https://www.theclearspace.co.uk/

The Clear Space, Birmingham (2025)

24/06/2025

July’s sound bath with be an invitation to connect with self-compassion from within. According to Dr Kristin Neff, a self compassion researcher, there are three main elements to self compassion; mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness. When we access and explore these elements, we can choose to honour ourselves and our experience, intentionally offering self compassion to ourselves in the way that we would offer it to a friend. After a guided meditation to explore self compassion and some seasonal reflections, we’ll transition to our sound bath. As the soothing tones of crystal singing bowls and koshi chimes wash over your body you’ll find a space to soften self-judgment, release tension and rest. Book via the events link in my bio.

20/06/2025

It’s the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere on the 21st June. Summer Solstice is a significant day that’s celebrated in many cultural traditions and it marks the pinnacle of the sun’s power, with the longest day and the shortest night. For our ancestors, the summer solstice would have been significant as it marked the culmination of the work to generate an abundant harvest. All of the toiling and hard work at the end of Winter and the start of Spring leads to now, when the earth is abundant with crops and we reap the rewards of our hard work.
We can hold this in mind as we journey through the Solstice. What have you brought into fruition so far this year? What have you been working towards? What is to be celebrated?

While this Solstice is a celebration of mid summer it also marks our decent into the dark half of the year. The days get shorter from this point onwards and we are called to look at the resources we’ll need to sustain us through the winter months.
In previous years I’ve reflected that the Solstice is one of favourite points of the year because I love the light, early morning sunrises, and balmy summer evenings that seem to last forever. That is still true but I’m realising that this abundance of light can lead me to push through my own need to go inward and rest.
The Sun card in Kim Krans’ Wild Unknown Alchemy deck talks about the sun never setting. It’s the Earth that pivots away from the sun. Perhaps sometimes we need to be more aware of when we need to pivot away from the sun, to listen to ourselves and to go inwards. As with all things, Solstice is all about finding the balance that we need internally and the balance between ourselves and external factors.

If you’d like to spend some time reflecting on the solstice and themes of life, the power of the sun, and growth head to my blog (link in bio) There you’ll find a post with journal prompts and a playlist that You can use for breathwork, journaling or movement-based practice.

17/06/2025

Being in therapy can feel like standing at the edge of a diving board; hopeful, but also a little terrifying. Often, we arrive at counselling or therapy during a difficult time. Many of my clients are grieving, navigating a health crisis, exploring aspects of identity, navigating Autism or ADHD, managing anxiety or depression or just feeling completely overwhelmed. I’ve been to therapy for many of those things myself and I know that however transformative therapy can be, it can also be really hard work.
Some clients come to therapy with a good understanding of why they feel the way they do. For others they might have no idea what’s contributed to them finding themselves where they are. Either way many clients who come to counselling or psychotherapy have reflected about the why. Even with that reflection it can be hard to know where to start.
The first thing to know is that you don’t need to have everything figured out to begin. A good place to start is simply by naming that uncertainty. Therapy isn’t about having everything figured out, it’s about showing up as you are. Whether you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, numb, or just curious about your inner world, a good therapist can help you gently explore what’s beneath the surface. Sometimes the first step is giving yourself permission to begin, even if you feel like you’re beginning in the dark.
Over on the blog (link in bio) I’ve shared some reflections about what might be going on for you, if you find yourself in a space where you don’t know where to start or where to go. This includes some questions for reflection and suggestions for what you could explore if what to explore feels unclear.

02/06/2025

Happy Pride Month.

As Julie Tilson says in this quote, "Queering is an ever-emergent process of becoming, one that is flexible and fluid in response to context, and in resistance to norms. When we q***r something, we question and disrupt taken-for-granted practises and we can imagine new possibilities. Queering something breaks rules (usually discursive and social rules, sometimes legal ones) in order to liberate people who have been held hostage by what the rules require or prevent."

This means challenging the status quo, questioning the unquestioned and looking at the world and its rules and asking ‘what if there’s another way’?

Whether we’re q***ring ideas of love, gender, family let’s remember that Pride is rooted in resistance and q***rness can’t be separated from other struggles for liberation.

Pride is political.
Liberation must be for all.
Free Palestine and all occupied lands.
❤️🇵🇸

27/05/2025

Many of my therapy clients express a wish to be more healed, as if healed is a destination that we can work our way towards.

This idea that we can be fully healed, that we can find ourselves in a place where our nervous systems don't become dysregulated and that we can work towards our old patterns never showing up is certainly not what my own healing journey has looked like.

My patterns still show up
I still get dysregulated
I still find myself struggling when things are hard

The work, for me, is in accepting these things as part of my experience. Being a human is hard and if we can find a way to knowing that we don’t need to fix ourselves to be whole, that we need to meet ourselves where you we are that, to me, is healing. dysrgulated

Sometimes that looks like:
Setting a boundary even though our voice shakes
Being with our feelings when we’re used to shutting down
Owning our anger instead of performing peace
Holding contradictions instead of rejecting parts of our experience
Sitting with discomfort instead of pushing it away
Being intentional and proactive about caring for ourselves, even when we’re really struggling

Healing isn’t becoming someone else.
It’s learning to be with and hold your experience in a compassionate way.

The paradox of change is this:
We change not by striving to become someone new,
but by becoming more deeply who we already are
wounds and all.

23/05/2025

Some of the hardest therapy sessions as a therapist happen when clients share your grief. They usually have no idea that the things they share feel like echos of my own experience or that the words they say feel like they could have come straight out of my own mouth. Mostly, bracketing my own experience and holding space for my clients, however much it taps into my own healing journey is the right thing. There’s no place for my own grief, sorrow or loss in the therapy room and rightly so. Sometimes, though, clients share their grief around the wider world; the Earth that is slowly eroding because of the impact of humans, children that are starving because of oppression and the complicity of those in power, the rights of marginalised people that are overtly being stripped away. It’s a lot for them to hold and it’s a lot for me to hold too. It’s moving and humbling to connect with my clients while exploring experiences that mean sharing my own grief and sorrow feels appropriate but necessary. There is nuance to this. As a therapist I would never centre myself in another’s pain. I have my own therapist who holds a space where I can explore and process my own grief. There is power, though, in saying ‘I feel this too’ and ‘you’re not alone in your sorrow about the world that we live’.

20/05/2025

At Summer solstice we find ourselves in the peak of summer. This brings an abundance of light, early morning sunrises and evenings that seem to last for ever. If we consider that the sun never actually sets, rather it’s the earth that pivots away from the sun, how does this change the way we connect with summer in a way that allows the space we need to go inwards and rest? June’s sound bath will provide an opportunity to reflect on the energy of the summer solstice, while taking space to listen to ourselves and go inwards. How can we, in the height of summer, find our own balance between the external and the internal? Join us by booking via the events link in my bio.

15/05/2025

There is a power in standing on the land of your ancestors. I recently went to Birkenhead, where my grandparents and great grandparents came from. Before that we came from the four corners of the islands of Britain including Ireland, Wales and England.

Part of me simply wanted to see the sea. I’ve shared this quote from Doggerland, by Julia Blackburn before and it incapsulates why I needed to stand on the edge of the land:

When you are close to the edge of the sea, you are in a liminal space in which everything is shifting, nothing is fixed, there is no silence, no stillness, no place, just the rasping breath of the waves on shingle, the wind, the accumulating sandbanks, the diminishing sandbanks, falling cliffs, and the energy of the current which pulls at the land to reveal new areas and cover up old ones.

As well as wanting to feel the energy of somewhere liminal, which feels very relevant in this portal between Beltane and Summer Solstice, I wanted to connect with the energy of those who came before me.

I stopped on a beach where you could see the Liverpool docks, where my grandad worked for most of his early life. His job, working in the shipyards, eventually caught up with him later in life and contributed to his death.

I watched the seagulls circling overhead (trying to steal my lunch, no doubt!) and offered gratitude to my ancestors and those who came before me.

If you have the privilege to do so, there is something powerful about visiting lands that hold the echo of your ancestors footsteps and the lives they lead.

I hold and acknowledge that it’s not a privilege everyone has access to.
Some are born into diaspora and a lineage scattered by colonisation, migration, or war.
Some have fled violence or crossed oceans they never wished to cross.
Some may never know where their people came from.
Some don’t have the financial means, energy or safety that allows pilgrimages to other places.

For those this applies to, I hope that you can find other ways to honour your ancestors and to feel their hands at your back.

22/04/2025

As we transition through Spring, this month’s sound bath is an invitation to look at the ways that you wish to bloom and blossom. This sound bath will find us on the other side of Beltane; animals are out to pasture, flowers are in bloom, and the days are longer and brighter. We’ll begin our journey with a guided journalling practice with reflections about where we are seasonally, before gently transitioning into a deeply nourishing sound bath journey using Koshi chimes and crystal singing bowls. Sign up via the events link in my bio.

12/03/2025

17th April 2025- 6:50pm - 8pm  Sound bath and meditation journey  THEME: LOVING KINDNESS 
Join me as we transition through Spring and connect with loving kindness, or ‘metta bhavana’ as a beautiful way of cultivating feelings of love and care for ourselves and others in an active an intentional way. April’s sound bath with be an invitation to connect with the rising energy of early Spring and the energy of love in action as a way to support and resource ourselves and to offer our love and care to those around us. After exploring our metta bhavana meditation we’ll gently transition into our calming and soothing sound bath journey using Koshi chimes and crystal singing bowls. This sound bath is an opportunity to connect with love and loving kindness as we transition through Spring. Book via the events link in my bio.

11/03/2025

As I write this we’re approaching the spring equinox and it really feels like we’re emerging from winter. Just like the autumn equinox, the spring equinox represents a point of balance and balance is a theme that I’m exploring deeply at the moment.

At the spring equinox night and day are briefly equal, before we find ourselves in the light half of the year. Themes we can explore at this time of year include fertility, rebirth, renewal, and new beginnings.

I’ll share more reflections on this in my next newsletter ( you can sign up via the link in my bio) but, for now, here’s the beautiful poem A Light exists in Spring by Emily Dickinson.  
A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period – When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay –
A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament.

06/03/2025

“What do you feel in your body” can seem like a fairly simple question but many of us really struggle to answer it. Many people who come to counselling or therapy have learned to disconnect from their bodily experience as a survival mechanism.

Many neurodivergent people in particular struggle with interoceptive awareness or awareness of our inner experience. On the other side of the coin some of us struggle with being overwhelmed by the feelings or sensations without being able to make sense of them. You might even experience both of these things.

As a therapist who is also neurodivergent I’ve done a lot of work on my own journey to be more in touch with what’s happening internally. As someone who used to live very much in my head, rather than my body, it’s taken a lot of unlearning to get to a point where I can (mostly!) sit with what ever I’m feeling or experiencing and have tools and approaches to soothe my nervous system if needed. The cognitive work of understanding ourselves can only take us so far though.

The trouble is that many of us don’t know exactly what it is that we’re feeling. Tools like the feeling wheel can be helpful for some people but for others it still feels very abstract. The valance-arousal model, for me, is a super simplified way of checking in to see whether you are feeling a high or low level of arousal and whether you feelings or sensations feel positive or negative. This can be a great starting point for soothing yourself and your nervous system.

I’ve shared some deeper reflections about what the model and what working with it can look like in my latest blog post. Check out the link in my bio.

The Clear Space

24/06/2025

20/06/2025

17/06/2025

02/06/2025

27/05/2025

23/05/2025

20/05/2025

15/05/2025

22/04/2025

12/03/2025

11/03/2025

06/03/2025

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