Clear Heart Counselling

07/04/2026

Biohacking Bombshell

05/03/2026

This is one of the best books for anyone who has experienced a sudden loss.

Brook Noel's younger brother, Caleb, died suddenly at just 27 years old from an unexpected allergic reaction to a bee sting while on a fishing trip. Gone. Just like that. No warning. No goodbye. No chance to say any of the thousand things you assume you'll have time to say.

Pamela Blair's ex-husband, the father of her child, collapsed from a cerebral aneurysm. Died almost instantly. One moment standing, the next on the floor, and then just... nothing. The person who'd been in her life for years, who shared custody of their daughter, who was supposed to pick her up next weekend, ceased to exist between breaths.

These are the two women who wrote "I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye." Not therapists who studied grief from a distance or researchers who interviewed the bereaved and took notes. But two people who lived through the specific hell of sudden death, where reality fractures so completely you can't trust that anything is real anymore.

1. Sudden Death Doesn't Just Take a Person, It Breaks Reality Itself
Noel and Blair name something hard to articulate: sudden death is different. When someone dies after illness, you have time. Time to say goodbye. Time to prepare. But sudden death? One moment they exist, the next they don't, and your brain can't process it. Keeps expecting them to walk through the door because they were just here, just alive, just real.

2. There's No "Right Way" to Grieve; There's Only Survival
Everyone has opinions about how you should grieve. How long you should be sad. When you should "move on." Whether you're crying too much or not enough. All of it makes it worse. Noel and Blair gave us the only permission that mattered: there's no right way. Some days you can function. Some days you can't get out of bed. Some days, you want to talk about him/her constantly. Some days, hearing his/her name feels like a knife. None of this is wrong. All of it is grief.

3. You Don't "Get Over It." You Learn to Carry It
Here's the lie: "Time heals all wounds." Bu****it. Time doesn't heal sudden loss. Time just teaches you how to function while carrying a grief that never gets smaller. You don't move on. You don't get closure. You just learn to live with a wound that doesn't close. You build your life around the absence. You get stronger at carrying the weight. But the weight doesn't go away.

This book won't bring anyone back. Nothing can do that. It won't make the grief smaller or the wound less deep. But it does something more important: it sits with you in the wreckage. It says: I know. I've been here. I've felt this. And I'm still breathing. Still here. Still carrying someone I wasn't ready to say goodbye to. And somehow, that's something.

Noel and Blair, two women who lost people they loved without warning, without goodbye, without any of the closure we're told we need, are proof that you can carry it. That you can survive the unsurvivable.

That you can be "not ready" to say goodbye for the rest of your life, and still find ways to keep living.

05/03/2026

05/03/2026

Highly recommend this book.

Brook Noel's younger brother, Caleb, died suddenly at just 27 years old from an unexpected allergic reaction to a bee sting while on a fishing trip. Gone. Just like that. No warning. No goodbye. No chance to say any of the thousand things you assume you'll have time to say.

Pamela Blair's ex-husband, the father of her child, collapsed from a cerebral aneurysm. Died almost instantly. One moment standing, the next on the floor, and then just... nothing. The person who'd been in her life for years, who shared custody of their daughter, who was supposed to pick her up next weekend, ceased to exist between breaths.

These are the two women who wrote "I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye." Not therapists who studied grief from a distance or researchers who interviewed the bereaved and took notes. But two people who lived through the specific hell of sudden death, where reality fractures so completely you can't trust that anything is real anymore.

1. Sudden Death Doesn't Just Take a Person, It Breaks Reality Itself
Noel and Blair name something hard to articulate: sudden death is different. When someone dies after illness, you have time. Time to say goodbye. Time to prepare. But sudden death? One moment they exist, the next they don't, and your brain can't process it. Keeps expecting them to walk through the door because they were just here, just alive, just real.

2. There's No "Right Way" to Grieve; There's Only Survival
Everyone has opinions about how you should grieve. How long you should be sad. When you should "move on." Whether you're crying too much or not enough. All of it makes it worse. Noel and Blair gave us the only permission that mattered: there's no right way. Some days you can function. Some days you can't get out of bed. Some days, you want to talk about him/her constantly. Some days, hearing his/her name feels like a knife. None of this is wrong. All of it is grief.

3. You Don't "Get Over It." You Learn to Carry It
Here's the lie: "Time heals all wounds." Bu****it. Time doesn't heal sudden loss. Time just teaches you how to function while carrying a grief that never gets smaller. You don't move on. You don't get closure. You just learn to live with a wound that doesn't close. You build your life around the absence. You get stronger at carrying the weight. But the weight doesn't go away.

This book won't bring anyone back. Nothing can do that. It won't make the grief smaller or the wound less deep. But it does something more important: it sits with you in the wreckage. It says: I know. I've been here. I've felt this. And I'm still breathing. Still here. Still carrying someone I wasn't ready to say goodbye to. And somehow, that's something.

Noel and Blair, two women who lost people they loved without warning, without goodbye, without any of the closure we're told we need, are proof that you can carry it. That you can survive the unsurvivable.

That you can be "not ready" to say goodbye for the rest of your life, and still find ways to keep living.

28/02/2026

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

~ Khalil Gibran

[Art : The Art of Ed Org]

28/02/2026

💚

One evening, I was sitting on a bench as the sun slipped down behind those thin, winter-bare trees. My mind drifted to the people I’ve loved and lost. The ones I still miss in small, ordinary moments. I started wondering what they would say if they were given one more chance, one last, unfiltered sentence.

That was the mood I was in when I opened Bronnie Ware’s book. It felt like stepping into a room where life and death sit across from each other without flinching.

Bronnie worked as a palliative nurse, sitting with people who knew they didn’t have much time left. And what she heard from them is almost painfully simple: at the end of life, people don’t usually regret not making more money or climbing higher. They regret the ways they held themselves back. The honesty they swallowed. The dreams they postponed. The version of themselves they never quite let out into the world.

The stories in The Top Five Regrets of the Dying feel real and make you realize that what feels urgent at 25, the hustle, the image, the proving, probably won’t be what keeps you up at 75. It makes you pause. It makes you look at your own life a little more honestly and ask, “Am I actually living, or just managing?”

1. "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
This was the most common. People spent entire lives performing and being who their parents needed, who their partner wanted, who the world said they should be. They killed dreams because someone might disapprove. Abandoned careers that weren't "sensible." Buried whole selves to avoid disappointing people who loved a version of them that wasn't real. At the end, they grieved not specific choices but the decades spent shrinking, apologizing for wanting something different than what they were given.

2. "I wish I hadn't worked so hard."
Every man. Not one woman; but every single man said this. They'd missed their children growing up. Traded marriages for promotions. Convinced themselves the sacrifice was temporary, that they'd slow down eventually. And at the end, none of them wished for more success. They wished they'd been home for dinner. Wish they'd known their kids. Wished they'd chosen the people they loved over the job that replaced them the week after they died.

3. "I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."
They swallowed everything to keep the peace. Never said "I love you" because vulnerability felt dangerous. Never said "you hurt me" because confrontation felt too hard. They died with all those words stuck in their throats; unexpressed love, unspoken truth. They chose comfort over honesty, safety over authenticity. And the peace they'd preserved wasn't peace at all. Just the absence of truth. And that absence had hollowed them out.

4. "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."
No betrayals. No big falling out. Just life. Getting busy. Meaning to call but never calling. Friendships fading not because love died but because neither person fought to keep it alive. They died surrounded by people who barely knew them, wishing desperately for one familiar voice. For someone who remembered who they were before life wore them down. They'd traded depth for convenience, intimacy for busyness.

5. "I wish I had let myself be happier."
They didn't realize until the end that happiness was a choice. They spent entire lives waiting for permission to be joyful - waiting for perfect circumstances, the right moment, the achievement that would finally make joy acceptable. They chose known misery over uncertain joy because at least misery was predictable. At the end, they realized: fear kept them safe but also kept them small. Kept them from ever knowing who they could have been if they'd just been brave enough to try.

You know the people Ware held as they died can't go back. Can't choose differently. Can't recover the time they spent being who they thought they should be instead of who they were. But we can.

We still have time. Not forever. But now. Today. This moment.

10/01/2026

This. Hits. Hard.

The inability to receive support from others is a trauma response.

Your “I don’t need anyone, I’ll just do it all myself” conditioning is a survival tactic. And you needed it to shield your heart from abuse, neglect, betrayal, and disappointment from those who could not or would not be there for you.

From the parent who was absent and abandoned you by choice or the parent who was never home from working three jobs to feed and house you.

From the lovers who offered sexual intimacy but never offered a safe haven that honored your heart.

From the friendships and family who ALWAYS took more than they ever gave.

From all the situations when someone told you “we’re in this together” or “I got you” then abandoned you, leaving you to pick up the pieces when s**t got real, leaving you to handle your part and their part, too.

From all the lies and all the betrayals.

You learned along the way that you just couldn’t really trust people. Or that you could trust people, but only up to a certain point.

Extreme-independence IS. A. TRUST. ISSUE.

You learnt: if I don’t put myself in a situation where I rely on someone, I won’t have to be disappointed when they don’t show up for me, or when they drop the ball... because they will ALWAYS drop the ball EVENTUALLY right?

You may even have been intentionally taught this protection strategy by generations of hurt ancestors who came before you.

Extreme-independence is a preemptive strike against heartbreak.

So, you don’t trust anyone.

And you don’t trust yourself, either, to choose people.

To trust is to hope, to trust is to be vulnerable.

“Never again,” you vow.

But no matter how you dress it up and display it proudly to make it seem like this level of independence is what you always wanted to be, in truth it’s your wounded, scarred, broken heart behind a protective brick wall.

Impenetrable. Nothing gets in. No hurt gets in. But no love gets in either.

Fortresses and armor are for those in battle, or who believe the battle is coming.

It’s a trauma response.

The good news is trauma that is acknowledged is trauma that can be healed.

You are worthy of having support.
You are worthy of having true partnership.
You are worthy of love.
You are worthy of having your heart held.
You are worthy to be adored.
You are worthy to be cherished.
You are worthy to have someone say, “You rest. I got this.” And actually deliver on that promise.
You are worthy to receive.
You are worthy to receive.
You are worthy.

You don’t have to earn it.
You don’t have to prove it.
You don’t have to bargain for it.
You don’t have to beg for it.

You are worthy.
Worthy.
Simply because you exist.

~Jamila White

art | Zima Angela

09/01/2026

Wonderful idea! Please share with your friends. 🥰

"My name is Helen, I'm a hairdresser and I have my own salon on the beautiful waterfront opposite that beautiful red heart, I also have a little takeaway coffee bar here.

I want to help people, that's why I asked you here. I want to help them understand that they can navigate through what is going on in their heads. I want to remind them that there's nothing "wrong" with them and I wanted to find a way to help one another, especially women. It stems from my own experience, trying to navigate it almost 6 years ago when we went into lockdown. I thought that's what it was but it was actually my hormones as I was going through the perimenopause. The pandemic was the catalyst that brought it to the surface.

I would love to set up a coffee and chat, informal chat group. Aimed at women who feel lost or are unsure how to navigate whatever it is they're going through. There's plenty for men out there which is amazing but I'd like to create a safe space right here in my salon, where we can meet regularly. I have contacts in the wellness industry and they are very happy to support me should it get up and running.

I ran a wee treat last year with Nicolle and the feedback was great, time constraints have been why we never got another one going. We set it up at The Kings, we walked along the beach, did some mindfulness stuff. About 2 years ago I tried to get one set up, this is a bad time for people. We're made to believe that Christmas has to be special from a commercial perspective, and I've learned in the last few years that Christmas is what you make of it. Then January comes along, the dark mornings, the grey weather, it affects so many people out there.

All you need is space, time, love and peace, and to just be present, but I've felt this need to help others. This is a great community, there's a lot happening and there's a lot to come, so many of us see the potential for Kirkcaldy. Levenmouths resurgence has been great, there's independent shops and down here in the Merchants Quarter, it's great and it can be better if there was a few more shops filled.

I've spoken to our local MP who helped secure funding for the area, I really hope so it'll make a difference but it's down to us to take advantage of that. Change starts with the people because it's a great town, but we could be better by working together. The community should come together and support us, I'm not a negative person but there's a lot of it out there sadly, many people go elsewhere and that's their choice, but it's our choice to have these businesses. We can provide these service to our community, but without local help, it's not sustainable.

My idea for the group is to create a nice friendly, cosy and warm open space and that what gets shared in here stays in here. It's about chatting, finding a likemindedness, you just don't know who'll walk through that door. I'd like to do more social stuff, maybe a sauna and a cold dip, I love hot and cold therapy. When the nights become lighter, we can do a barefoot walk on the beach, listen to the waves. Find a way to disconnect from the world together.

It's about building a community for people who need it, and introducing them to things they've never done. To escape their comfort zone, and to find likeminded people who will look after one another but also feel seen and feel loved, because all we ever seek is love, we all deserve that after all. I want people to feel safe, but also held and loved because that's important to me. People will be uncertain thinking it's just another group, but it is and will be, a special place for people to come"

Thank you to Helen for meeting me at Pier 88 the other day, it was lovely listening to how passionate you feel about helping others. The first meet up is on Thursday 22nd of Jan at 6pm

Please consider sharing this if you would like to support Helen in making her idea a reality and tag any other groups out there that supports women.

27/12/2025

💕🌲💕

The message I keep hearing from people is how tired they are, how utterly weary and exhausted. The message I keep hearing in response from Nature herself is: "Now is the time to collapse. Now is the time to be fallen, and dissolve like the snow. It's perfectly OK to sink, to let go, to be scattered thistle silk. Fall into Me. You are held. It was precisely your attempt to elevate, to ascend, to surmount and overcome, that exhausted you, and brought you to this trough in the light, this furrow in my loam. Here is your work now: abandon the quest. Only when you drop like a withered seed in complete surrender, will you be born like the new Sun from the very darkness you embrace. There is no other way to get through this miracle."

~ Fred LaMotte

[Art: Susan Seddon-Boulet]

24/12/2025

💚🤗

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.

~ James Baldwin

[Art: Oleg Shupliak]