Small Stepping Stones Counselling & Psychotherapy.

28/04/2026

Women, men all have the same needs, it is not weak or mean less of a man, it takes strength and courage. It has got better over the years but still the stigma, women can feel, need ask for suport but not men. For some ( yes for both women and men and children, mental health does not select. Right now speaking of men) if in childhood, in relation, through serving or something else, to show emption, talk or ask would be unsafe, maybe dangerous, consequences So they live in silence. Our minds, body does not always know when it is ok, it is safe it is allowed, needed. No one should live in silence

For many men, opening up hasn’t always felt safe, easy, encouraged, or even possible. And for some men when they have, they havent had a safe space to land, and they've been met with shame.

Sometimes what’s needed isn’t pressure to talk,
but space, patience, and understanding. Because being a man doesnt have to mean suffering in silence.

28/04/2026

The imprint

Some of us were not raised in environments that felt safe, soft, or emotionally steady. We were raised in spaces where we had to read people carefully, stay alert, silence parts of ourselves, and learn very early that survival mattered more than self-expression.

That kind of childhood does not just disappear because we grow up.

It often follows us into adulthood through hypervigilance, people-pleasing, emotional shutdown, fear of conflict, difficulty trusting others, and a nervous system that still struggles to believe that love can be calm, consistent, and safe.

This is one of the most painful truths about childhood trauma:
when we were supposed to be learning how to live, many of us were learning how to survive.

We learned how to stay quiet.
How to anticipate danger.
How to make ourselves smaller.
How to endure what we should never have had to endure.

And those patterns can stay with us for years, not because we are broken, but because the body remembers what the child had to adapt to.

Healing begins when we understand that these patterns were once forms of protection. But what protected you in childhood may now be exhausting you in adulthood.

If this speaks to your story, I Didn’t Choose to Be Born goes deeper into childhood trauma, dysfunctional family dynamics, survival patterns, grief, healing, and breaking the cycle. And if you want to understand how those early wounds can later show up in limerence, emotional fixation, and painful attachment to emotionally unavailable people, Chasing Love That Hurts goes deeper into that journey. Both books are in the link in bio.

28/04/2026

Holding to the small bread crumbs given and the Maybe. Takes a lot to reach out, takes a lot to not to be strong and to allow someone to be your strength for while until feel ready to take back

Sometimes I Crawl.

From my newest book Stay

26/04/2026

Good luck and safe run to all. Thank you all

It's marathon day 💙

24/04/2026

Anxiety, which is not you it is an emotion that comes at times, attaches. We see as an enemy but is it our friend trying to protect and keep us safe, times does not realise we are safe.

An exercise I often share for anxious moments is to speak to anxiety with kindness instead of fighting it.

When we pause and acknowledge that anxiety is trying to protect us — even if it’s a little overprotective, something softens. Instead of getting pulled into the spiral of “what ifs,” we can take a breath, place a hand on our heart, and remind ourselves that we are safe in this moment.

It’s a gentle shift from battling our thoughts to supporting ourselves through them. 🤍

20/04/2026

It's not uncommon to have opposite experiences be experienced, at the same time, and both still be true.

We’ve probably all known moments of feeling excited about something new while also feeling scared, feeling grateful for something, and at the same time hurt or upset. Wanting change, yet feeling deeply attached to the way things are.

Different parts of us can hold very different needs, emotions, stories and we can often feel like they’re pulling us in different directions or in conflict with each other.

Feeling torn doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.

Your inner world is allowed to be layered, complex and contradictory. Different needs can exist at the same time and they don’t always need to neatly align.

Maybe there’s something in sitting with, noticing and acknowledging what’s there, without needing to fix, judge or change it.

19/04/2026

11/01/2026

You and your needs are important