What are the opening hours?

Monday 8am - 6:30pm Tuesday 8am - 5pm Wednesday 8am - 5pm Thursday 8am - 5pm Friday 8am - 5pm

http://michaelburnellcounselling.uk/

Michael Burnell Counselling, Ilminster (2025)

02/12/2024

A novel way to look at how we might recover our balance and equilibrium

20/02/2024

A – Z of Mental Health: Mandalas

A mandala is a geometric configuration of symbols which in various spiritual traditions represents the universe in its ideal form. There are 3 types of mandalas, the sand mandala; the teaching mandala and the healing mandala and all are made starting in the centre and then working outwards. The word mandala means ‘sacred circle’ and holds a deeper etymology, through the word ‘mandra’, which means ‘container of the essence’. Mandalas are to be found in many ancient cultures including Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

Sand mandalas are typically made from crushed up pieces of coloured stone and when completed, perhaps after taking a number of days, are ceremonially dismantled. Teaching mandalas are an important part of spiritual training within Buddhist practice where each colour, shape and symbol represent a deep meaning. Healing mandalas focus on oneness and wholeness where the cycle and flow of life provide an onus on health, connection and harmony.

Viewing or creating mandalas requires our full attention and encourages our ability to employ both our intuitive and intellectual self, thus simultaneously using the right and the left hemisphere of our brain. In this way mandalas help us to connect, or reconnect, to ourselves, allowing for a finer tuning to occur; starting from the deep within and spreading outwards.
With respect to current day approaches to improving mental health, mandalas are most widely used in 3 ways:

1) Mandala Meditation: which involves choosing a mandala that appeals to you. Setting in your own words a healing intention and then focusing on the centre of the mandala to begin the healing journey through its displayed symbolism.
2) Creating a Mandala: choose intuitively the medium or mixed media that you want to use for your mandala – paints, pastels, crayons, flowers, leaves, stones, crystals etc. Set your intention for your healing and when you feel ready begin creating your personal mandala.
3) Colouring a Mandala: there are many books or on-line resources of mandalas that can be coloured in. Set an intention before intuitively selecting the mandala, the medium and the colours that will serve you best. Then allow yourself to drift peacefully into the act of colouring.

Whichever option you choose, during the processes of viewing or creating allow what arises to arise as you engage fully with this powerful technique. It will effortlessly bring to the fore stress relief, quieting of the mind and emotional rebalancing. If at any point you become distracted, thinking about ‘other things’, then simply focus on the symbolic overview that the mandala offers you until you have regained a deeper sense of peace. The more you practice the greater will be your ability to remain longer each day in a peaceful, connected state of being.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

29/01/2024

A – Z of Mental Health: Loss

Many people carry the burden of loss without always realising it. Loss comes in many shapes and sizes and is not confined just to experiencing a death. Some ways in which loss can be experienced include:
Alienation due to loss of contact or communication through family turmoil, conflict or relocation.

Financial loss as a result of reductions in the worth of assets or investments. Also job loss, redundancy or end of career / retirement decisions. Associated with this may come feelings of loss of security that even impact on your sense of self as important things you identified with have now disappeared from your world.

Life-changing illness or injury which may turn your whole life upside down. You lose your sense of identity, of who you are, and have to design a new you that can learn to cope with your illness or the injury you have suffered.

Relationship loss through the break up of an important friendship or divorce or separation.

Last but not least, a general sense of not belonging or something unspecified or unknown is missing from your life.

Any of these loss types will be accompanied by reactions expressed through your feelings, physical sensations, cognitions, or behaviours. The order and magnitude of these will vary greatly dependant on how the loss is perceived by you. These may even extend into a deep sense of grief and grieving as you adjust psychologically and somatically to the new version of you or the new version of your world you now have to live in.

It is important to recognise that grief has an overwhelming intensity to it and not all loss will be carried through into feelings of extreme grief or prolonged grieving. Feelings of grief never really go away. The process of grieving just allows our relationship to the feeling of grief to change over time. In grieving we strive to build a healthier relationship with our grief.

Signs that you might be being affected by a loss in your life come as changes in sleep, eating, and overall energy patterns. You may become more irritable, have less patience or tolerance with others and this may even place a strain on your romantic or other relationships. Additionally you may become forgetful, have trouble concentrating or staying alert and even find yourself crying for no reason.

Other emotions that can become heightened by loss include shock, numbness, sadness, denial, anger, guilt, helplessness, depression, and yearning.

It is important to recognise that whatever your loss, that you look for ways to deal effectively with it and in ways that include the expression of your emotions. Even if you are faced with some people not understanding your loss and telling you to just get on with it, speak your truth. Gaining recognition, both in you your internal landscape and externally via others, of what you are going through along with the authentic expression of your feelings are the best ways to promote the psychological adjustments needed for healthily incorporating your loss into your life.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

03/11/2023

A – Z of Mental Health: Loneliness

Even before the lockdowns and social distancing imposed on the nation during COVID about 5% of the population were reported to have felt lonely. During COVID restrictions Office of National Statistics figures show that around 3.7 million people identified signs of chronic loneliness and that this was particularly prevalent with teenagers where 66% of them reported feeling lonely.

Loneliness and mental health have a chicken and egg relationship. Feeling alone or isolated can lead to a decline in mental health, particularly anxiety and depression. People with a pre-existing mental health condition experience their conditions worsening when enwrapped by loneliness.

Loneliness and social isolation, additionally, are risk factors for poor sleep, cognitive decline, elevated blood pressure, acute stress and even early mortality. They also impact on self-worth, confidence, poorer work performance or lower life ambitions.

There are different types of loneliness that people can experience

• Emotional: the absence of meaningful relationship.
• Social: a real or perceived deficit in the quality of social connection.
• Existential: feeling at your very core a disconnect from others and the wider world.
• Transient: a feeling of loneliness that comes and goes
• Situational: only occurring at certain times, e.g. weekends, bank holidays or Christmas, or at particular places such as work or even parties.
• Chronic: impacted by feeling lonely all or most of the time

All approaches of loneliness differ in their emotional intensity. They can change from moment to moment and last for different durations of time, very much depending on the circumstantial context.

It is important to be able to differentiate between loneliness and being alone. Feeling lonely is a negative experience over which you have no control. Being alone is an active choice of taking some ‘downtime’, where we choose to be by ourselves to rest, recharge, or simply to enjoy our own company. Aloneness is in the most part a positive experience.

Human beings are hardwired as social animals that require connection for a balanced life. When disconnection occurs it is a normal human response to feel lonely and in the moment, you are best served by being kind to yourself.

It is important to tell someone else you are feeling lonely and share the impact this is having on your life. Remember, a problem shared is a problem halved and suitable support can then be enlisted. Similarly, engage in safe and small ways with life to counter the sources of your lonely moods on a daily basis. In this way longer term improvements in your resilience and wellbeing can be established and maintained.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

01/07/2023

Finding peace within can be the hardest thing that you have to achieve in life. Remember, each new day brings fresh opportunity and that all that you can ever do is to do the best you can. Recognise that on some days the best you can achieve in respect of this will be better than on others.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

24/06/2023

A – Z of Mental Health: Letting Go

From a psychological perspective ‘letting go’ can be simply understood as mentally or emotionally releasing an attachment to something. Instead of fighting for a long-held belief; clinging to expectations of how something should turn out; or stubbornly holding onto a thought or behaviour pattern based in fear, sadness or anger that no longer truly serves you, you might find that life would be easier if you were able to relinquish what you believe to be right in exchange for a taste of freedom.

For this to happen, important steps have to be taken towards acceptance. Not acceptance of what once was, but acceptance of what actually is now and what could be in the future. This is no easy task as your past may be filled with many unpleasant experiences and memories. Letting go can be seen as a conscious act of personal development; moving on from living a life rooted in the past towards one based in hope and of living a more complete and fulfilled life in the future.

It is important not to confuse letting go with forgiveness. Letting go requires taking responsibility to influence and change your own unhealthy emotions, thoughts and behaviours. Forgiveness of another is totally independent of this process and requires a re-evaluation or rebalancing of unfair or unjust words, deeds or acts that were brought to bear on you or others you cared deeply for. It is important to recognise that you can start to let go without having to forgive at the same time.

The beauty in letting go is that you can free yourself from the cage that you have placed around you to protect you and keep you safe. Recognise that although the events that happened in your past cannot be changed, your relationship with them most certainly can be. What is holding you back can be overcome.

The magic ingredient required for letting go is taking ownership. Actively own new positive thoughts and behaviours that will help you to increasing nourish your long-unmet needs. Name and embrace your fears: they cannot be released if they are still hiding unseen in some dark corner of your cage.

Develop self-compassion and learn to hold yourself in a warm loving embrace, especially when times become difficult. Speak kindly to yourself. Discover the courageous you again, try new things or reach out for caring support and bravely speak out to what has not been expressed before.

It is also important to find ways to manage and lessen any intrusive thoughts that are echoes of you negative past experiences. Allowing these to maintain power in your world will not help you in letting go. Mindfulness or other relaxation or breathing techniques can help you greatly in this respect.

Remember that letting go is not about suppressing negative emotions or negative thoughts. Letting go requires that difficult emotions and thoughts are allowed to flow freely so that like a helium-filled balloon, when the string is not held securely, it just floats away on the breeze.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

07/06/2023

Sometimes it can seem hard to take the easier route.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

17/05/2023

A – Z of Mental Health: Kidney Function

The action of the kidney from a western medicine perspective is clear. Their primary role is to act as a filtration system. They conduct the removal of waste and excess fluid from the body through urine while at the same time ensuring useful nutrients are reabsorbed back into the bloodstream.

On the other hand, viewing the function of the kidney from a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) stand point there is a more holistic overview that combines physical, mental and emotion perspectives that align with whether the kidney energy is in or out of balance.

Physical symptoms of kidney imbalance include the following: frequent urination or incontinence, night sweats, poor short- term memory, lower back pain, hearing loss or ringing in the ears, hair loss or premature greying of hair.

On an emotional front kidney imbalance can show up as being fearful (fright), displaying a weak will, feeling insecure or aloof and holding a sense of isolation. It follows, therefore, that mental health conditions such as phobias, fears, panic attacks or anxiety could well be connected to kidney energy imbalance. Additionally, the imbalance could also result in longer-term thoughts or behaviours based in doubt, indecision, submissiveness or an inability to be assertive.

In TCM, the kidney energy is strongly linked to bladder energy which is why, the reasoning goes, that when extremely frightened the imbalance in the kidney produces a knock on effect in the bladder and you might find you have wet your pants.

Although TCM, is not viewed by all in the western world as an effective way to treat medical conditions, it has been practiced for centuries in China and the Orient and has been shown to be effective for successfully treating a wide range of conditions. There is a general consensus, though, that it can be effective in conditions relating to pain or stress.

Stay safe. Stay well. Seek the support you need.

Michael Burnell Counselling

02/12/2024

20/02/2024

29/01/2024

03/11/2023

01/07/2023

24/06/2023

07/06/2023

17/05/2023

Address

Opening Hours

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Monday	8am - 6:30pm
Tuesday	8am - 5pm
Wednesday	8am - 5pm
Thursday	8am - 5pm
Friday	8am - 5pm