Ali Harris Therapy & Co

13/08/2025

Grief may get easier to manage, with time and support, but I’m not sure it every really leaves - sadness endures, occupying the space marked ‘loss.’ And while death is a major cause of grief, it’s NOT the only one. There are the people you’ve lost touch with by accident; those who left you without your consent; those you had to cut out of your life - but still miss…Oh, loss can be messy.

But there are some small consolations to be had - they tend to be best discovered on one’s own - when someone else tries to introduce them with phrases like ‘at least’ - ‘at least she didn’t suffer’ or ‘at least now you know’ - they tend to ring hollow and fail to offer real comfort.

But if you can reflect on every relationship lost - whether to death, happenstance, argument or ghosting - it’s possible you will come to a place where you can hold space for the gains as well as the losses that make up your inheritance:

- A (trans)formative experience
- A favourite song
- An introduction to a new writer or artist
- An important person
- A life-changing experience
- A funny story
- A piercing insight
- A life lesson

Some people will have left you armfuls of these kinds of treasures… others maybe only one or two.

As you reflect on your absent friends - the living and the dead - by all means be sad, allow regret, anger, frustration and any other difficult feeling that rises - you can’t help how you feel.

And then see if it feels possible to summon up your awareness of the good or useful things they left you, whether those are memories, hard truths, possessions or pursuits.

People come and go, but their effects on you mark their passage and can be all you’re left with. Although not everything they leave you is purely good, there are often things to be grateful for, and where that is the case, this gratitude can help you bear your loss.

Art: poppyspapercuts

12/08/2025

Procrastination is usually caused by overwhelm, which is often caused by spending too much time looking at the ‘big picture’ like solving a problem, moving house, retraining, having a baby or getting divorced. If you look at enormous undertakings too long they scare the bejesus out of you, and you tend to have a bit of a tizzy and down tools, totally overcome.

SO, the way to go about these great tasks without getting stuck in a persistent state of abject uselessness, is to put on what I call ‘emotional blinkers’, you know, like you’re a skittish horse about to go into traffic.

These emotional blinkers are a mind-set, in which you talk to yourself soothing and gently insist that you focus your attention on the first step only, whatever that is. You are allowed to look up at the big picture without blinkers on FROM TIME TO TIME… but in order to prevent heightened anxiety and a resultant lack of doing stuff, it is better to keep your attention mainly on the small, manageable tasks that will eventually accumulate to the point where the massive task is achieved.

And the extra bonus with this approach is that every time you manage to take a little step toward your ultimate goal, you reinforce your experience of yourself as reliable, productive, and efficient. Take a minute to bug yourself up and delight in your own awesome efficacy! This boosts your self esteem and you get a kick out doing something that would have once given you the heebie-jeebies 🙌 😁👍

So, please don’t let big complicated endeavours wig you out - you don’t have to achieve or fix everything today - just try figuring out the next step and be assured that that IS enough!

Art: The Latest Kate

11/08/2025

It’s tempting to ascribe others’ successes to ‘good fortune’ and to contrast it unfavourably with your own ‘bad luck’; now, sometimes that’s all your problem is - simple misfortune. BUT…if you were able to drill down into another person’s apparent serendipity I expect that you wouldn’t find a record of mere plain sailing. I would expect to find adversity - health problems, financial pressures, relational issues, personal challenges, inner fears - because these are things we ALL face.

Now, while it’s perfectly true that we all have our own personal blends of intersection and privilege (things that tend to go against us and for us,) and some people ARE more fortunate than others, success is rarely JUST the result of a silver spoon.

At some point gumption IS required and that’s when we find out what we’re made of. Luckily, having your mettle tested does not mean you have to do it all alone. Please DO reach out for support - friends, family, professionals - whatever you need. There are no prizes for solo ascents. And a safety net is ALWAYS advisable.

Look at those who are doing things you dream of and instead of being intimidated a bitter about what they achieved, maybe use them as inspiration.

Tell yourself: ‘if SHE can, so can I!
Remind yourself: ‘I bet she struggled too’’

Reach out for advice - who better to help than someone who’s already ‘been there’?

Whatever you’re reaching for, I’m wishing you the strength and belief to get it done.

And if you’d like a little help from me, you know where I am xx

Art: pls DM for credit

10/08/2025

Sometimes it feels easier not to try - too scary to know… it can seem better to never attempt something difficult, so that you can pre-emptively prevent the prospect of failure and so you can tell yourself:

‘I could have…I just didn’t want to/didn’t have time.’ etc.

It takes balls to try - to roll the dice and find out what you’re capable of, to see what can be achieved.

And it’s ok if you’re not ready.
It is.
It’s also fine if you NEVER try.

But see if you can at least be honest with yourself. It’s always preferable to tell yourself the truth.
I think that’s where self-respect begins.

So, if you’d like some help - with the trying and/or the truth-telling, well… you know where I am x

Art: As Above Astro

09/08/2025

We all get emotionally dysregulated at times - that ‘all over the place’ feeling when you’re too tired, are shaky with hunger, too full of competing thoughts, or are overwhelmed by a cacophony of sounds. Neurodivergent people suffer with this VERY often - but neurotypical people can too. It’s all a matter of what interferes with your ability to cope calmly with whatever’s going on.

Self-regulating is basically whatever you need to do to stop the melt-down process - have a snack, drink some water, step out into fresh air and take some deep breaths, put on noise-cancelling headphones, listen to music - whatever helps you calm down and restores a sense of manageability to your experience.

In order to do that, you probably need to:

- be able to NOTICE you are becoming dysregulated BEFORE you pass the point of no return (when meltdown becomes inevitable.)

- the capacity to practice ‘the pause’ to create some internal space to take a minute and assess what your next moves should be

- be willing & able to extract yourself from the distressing/overwhelming situation

- know what you need (or at least have a list of things in your brain that help you regulate.)

- be able to meet your needs (even if you feel that others might judge or ridicule you for them)

Overwhelm can kick in fast, so learning to identify when it’s happening and being able to pull out of it can take some practice, and probably a bit of trial and error.

Your attempts to cope might not look graceful or expert and you may feel silly or weird as you get to grips with what needs to happen.

We are often encouraged to ‘suck up’ our discomfort and ‘mask’ it - act as if it’s not happening. We are often told that refusal to pretend we are fine when we aren’t is ‘making a fuss’ or ‘attention-seeking’ but I think that’s BS.

I feel like it’s more important that you keep on learning how to recognise and meet your needs, so that you can regulate and care for yourself.

What do you think?

Art: jessejarldaneart

08/08/2025

If you struggle with setting boundaries, then chances are this is mainly because you are also REALLY afraid of conflict. You might feel that boundary-setting involves loud, controversial push-back that can only lead to unpleasantness and being made to feel guilty.

FORTUNATELY, this ain’t necessarily so.

❌ You don’t have to set boundaries by bellowing “NO!”
❌ It is not necessary to immediately withdraw any and all cooperation from people you’ve been over-pleasing.
❌ You don’t need to make waves with your initial experiments with boundary-setting.

For example, BEFORE you start drawing lines in the sand with other people, you could begin with more subtle boundaries, ones you can draw with yourself such as:

❌ NOT offering to do something that isn’t technically your responsibility - stay quiet and let someone else volunteer.
❌ NOT automatically picking up other people’s neglected/undone tasks.
❌ NOT volunteering your time & energy when your time is already committed to enough projects.

It’s ok to start small and it’s ok to to try and fail - you have to start somewhere. Each failure will offer you insights into how to support yourself to do better next time. Each small win will increase your confidence, self-respect and capacity to feel entitled to protect your time and energy.

Maybe start your assertiveness journey with little internal micro-boundaries and just stick wit it, little abd often. Before you know it you’ll be super-confidently saying NO to all kinds of tasks you never really wanted to do in the first place xx

Art: Katie Abey

07/08/2025

It’s so easy to focus on everything you have yet to achieve - all the bad habits you’ve yet to release, the good ones you haven’t quite gotten around to introducing, the next step you want to take at work, the home improvements that are stacking up, undone.

It’s understandable - there will ALWAYS be things to do, new goals to shoot for, more aspirations to entice you onward. The future is a sultry temptress, always beckoning us forward, seductively stealing your focus from the present moment, or from the past’s pull.

So, sometimes it’s important to just take a minute and APPRECIATE how far you’ve come.

Do you remember when past you thought you could never do what you’ve done? Could never have what you have? Could never be who you are? We are so quick to normalise our achievements and relegate them to the back of the experiences cupboard. And it’s ok to maintain or mostly forward-focus BUT maybe take a minute, once in a while, to appreciate the things you’ve managed to do.

Congratulate yourself on a job well done, a qualification gained, a bad relationship ended, a boundary successfully laid and maintained, a new direction, a fresh start, persistence in the face of many trials…just acknowledge yourself and your achievements.

Because your past self IS so proud of where you are now.

And you deserve to be, too.

Art: haleyincarnate

06/08/2025

Our cat, Martha, was killed in the early hours of Monday morning by foxes. A heart-breaking, shocking & brutal thing; but what followed was, by contrast, really lovely - an outpouring and kindness and sympathy from the people in our road, who often stopped to stroke Martha on the way to and from work and school; the generosity of our local reuse group, who flooded my request for paving slabs to cover the cat grave in our garden, (so we can prevent foxes trying to dig her up) with offers of free slabs and lots of supportive, empathic words; the people on my FB feed who reached out to express their sadness for us, & the friends who sent flowers and cards.

As well as feeling overwhelmed by unexpected grief and pain, we were flooded, too, with reminders of how many people cared about us and our loss - we were covered with love & really felt held.

And I was struck by how this awful event unexpectedly left me feeling grateful.

Not grateful for the fox attack.
Not grateful for Martha’s death.
Obviously.

But grateful that when bad things happen I have friends, family and a wider community that care enough to engage, to show solidarity and to make a bad thing a little bit better by showing up and reaching out.

The world can feel quite uncaring sometimes so it’s nice to know that people - those close, some who know us in passing and others who don’t know us at all - can still take a moment to offer kind words & practical help on a grey Monday morning.

Gratitude doesn’t make Martha’s death ok. She was part of our little family and we’ll miss her.
But being able to find things to be genuinely grateful for around her ugly and unexpected demise makes the whole thing a little easier to manage.

And that means a lot.

❤️ RIP Martha, 2013- 2025

* I have no hate for foxes, if people didn’t encroach on their natural habitat these things probably wouldn’t happen, and as a rule foxes don’t tend to attack cats 🦊

05/08/2025

You can’t make people choose you.
But you CAN choose yourself.
No begging for inclusion.
No repeated sucking up non-reciprocal, self-centered behaviour.
No going above and beyond for people who barely lift a finger for you.

If they wanted you, they’d be with you.
Turn down the volume on their words, their excuses, their hot air.
Focus on their actions (or their lack of same.)

That’s your answer.

Center yourself.
Re-orient your attention to finding people you enjoy, who clearly enjoy you right back.

Better, huh?

I LOVE that for you xx

Art: ebrulillustrates

04/08/2025

💖💖💖

Are you the one who keeps the group chat alive?

The planner. The birthday-rememberer. The “just checking in” friend?

No one asked you to be that person — it’s just who you’ve always been, right?!

But lately? You’re fed up.

The chat stays quiet unless you speak first. Plans don’t happen unless you initiate.
And quietly, you question: is everyone busy and just not including me?

You don’t know how to bring it up without sounding needy (you vividly remember being called “high maintenance” one time) so you withdraw, hoping someone will notice.

And it really sucks when they don’t.

You thought pulling back would feel empowering; a real grown up boundary moment. But it actually makes you want to cry and you feel weirdly invisible

Here’s the thing:

pulling away makes sense when closeness feels risky, but it doesn't make sense if that’s what you’re craving.

Maybe if you’ve always been an organising queen, no-one would ever suspect it’s because you feel lonely…

What if instead of withdrawing, you got curious instead?

Maybe it’s not that your pals are thoughtless or too busy, just that they’ve never met the part of you that’s struggling quietly behind the mask of a highly-organised badass.

(No-one can know or care about a person they’ve not yet met…

If deep down, part of you is fearful of being too much (and rejected as a result) it might be utterly terrifying to ask for more from your relationships.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask...

But it's probably worth exploring why you might find asking so hard 🫶

04/08/2025

It can feel tough to be accountable for harm you’ve done - whether it’s the harm you’ve done to yourself or the harm you’ve done to others. Sometimes, when confronted with your faults - perhaps something unkind you’ve said, or something petty or mean you might have done in a fit of pique - you can feel attacked and completely unable to acknowledge your mistake, and defensiveness feels like your only viable path. You make excuses, you get upset, you get angry and you feel like people are accusing you of being a ‘bad person.’

But you are almost definitely not a bad person - you’re probably just struggling to manage to think of yourself as someone who can be capable of good AND bad things. Perhaps when confronted with your bad deed you feel exposed or ‘outed’ as a bad person, and you’re so desperate not to be thought of that way that you can only scramble to dodge the label. But the thing is, you’re not just bad and you’re not just good. You’re capable of both. And actually it’s how you manage that ambiguity that will contribute significantly to how well (or not) you come across to others, and how good you feel about yourself.

IF you can hold onto your sense of yourself as a flawed but basically good person - one who makes mistakes, as all people do - but who is willing and able to learn and grow from errors (which is the ONLY way we learn and grow,) you may find that you can bear up better when your f*ck-ups come to light. And if you can cultivate this capacity, it will HELP you to get through these sticky moments looking AND feeling like that ‘good person’ you aspire to be.

When you can relinquish the need to be seen as ONLY good; when you can ACCEPT your failings & weaknesses as normal and human, and when you can extend GRACE to yourself, it becomes easier to admit to your faults, apologise for the damage you have done, make amends & facilitate forgiveness (even if it’s just your own forgiveness towards yourself.)

FINALLY, you can liberate yourself from the burden of trying to seem perfect, and embrace your imperfect but no less worthy self.

Not so bad, eh?

Art: Blcksmth

03/08/2025

It can be tempting to try to be ‘a good client’ for your therapist - to nod along at everything they say, even if it doesn’t resonate; or to try to bring something new and ‘exciting’ every week so as ‘not to bore them’; maybe you work hard to make them laugh, or to help them feel like they’re doing a ‘good job’ - perhaps you’re even focussing on making therapy satisfying for them as a way of avoiding doing the work you’ve come to do.

I know it sounds mad, and you might think you’d never fall into that trap - but it can happen to anyone. Therapy can feel scary at times, and it’s very tempting to ingratiate yourself with the person who is there to help you through it. If you’re used to putting others first, if you’re accustomed to having to keep everyone else sweet in order to feel safe; if you’re usually feeling the need to appease or look after the people who have been in positions of power and.or care over you, it might be something you do without even thinking about it.

If you catch yourself trying to earn your therapist’s approval it’s ok - be kind to yourself and see if you can gently move your focus back to yourself. You might even feel able to tell your therapist that you’ve caught yourself trying to impress them, so that you guys can explore that phenomenon together and help you to gain further self-insight.

Art: Self Love Tool Chest