Dr Sarah Quinley

14/10/2022

How much is your day centred around getting things done? Completing tasks, working on your goals, or keeping up with demands?

How often do you do things just for the sake of it? Just for the joy of it? Just so you can “be” for a bit?

As a recovering perfectionist, “doer”, goal setter, and fixer, I am well aware of the challenge of “being”. Often, we keep moving out of fear. Fear that if we stop, everything will fall apart. Or, fear that we will lose our value or the things or people we value. Or, that we will confront stuff that we don’t want to look at.

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that if we keep moving, we’re bound to progress, but the thing is, sometimes our healing requires us to slow down or even stop completely. After all, how do we expect much to change if we stay on that same hamster wheel?

Letting go of the need to be productive and fix it all isn’t easy. At the same time, it’s a huge relief. I am reminded of this doing art now. I used to start over when I would “mess up” or sometimes I would give up all together because it wasn’t “perfect”. What a relief to just do art because I like the process.

We need to be able to just do things because we like it or need it, not because its contributing something or making money or getting praise. Imagine what it would be like to do something today just for the sake of it, or because your heart or your body might be craving it. Can you give yourself permission to go toward what feels good today?

03/10/2022

Good morning. I have a question for you if you’d like to ponder: What keeps you connected to yourself?

I’ve noticed, especially in moments when I feel scattered and lost, when I don’t quite know how to make sense of it all, that’s my indication that I need to connect with myself.

For me, feeling connected means being as aware as I can about what’s going on inside me. It means that I’m listening to myself. That I am paying attention to what’s going on and how it’s affecting me. It means that I am leaning into myself with compassion.

When I think about the things that help me to that affect, journaling is a big one. Sometimes the only person I really need to speak to is me. Sometimes, it’s enough to just get my feelings and thoughts out on a page. Sometimes, it’s remembering to take my own advice.

Other times, it’s a walk in nature. Or, it’s painting on a canvas. And what I hope to get back to soon is writing songs cause that really helps me feel connected to myself the most.

So, I return with another question to add to the first: what does connection mean to you and how do you cultivate connection with yourself?

I’d love to hear 👇🏻

30/09/2022

16/05/2022

The familiar can be oh so comfy. Our brains like to stay in what it knows. It can feel safe and awful at the same time. It is necessary to expect change to be hard and to get to know the clever ways our brains might protect us from it. From there we can plan on how we can get through the barriers and shift into growthful change.

To read the full article head over to my blog on my website.

11/05/2022

What if your growth is on the other side of the question rather than the answer?

*New Blog post up on my website*

07/04/2022

I got a little golden nugget from my own therapy today that I wanted to share with you.

When we are at that point where we don't quite know what we want, we can lead with what we don't want. Sometimes this is just where we are at and there's nothing wrong with that; however, there seems to be something about leading with the 'don't' than the 'do' that I think is worth thinking about.

I started thinking about that scene in The Notebook when Noah asks Allie, again and again, "What do you want?" I wonder if perhaps at that moment Allie only knew what she didn't want - maybe she didn't want to hurt Noah or her fiance and this 'don't' got in the way of her saying what she really did want to do.

I can certainly relate to that interpretation, can you? I remember Noah was so frustrated with Allie. It can be really hard to find a way forward when we don't know what we want. Perhaps this is why people can get defensive with us when we lead with the 'don't' instead of the 'do'. Maybe it could feel rejecting and unclear when we just say we don't want something.

I recently had a conversation where I tested out this perspective. I was really reluctant to have a difficult conversation because I didn't want to disappoint them. Leading with what I did want, I was surprised that what I shared landed so well with this person. They even offered me understanding without me needing to explain or justify anything.

This experience affirmed for me how much a difference it can make to focus more on finding out what I do want and leading with that. What do you think about leading with a 'do' or a 'don't'? Do you find that people respond better when you lead with one or the other? What does your experience tell you?

31/03/2022

Sometimes people don’t understand why we experience grief around losing things other than people. Even then, it’s like there’s a time limit, as if “moving on” from losing someone or something is about forgetting or being unaffected.

I wonder if this is because it is so hard to lose and we are losing things all the time. Even when we make a conscious choice about something, we are losing what other choices would have given us. Life is constantly changing as well, so there is always something of grief underneath the moments of our lives. Perhaps we have so much grief that we don’t dare go near it at all. We say “it’s just a part of life.” That may be true, yet that doesn’t mean we don’t feel some type of way about it or that we are “over it” when we decide to be.

Think of it this way, say you move countries. Doing so involves losing access to certain things, people, places, opportunities, connections, and perhaps even parts of ourselves. Sure, it might be possible to carry over some things but there is nevertheless loss there. Often choices like moving countries for a new lifestyle or new opportunities is romanticized and seen only for the positives that when people understandably feel the losses around the move too, their grief is often disenfranchised - when the grief is more generally dismissed or denied by people. This can result in us holding back our grief instead of exploring what this change has meant for us, and how we can learn to live with our grief.

No matter if our grieving process looks different, or it’s about something that others don’t understand, or it’s something we may never “get over” - it matters. You can grieve in your own way. You can keep looking for people who can be with you in it. You can find a way of living with your grief.

30/03/2022

It’s been nearly three years (in May) that I’ve been in private practice and over seven years that I’ve been a practicing therapist. I’ve experienced a lot throughout this time and have tried to keep what I share aligned to myself in the process, which means that I tend to change things a lot because I’m constantly changing - as are you - and sometimes, in seemingly small, imperceivable ways, but nevertheless change is always happening.

It seems to me that living life wholeheartedly is much about coming closer to who we are, bit by bit. Shedding the layers that don’t suit us and creating room for remembering who we were and who we are becoming. After the more obvious changes I’ve been going through the last few years due to living in three different countries, the pandemic, and a host of other things, it’s a relief to feel clearer about who I am and I am aware it’s a bit scary!

I have been working quite a lot on aligning my practice more to me now and I’m aware of how much more vulnerable and exposed I feel. It feels risky and I also know that that risk is worthwhile because it means that I will be able to connect with people who genuinely connect with me. It means that “my people” will be more able to find me. It means that my work will be that much more meaningful, rich, and authentic because I’m more and more “me” in it.

It’s scary and exciting to be more of ourselves and what experience has shown me is that it’s worth it all.

Some new things and some more familiar bits of me, too, are coming to you soon 🙂

22/03/2022

Our process of healing and growing is always influenced by what is around us. With your therapist, for example, your process is influenced by the words, facial expressions, and movements of your therapist. Likewise, the other relationships in which we are a part, and the wider contexts in which we belong, play a role in our healing. In this way, your healing may be up to you but is also co-created with everything and everyone around you.

It is then not that you change because you decide to, it’s more that you are always interacting with things inside and outside of you, subtly shifting all the time in a dance with the world and the different parts of you that make you who you are.

21/03/2022

We are always in a process. Always shifting, transitioning, changing. Yet our attention may often be on the past or the future, that we miss all the little significant things we do for ourselves and others on the daily.

We are growing all the time. Perhaps we are practicing doing things better. Loving deeper. Trusting more. Developing a skill. Whatever you’re up to, how’s that going? What’s that like? What are you enjoying about it? What do you find challenging about it?

I’m finding the last one particularly hard at the moment! What are you currently in the process of?

20/03/2022

Something that may not be well known about the process of growing and healing is the ways that people can experience transitioning from one way of being to another.

People can experience a myriad of emotions. Often it’s a mixture of fear, anxiety, and doubt, along with optimism, excitement, and hope.

However a person experiences a period of transition, it can be helpful to know that it’s natural to have these feelings. It’s really okay to not know and to be in a process.

Change is really hard sometimes, as it may involve feeling much more than we may want to feel for a while. This makes it important to consider how can we be more compassionate and patient with ourselves and give ourselves grace throughout the transitions in our lives.

What transitions are you going through? How are you treating yourself as you go through this period of transition?

20/03/2022

When we focus on the destination instead of the process we are in, we will fall short more often than not. Not because we can’t do it or we aren’t trying hard enough but rather it’s a product of focusing too much on the “ideal” or the goal or the outcome.

You will see so much more if you focus on all the little triumphs along the way. In this way, there isn’t one big win at the end, but little steps of progress that culminate into that big one that we are wanting.

What little wins can you notice you’ve been achieving lately?

Along with the little wins are little loses too. And these little loses are a part of growth. From that fall, you gain strength from getting back up again, affirming your commitment to your process. In this way, you losing can become a win.

Rather than eclipse your progress by measuring it up to your “ideal”, how can you look for all the steps along the way?

20/03/2022

There is often a part of healing and growing where we know who we don’t want to be but don’t quite know what that means about who we will become.

Like grasping for a light in a dark corridor, we may search for the familiar ways we’ve known before to guide us through. Or we may stumble down that corridor, desperate to get to the other side. We don’t quite know where to go or what to do anymore.

This period of walking through the dark unknown doesn’t have to be all confusion and fear. We can think of it as a new space, a new page, a new canvas on which we can experiment and play. What if instead of trying to get to the other side, we get creative about all the ways we could go through that darkness?

I like to think of the in-between as the darkness before daybreak or the silence before the music, or the quiet before the dream.

In the in-between of who we were and whomever we are becoming, we could try to race through, clinging on to the familiar bits with the hope they’ll take us to new places. Or, we could take a pause. We can breath before we speak, we can take a moment before we act, we can imagine before we choose.

We are still living even as we are letting go of who we were. And in the process of letting go, we can create who we’d like to become.

26/01/2022

Hey.

Also, ugh, selfies. I don’t particularly enjoy taking them. But this is a somewhat personal post so a selfie seems fitting.

I’ve been thinking A LOT about identity. More specifically, about what it means to be seen and to see ourselves fully and accurately.

Because our lives create constant change in us, our identity doesn’t stay fixed. Life transitions and other events in life like moving, giving up our citizenship, living in a foreign country, becoming a parent, marriage, gender transition, chronic illness, are just a few things that can shift our identity.

Ive gone through many identity changes and I’ve felt the pressure, as many of my clients have as well, to hold back until Im fully formed (whatever that means!), as if the messy, in-between phase of changing isn’t beautiful and meaningful in and of itself.

I think the pressure to have ourselves “figured out” is just another way that we try and bat away the unknown. And I get it, it’s not an easy place to be. At the same time, I try to remind myself that in the liminal space between who we were and who we are becoming, there is so much possibility. So much room to play and become more than we can imagine.

I’ve felt like such a confusing mess on Instagram because with so much that’s changed for me over the past few years, that outward confusion is just a reflection of my inward confusion. I keep asking myself how I want to show up here. I’ve changed so much - for those of you who’ve been following along, you’ll know. And it honestly is hard to be seen in that messiness and it’s just where I’ve been at.

What my values tell me is that I can be messy because growth isn’t a clean, tidy, or a straightforward process. It can be hard to be seen this way in a world that often wants to filter out anything not up to some social standard. We put so much damn pressure on each other and ourselves.

If you’re feeling a bit confused, lost, out of sorts - same! Here’s to being messy, growing, imperfect humans taking bad selfies and all.

15/01/2022

We may come to therapy wanting to be “fixed” and quickly. If we don’t come to huge realizations or if we are still struggling after 4,5, even 10 sessions, we might think the whole thing is bogus. We can be quick to draw conclusions about therapy or our therapist. The thing is there are so many reasons why we might feel stuck and come back again and again to the same problems.

There is so much information is the stuckness. The stuckness then becomes the focus of the therapy and it’s because that is where you’re at. At that point, we may get frustrated because we want to move on. We can look for any explanation to get away from the stuckness. This is usually the point where we might change therapists or give up completely.

The stuckness is where it’s at! That’s why it’s so important to sit with it and get curious about what’s happening. The stuckness is a way of saying “There’s something here I need you to look at before we can go on.” It could be a part of you who is scared. It could be an experience that has yet to be named. It could be a belief waiting to be made conscious. It could be the honest words that you’re afraid to say. Whatever it is, it’s in the stuckness.

It’s also okay to take a pause when you’re stuck rather than force something. We can’t force change on others and I don’t think we can force change on ourselves. My sense of healing is that it’s patient. It’s gentle. It’s mystical. It’s a dance with the unknown. It’s brave. It’s a plunge into ice cold waters and an exhilarating rising from the depths.

You can trust your process. The stuckness is part of it.

12/01/2022

Being an immigrant comes with a lot of grief. It’s like the spaces and people you’ve known hold something of you when you leave. Something that only returns when you reconnect with them in a particular way.

When that connection breaks, as it inevitably will one way or another, we may never get that particular connection back. The relationship changes and what once was is only retained in our memory. This is important, special, and heartbreaking all at once. It makes sense that we grieve, and sometimes bucket loads when we lose connections. It’s no small thing to lose someone or something that’s mattered to us.

The more connections we miss, the greater the grief seems to be. Our choices mean losing and of course there is a gaining, too. But for those of us in cultures that tend to overlook and deny the necessity of the grieving process, it can be hard to take stock of all those lost connections, and more importantly, the ways that they’ve been affecting us.

Moving countries, and in turn, losing a lot of bits of me, has highlighted just how hard change actually is and why we will all resist it - it really is so, so hard to lose those people and places and parts of ourselves, even when we need or want to.

What I’ve been pondering lately is this: Who said we were meant to keep things? That the “ideal” is to retain it all? That losing is something to avoid at all costs? That remaining the same is something to strive for? We may not consciously hold these beliefs, yet individually and collectively, we often uphold them as what we “should” do. Oh how human that is!

Rather than denying that it’s hard, and resolve that it’s down to a fault of others or our own fault we can’t heal, perhaps instead we can expect that we will resist growing and get to know the ways we do that? Maybe we can explore the parts of us that have messages they need us to hear before we shift? Maybe can we get to know our clever ways of protecting ourselves and appreciate just how genius we are sometimes 😂?

All this today, it’s okay if you don’t want to heal sometimes. It’s so human of you. That’s part of the process, too.

11/01/2022

Can I just say something 🙋🏻‍♀️
Therapy is freaking hard.
It can be a very long process. We may return again and again to things that we wish we didn’t have to confront anymore. We might feel shame or embarrassment for bringing it to our therapist after they’d offered us such helpful and persistent support with it many times over. Can we just take a moment together and be with all that?

Here’s what I’m reminding myself right now: Because it’s hard doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. Or that we’re failing or our therapist is failing (although when the going gets tough we can be so clever at blaming ourselves or our therapist as a way out). It doesn’t mean we are a hopeless case. We can be mindful and compassionate about all of it.

I’ve been going to therapy on and off for over 7 years. Before that, yoga and meditation and a spiritual community were the ways I was doing inner work. And I’ve gone through years of training as a therapist which was based on my relationship with myself. I’m still going. It’s been a long journey. And I know it is a life-long journey. And when I get tired, it helps me to come back to the fact that I’m trying. That there is a love for myself and others in that trying. That I have made so much change in my life as a result of all that trying and I will continue to as long as I keep that up.

That doesn’t mean there is no room for resting or falling back or moments of wanting to give up. It’s more that when I notice I’m there, there is a recommitment and a returning to a promise to myself: that I deserve my healing.

If you’re finding “the work” hard, the journey hard, life hard - me too. I wish it was easier too *and* maybe there is something important in the waiting. Something growthful in the struggle and the gradual movement of it all. Something insightful in the impatience. Its all information to get curious about. It’s all part of it. It’s all meaningful. We’re right where we are supposed to be ✨

10/01/2022

It seems like things are really shifting when I see someone on a TV show allowing themselves to be human and vulnerable and not try and act in a way that’s at odds with how they really feel. Just yay 👏🏻👏🏻
https://youtu.be/x5tR8j6dFTU

Machine Gun Kelly gives Drew a manicure, with his UN/DN LAQR nail polish line, while they both let their guards down and open up in this extended version of ...

23/11/2021

Autumn 🍂

What a beautiful season to behold. Nature has always been such a refuge for me. A place to go to feel at home. I can make friends with the trees and the animals if I feel lonely. It’s a place to remember that there is beauty in the world. There is calm. There is ease. There is stillness. And there is change, movement and growth.

Being in nature helps me find a balance because frankly, life is really, really hard. We often blame ourselves or each other for how hard it is. As if there’s a way to be that can always make life easy. It’s just not possible. And because it isn’t possible, we’ve got to find some ways to find a bit of softness in the hardness of living.

And in between the softness and the hardness, perhaps we can find some space to breath. A space to remember we’re living, we are alive, we are human beings, and we’re a part of something.

What are the soft spots in your life?

22/11/2021

What is “too much” or “needy” or “annoying” or “disappointing” or “dramatic” to one person may not be to another. What one person says doesn’t not mean something general or defining about us.

Even if we are generally perceived in some of these ways, this is useful. Rather than judge and get down on ourselves, we can explore and get curious about why we show up in these ways. Why did we need that way of being? Do we need it now, why?

We can limit ourselves when we are judged. We make all of us “bad” or “wrong” or “annoying” and so on. But we are never one thing. We can never be encompassed by a word, by an experience, or by a perception. We are never just one thing.

You are much more than any label, judgement, role, or type. You are more than the stories you’ve been told about yourself. You are more than the beliefs that came from you making sense of things. So, so much more.

21/11/2021

For those of us who feel like we are inherently bad or wrong or defective deep down, your sense of yourself makes sense. Not because you are those things, but because it makes sense that you would think of yourself in this way when you’ve been in relationships where you were hurt, neglected, or abused more often than not.

As children, we need the people who are responsible for us to be safe and loving and to meet our needs good enough. If they don’t, what we do is make ourselves not good enough, unlovable, and unsafe. It’s a survival mechanism that will follow us into adulthood and into our future relationships, setting us up to seek out relationships that confirm our sense of ourselves.

If this resonates then I ask you this:

What if you were never “bad” in the first place? What if this belief about yourself is just what kept you safe and helped you get your needs met somehow?

19/11/2021

Our chosen loneliness is our friend. Our unchosen loneliness - our enemy.

Loneliness can be complicated for those of us who were abandoned, neglected, or abused. It may be something we know very well and that familiarity can be the pull towards isolating and withdrawing from the world. Our withdrawal, a reflection of our difficulty with trusting others to be there for us. And being on our own may be something we avoid by bending over backwards to ensure we never have to be alone with ourselves.

How can we be alone with ourselves when we don’t know how to be there for ourselves? No one taught us how not to abandon ourselves when we are in pain. So when we are in pain, we leave us alone, just as we’ve always known. This is the struggle loneliness can hold.

Moving to another country and be extremely lonely, especially if we don’t quite know the language yet. If you’ve got a complicated relationship with loneliness, this can make this transition very difficult. You might retreat to past behaviors you used to cope with your loneliness but that may exacerbate or prolong your loneliness all the more.

Rather than abandon ourselves when we are experiencing loneliness, how can we move in closer? How can we explore what we need around our loneliness so we can tend to those needs? How can we meet our need for connection by both connecting with ourselves and others? What did we need then that we can offer ourselves now?

How can you befriend your loneliness, not as a way to self-protect, but as a way to connect with yourself. You deserve you. ❤️

16/11/2021

Codependency and the immigrant experience is something this book has made me think a lot about. When we are separated from the external sources we’ve relied on for self-worth, our world can come crashing down - and hard. Suddenly, we might no longer know who we are because we aren’t getting the same mirroring we relied on for our identity.

We are very much shaped and influenced by the world around us, and if there is codependency, this will be true all the more. If you have identified yourself with people, places, customs, traditions, beliefs, lifestyles etc…. then moving to another country where you’re more isolated and the things you once identified with aren’t available, you might go through an identity crisis.

This is really, really hard and it’s a huge opportunity to begin to ask who you are apart from all those external sources. It’s a chance to explore what you want, need, value, and like apart from what you previously may have chosen because of your environment and the people around you. It’s a chance to play with new ways of being that feel more you.

Because it’s so hard to seize this opportunity, it might seem easier to just carry on and become codependent with the new place - adopting ways of being so you can “fit in” with the new culture or leaning on your partner, your friends or your family back home to meet all your needs. But this would be missing how this new environment could usher you into true belonging: belonging that comes from you identifying who YOU are deep down and finding people who match THAT. What is it like to imagine that?

11/11/2021

There are so many reasons why people do what they do. For some of us, when we don’t receive an explanation of a person’s “why”, we come up with our own.

What we come up with is shaped by our experiences. If our experiences have been that we’ve been made responsible in some way for how other people feel, we likely will assume that the explanation is something about what we’ve done or haven’t done. This can often lead us to worry and obsess about how others actions are a reflection of something about us.

The thing is *you are not responsible for another person’s feelings*. As adults, we are responsible for our feelings and actions, even with the influence of other people. You don’t have to take rejection, silence, or other hurtful behaviors as information about you.

If you know you tend to assume people’s actions are about you and you take a lot of responsibility for others, then it’s best to hold off on from believing this is always the case and instead shift your attention to the wound that is showing itself to you in the absence of that explanation.

02/11/2021

What 'home' means to us evolves as we grow. Home can be many things - a place, a person, a hobby - whatever it is, usually people tend to associate 'home' with a sense of belonging, authenticity, and safety.

My sense of what home means has changed a lot over the years. When I was a child, it was the place I lived with my family. Later, it was a romantic relationship. When I moved countries, 'home' became more complicated. I had what felt like multiple homes and no home at the same time. Because I no longer found a home in a place or a relationship or a community, I had to reconsider what home was when I had only myself.

This was a lonely and challenging process and a huge opportunity to learn what belonging, authenticity, and safety mean inside of myself. How could I create a sense of home within me?

To me, creating a home inside meant protecting and caring for myself as I would a physical home. In my home, I tend to what's not working as I need and want it to. I cultivate comfort and ease by keeping it tidy. I create safety in my 'home' by being aware of who I allow in and taking necessary measures to keep certain 'dark guests' out. I repair what gets broken and overused. I find ways to create harmony with the people inside my home by valuing each one and creating communication pathways so we can work together on how the home functions and feels.

If you have a house of your own, you know that so many unexpected things can happen, but how we care for our home, how we are careful not to neglect or damage it, and tend to what it needs, is how we uphold it as a sacred space to put everything down and just be.

If you think of yourself in this symbolic way, as a 'home', how would you say you're taking care of you? Does it feel like a home inside? If not, what would you need to make it feel more so?