them.
You are allowed to keep your vulnerability from those you do not feel safe with, those who do not want your precious heart or cannot handle it, those who have proven untrustworthy and those who judge or shame you for not “opening up” on their schedule.
Your boundaries around your vulnerability do not make you weak, or afraid, or unevolved. Sometimes saying no to sharing your vulnerability is an act of tremendous courage (just as sometimes sharing your vulnerability can be an act of tremendous courage).

You get to choose who to be vulnerable and fragile and open with, and when, and why, and you get to choose how much of yourself you reveal, in every moment.
You get to draw these lines and redraw them. You get to share more, if you feel like it, or change your mind, or share less, or share nothing personal at all.
Others are allowed to be disappointed or frustrated, and they are allowed to want more vulnerability from you.
And still, you do not have to share an ounce more than you feel comfortable sharing. This is your right and your power.

Your vulnerability is a sacred gift, and you give it only when you are ready and willing to give it, and not a moment before.

And that, my friends,
is true vulnerability.

- Jeff Foster

25/01/2024

TRAUMA IS…💛

… the words you want or wanted to scream but couldn’t
… the rage, terror or grief you need to feel but can’t until you can
… all the things you do to avoid yourself and distract yourself from facing what you know you must face
… the energy trapped in your body that just wants to move and be validated and be felt to completion
… the songs and dances and poetry and protests, the sensuality and power and passion and playfulness that longs to gush out of you
… when the past feels like the present and the present feels like the past and you can’t seem to break the cycle
… the force that tries to keep you small and safe when you really long for adventure, risk, life, more life
… the lies and half-truths they fed you about yourself that you haven’t yet broken free from but you will
… the Terrible Thing inside that will eat away at you until you face it with courage
… the Wonderful Thing inside that will save you, free you, nourish and liberate and enliven you when you finally face it with courage
… your path into the Unknown, into the Mystery of yourself, into the New and the Hitherto Unexpressed
… not what happened to you but how you processed what happened to you or how you couldn’t process what happened to you when it first happened
… healable, rewireable, malleable, reprogrammable, the scary parts of you that just long for love, understanding, validation, feeling and free expression
… the hurt and angry child in you who needs and deserves a voice and can’t and won’t be silenced any longer
… not a death sentence but a mountain to climb for sure although you do not yet know your own strength but you will
… able to be faced one step at a time
… not something ‘wrong’ with you
… a wound that we all carry whether we know it or not
… not able to be spiritually bypassed with clever concepts, beliefs, language, quick fixes, positive thinking
… not something to be ashamed of, ever
… your own heart calling you home.

- Jeff Foster

31/10/2023

The most beautiful quality of all in a human being, in my humble opinion?

The ability to listen deeply.

To listen from Presence. From stillness.

To listen without trying to fix someone, or change them, or ‘save’ them.

The ability to allow another to be exactly as they are.

Not giving unsolicited advice.

Not lecturing them about the latest psychological research or the ‘most true’ spiritual teaching.

Not trying to mold them, manipulate them into matching a concept of who they ‘should’ be.

Not projecting your own trauma — or traumatic answers — all over them.

Just listening.

Listening with an open mind and an open heart and a receptive nervous system.

Allowing them to breathe, to express, to weep, to question, to be completely unique, to expand into the space, to discover their own deepest truth.

Jeff Foster (www.lifewithoutacentre.com)

Jeff Foster, a survivor of suicidal depression and chronic illness, is a beloved writer and spiritual teacher. With humour and compassion, he speaks about non-duality, healing, spiritual awakening, and finding the sacred in the ordinary. His words have been shared by The New York Times, Newsweek, Hu...

03/06/2023

LET YOURSELF REST
If you’re exhausted, rest.
If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t.
If you don’t feel the urge to make something new,
just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known.
If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent.
If you’re fed up with the news, turn it off.
If you want to postpone something until tomorrow, do it.
If you want to do nothing, let yourself do nothing today.
Feel the fullness of the emptiness, the vastness of the silence, the sheer life in your unproductive moments.
Time does not always need to be filled.
You are enough, simply in your being.

~ Jeff Foster

I

03/06/2023

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.

This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Lough Inagh, Co Galway, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

19/05/2023

Stay rooted 💛

Spending time with trees can remind us to stay rooted and strong enough to endure the winds of adversity. When we are rooted, flexibility is more easily attained and we can bend and shift without breaking. When we root ourselves, we can more readily connect with our authentic self, each other and everything around us with compassion.

A few years back I was really moved by the words of social and environmental Professor Cindy Frantz at a conference. She explained how nature connectedness and our need for social connections are rooted in the same powerful psychological force. We hear so much about 'social isolation' but what if nature connection can nurture in us that vital sense of belonging?

Things are at last moving in the right dirction with health & nature coming together, but there's still a long way to go. I wish mainstream wellbeing models such as the 5 Ways to Wellbeing featured nature.

01/12/2022

Trauma is not what happened to you, it’s what happened inside you ….

10/11/2022

The Empath without Boundaries

The empath without boundaries "holds space" for the chaotic expression of somebody else's fear, shame and negativity, unknowingly absorbing it like rain into her skin, receiving the garment of somebody else's darkness.
She thinks she is being understanding and compassionate, and forgets herself in the shadow of somebody else's pain.

The empath without boundaries places herself as a doormat at the feet of those unable or unwilling to see their own inner landscape as the source of their misery, instead pointing fingers at anyone and everything, distorting the reality of the empath.
Who she once trusted, she now doubts, who she once loved, she dislikes.

Her own wounds and weaknesses are entered by the darkness that she willingly opens herself up to, adding fuel to fire, thinking that she can heal it, help it, fix it, but is herself in need of her own presence, her own self, her own love.

The bond created between her and her stressed out parent/family member as a child recreates itself in this delusion based friendship as she enables and confirms the fear based reality being portrayed as truth, in the hopes of the approval, respect and acceptance from that person.

But by the end of it all, she feels depleted and empty, after nights and days of just sitting and receiving the bombardment of negative information that actually has no basis in her own reality. When she tries to express her authentic self, she is treated as naive, less experienced, inferior, and can easily trigger a traumatising response, which she is so terrified of for she depends on the acceptance and approval of this person.

The empath without boundaries’ codependency is poisonous, and drains her life force, until she suddenly becomes aware of this unhealthy, unconscious pattern within herself and her relationships.

At first she is angry at all those who have been taking and taking from her energy without giving back in the same measure. Those who took advantage of her weakness and treated her poorly. Then she realises that it was her own self that allowed for it to happen, that she consistently gave of herself out of a severe fear of being alone.

She always wanted to "be there for" someone, as being the “therapist" was the only love language she could recognize, after a childhood of being the peacekeeper/maker in her conflict fuelled family.
She begins to recognize how her lack of boundaries has only lead to her own pain and suffering, and how being a martyr only served the other and enabled their refusal to take responsibility for their own feelings and process.

She recognizes how her desperation for somebody else's approval has left her wounded and empty, for they cannot even approve of themselves, let alone anyone else. She took both their praise and their poison so personally, flying to the highest heights only to be dropped all the way back down. She placed her happiness in their hands, and they themselves did not know of such a thing.

The empath without boundaries begins to realise that she has been mistaking abuse for love, self sacrifice for love, toxic soul ties and agreements for love. She has been justifying the ill actions of others out of fear of being alone, leading to her own repressed anger and sadness, that lead to her mistreating others.
Blaming the other is not enough to shift this paradigm, taking self responsibility would be the first step.

The empath without boundaries begins to form her first boundary by saying that she no longer wishes to be a dumping ground for other people's unprocessed turmoil, and is no one's therapist, unless some kind of specific agreement has been drawn up and agreed upon.

She recognises how she wishes to be treated in a friendship, relationship, etc, and begins to prioritise her own wellbeing, serving her own needs and desires first, and stopping someone dead in their tracks when they begin to insert negative narratives into her reality without her consent.

She begins to recognise what and what is not her responsibility, and does not carry what is not hers to bear.

She does not accept the fear and shame of others as a truth in her own reality, instead questioning where it has come from, and whether it is a reality that can be changed for the better.

She recognises that everything is a choice, and that she is not cursed to endure a reality that does not align with her true spirit and soul.
She acknowledges that what she sees in those around her are all reflections of her inner landscape, and that even those who were taking from her energetically, are teachers and lessons that she signed up for so that she could level up to the next phase of her self discovery.
What she is not happy with in her reality can be changed by addressing the feelings that are triggered because of those things.
What she accepts will relent, and what she resists will persist.

She no longer just absorbs what the other is saying, but points out possible points for reflection and questioning, and instead of just enabling and accepting ego stories so as not to cause conflict, she encourages further growth and introspection in both herself and others.

She welcomes challenges to her own paradigm and ideas, embracing healthy debate that doesn't leave her stagnant in her own comfort zone of delusion.
She is not scared to trigger people in case they get up and leave her, for she would prefer having friends who are able to take responsibility for their own triggers and who aren't scared to look at themselves, for those are the qualities she wishes to nurture within herself.

She is also no longer afraid to be alone, and trusts that the right company will stick and stay throughout this process of growth, as they are busy growing themselves.

The Empath is a powerful individual whose greatest tool is Self Love. Once she begins to nurture her own inner garden, the scent of her roses waft through the streets and her sweetness inspires those around her to follow suit.
She transmutes her own pain into wisdom, and becomes a great friend, lover and community member.

The path of self discovery can be exceptionally painful once we begin to become aware of our unconscious behaviors and patterns, but the process of clearing debris from the pure river of love that flows through us, is priceless, and the reward is endless.

I am an empath without boundaries in recovery, and I am proud of myself for coming so far.~

~Aziza Azura

31/10/2022

MEETING OUR SHAME
Shame is ‘sticky’. It can bind to any thought, any emotion, any desire, any sensation, any feeling at all. We can be as ashamed of our joy and creativity as we are of our pain, grief, loneliness.
We can be ashamed of our failures. Our successes. We can be ashamed of our smallness or our bigness. Our voices or our silence. Our deepest longings or our most seemingly superficial desires.
We can even be ashamed of our shame.
Shame is not healed through thinking. Only through presence. Only through love.
We invite the “darkness” into the light. This is the core of all healing, this sacred meeting, this divine encounter.
In the light of awareness, of love, of deep mysterious connection, the scared, hurt, contracted regions can remember their true nature, can expand into their rightful places as beloved parts of us - not enemies or aberrations or mistakes to be fixed or destroyed, but movements of life to be fully embraced, understood, uncovered, shared freely.
Don’t be ashamed of your shame. Share it. Speak it. Dance it. Sing it. Sit with it. Eat and cry with it. Run with it. Be silent with it. Explore it. It doesn’t make you weak, to feel small, to admit shame, to want to hide. Shame is a lost child of the great Kingdom of You, just waiting to be met in an infinitely loving way.
And who knows, the very thing you are scared of, the very thing you want to run from, may just be trying to save your life.
- Jeff Foster