http://www.jamiemoffatcounselling.com/

Jamie Moffat Counselling, St Ann’s Square, Manchester (2025)

09/10/2025

Self-abandonment often starts as a survival strategy. We learn to silence our needs, dim our light, or put others first to keep the peace, feel loved, or stay safe. Over time, this becomes a pattern — one that can leave us feeling disconnected, resentful, or lost.

Here are a few common signs of self-abandonment:

• Saying “yes” when you really mean “no”
• Ignoring your emotions to avoid conflict
• Seeking external validation over your own truth
• Shrinking yourself to make others comfortable

How to begin reclaiming yourself:

• Start noticing where you override your needs
• Practice saying no with compassion
• Reconnect with what you truly want and feel
• Offer yourself love, protection, and care

Healing self-abandonment isn’t about blame — it’s about coming home to yourself.

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

22/09/2025

Assertive rights are the basic rights we all hold in our relationships and in the way we communicate with others. They’re gentle reminders that it’s okay to have needs, feelings, and boundaries — and that we don’t need to carry guilt for honouring them.

So often we’re taught to prioritise other people’s comfort over our own. That can lead to people-pleasing, resentment, or staying quiet when something matters to us. Remembering our assertive rights helps us step back into balance — respecting ourselves and others at the same time.

Some of these rights include:

❤️ The right to say no without explanation
🧡 The right to express your thoughts and feelings
💛 The right to change your mind
💚 The right to make mistakes and learn from them
💙 The right to be treated with respect
💜 The right to ask for what you need

Being assertive isn’t about being selfish or aggressive. It’s about recognising your worth, honouring your boundaries, and allowing space for authentic connection.

As a people-pleaser in recovery, I know I sometimes forget that I have these rights too — that I can stand up for myself and speak my truth.

Which of these rights do you find the hardest to believe in or practice?

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

11/09/2025

A feelings wheel is a simple tool that helps you identify your emotions — starting with core feelings like sad, angry, or happy, and expanding into more specific words so you can better understand and express what you feel.

Features of a Feelings Wheel:

• Shows core emotions at the centre
• Expands outward into more specific feelings
• Visual, colourful, and easy to use at a glance
• Can be used alone, in journaling, or in therapy sessions

Benefits of a Feelings Wheel:

• Helps you name what you’re really feeling instead of just “good” or “bad”
• Builds emotional awareness and self-understanding
• Makes it easier to communicate your needs to others
• Supports mental health, recovery, and personal growth
• Creates space for compassion and choice, rather than being stuck in vague feelings

Today I feel sleepy, powerless, and hopeful. How do you feel?

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

04/09/2025

I am pleased to share that I accept private health insurance with Bupa.

Bupa is the UK’s largest provider and a leading name in the private health insurance and healthcare market. This means that clients with Bupa cover can now access my services directly through their insurance plan.

If you are a Bupa member and would like to arrange sessions, please contact me for further details on how to get started. ✔️

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

19/08/2025

What is Rejection Sensitivity? 🥺

• Heightened Emotional Reactions: Rejection sensitivity means feeling rejection more intensely than most. Even small slights—like a brief pause in conversation, a delayed reply, or neutral body language—can trigger strong emotions.

• ADHD and Rejection Sensitivity: People with ADHD are particularly prone to it. Emotional regulation challenges and heightened sensitivity to social feedback can make interactions feel overwhelming or threatening.

• Overthinking & Rumination: You might replay events in your mind, imagining the worst, second-guessing yourself, or worrying that people dislike you—even when evidence says otherwise.

• Impact on Relationships: It can affect friendships, romantic relationships, and work life. Fear of rejection may lead to avoidance, withdrawal, or conflict.

• Emotional Consequences: Can lead to anxiety, sadness, irritability, or even feelings of shame. Your mind is simply alert to social cues, sometimes too much.

• Not a Flaw: Feeling this way isn’t wrong—it reflects your brain’s sensitivity to connection and belonging.

• Support: Therapy can help you recognise triggers, manage strong emotional responses, set healthy boundaries, and develop self-compassion. With support, relationships and daily life can feel safer and less stressful.

As an LGBTQIA+ person, I’m sensitive to rejection. I’m learning to respond with self-compassion, so I can live a healthier, more fulfilling life and be less impacted by it.

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

15/07/2025

The anxious-avoidant trap is a painful but common dynamic where two people unintentionally trigger each other’s deepest attachment wounds.

😬The Anxious Partner:

• Craves closeness and connection
• Feels insecure or abandoned when a partner becomes distant
• Seeks reassurance, communication, and emotional intensity to feel safe

💀 The Avoidant Partner:
• Fears being overwhelmed, controlled, or losing independence
• Pulls away when things feel too emotionally intense
• Shuts down or distances themselves to self-regulate

🔁 The Trap Begins:
• The more the anxious partner reaches out for connection, the more the avoidant pulls away.
• The more the avoidant withdraws, the more anxious and activated the other becomes.
• Both partners end up feeling unmet, misunderstood, and emotionally unsafe.

🦋 Breaking the Trap:
• Understand your attachment style
• Learn to self-soothe and set boundaries
• Choose partners who can meet you emotionally (Secure Attachment)
• Heal the belief that love has to feel like anxiety or uncertainty to be real.

⚠️ If you’re constantly chasing or withdrawing, you might not be with the wrong person — you might be stuck in the wrong pattern. You deserve connection that feels safe, mutual, and emotionally regulated.

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

03/07/2025

Understanding Attachment Anxiety 💔

Attachment anxiety often begins in childhood, especially when love felt inconsistent or uncertain. If your emotional needs weren’t fully met growing up, you may have learned to feel unsafe in close relationships—always fearing disconnection or rejection.

In adult relationships, this might look like:
🔸 Feeling anxious when your partner is quiet or distant
🔸 Overthinking messages or changes in tone
🔸 Needing constant reassurance
🔸 Fearing you’re “too much” or “not enough”

But healing is possible—and it starts within. 💛

⸻

How to Build Inner Security:

✨ Shift Your Self-Talk
Notice the voice that says, “They’ll leave me” or “I’m not enough.” Pause and ask: Is this fear, or fact? Try replacing it with: I am safe. I am worthy of love.

✨ Strengthen Emotional Independence
Self-soothing tools like breathwork, journaling, or mindful grounding help you feel safe in your own body, without needing someone else to “fix” your feelings.

✨ Practice Secure Attachment Habits
Speak gently. Ask instead of assuming. Trust that space doesn’t mean rejection. Love doesn’t disappear just because things feel quiet.

✨ Broaden Your Support Circle
Your romantic relationship doesn’t have to carry the full weight of your emotional world. Community, hobbies, and self-connection are part of your emotional safety net too.

✨ Consider Therapy
If these patterns feel deep-rooted, working with a therapist can help you untangle and rebuild your attachment style with compassion and clarity.

⸻

Final Thought 💬
You don’t have to keep chasing reassurance to feel loved.
Real security starts within—and you are already enough.😍

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

17/06/2025

June is Pride Month, a time to honour and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, our history, and our continuous struggle for inclusion and equality. It’s a time to celebrate the victories, consider the difficulties encountered, and keep pushing for a more tolerant and accepting society.  
Regardless of your identity, location, or the significance of this month for you, I hope you understand that you will always be welcome here, that your existence is not up for discussion, and that you deserve to be fully known, loved, and celebrated. Pride is still an essential act of love, resistance, joy, and survival today and every day.

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

11/05/2025

Box breathing 😮‍💨 sometimes referred to as square breathing, is a breathwork technique in which you form a box shape by inhaling, holding, exhaling, and holding for four seconds.

By encouraging relaxation and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, this technique can aid in stress reduction, anxiety control, and concentration.

The benefits of box breathing...

Stress and anxiety reduction: The rhythmic breathing helps soothe the nervous system and lessen tension and anxiety.

Increased clarity and focus: Concentrating on breathing can help focus attention and increase concentration.

Enhanced mental and physical resilience: Your capacity to manage stress and anxiety can be improved with consistent practice.Sleep quality may be enhanced by box breathing, which encourages relaxation.

This is a very helpful tool for me when I am having anxious thoughts and for when I am overthinking. I also use this tool for when I am struggling to sleep.

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

10/04/2025

“Either you change, or you will keep repeating the same day forever.”

How I interpret this meme is that if a person is unwilling to reflect and challenge their values, beliefs, and behaviours in their personal development and relationships with self and others, then personal growth will be stunted and things will stay the same, creating feelings of depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, and helplessness in their view of the world and of themselves.

I can relate to this meme because of my past unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Until I decided to quit alcohol several years ago, I kept finding myself in the same unhealthy patterns in which I felt powerless, helpless, and stuck because of my denial that the cure and the cause for my unhealthy relationship with alcohol was to end the toxic relationship altogether.

Even though I still feel those heavy emotions from time to time, they are much less present than they used to be when I was drinking alcohol.

How do you interpret this, and what unhealthy patterns do you keep repeating?

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

05/04/2025

Hello there; my name is Jamie, and I’m an integrative therapist based in Manchester city centre but can also work with clients online all over the UK.

https://www.jamiemoffatcounselling.com

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

17/03/2025

The intense worry that those you care about will leave you is known as fear of abandonment. It may have its roots in an upsetting relationship in adulthood or in a traumatic event that occurred when you were a child.

Healthy relationships might be nearly impossible to maintain if you fear abandonment. You may wall yourself off to protect yourself from harm as a result of this fear, or you may be unintentionally harming your relationships. You may be afraid that a loved one would physically leave and never return, or to worry about someone ignoring your emotional needs.

Relationships with parents, partners, or friends may suffer as a result of either. You could feel detached, unwanted, and undervalued if those needs aren’t satisfied. Even when you are in a relationship with someone who is physically there, you might still sense a great deal of loneliness.

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛Link in Bio💚💙💜

Jamie Moffat Counselling

09/10/2025

22/09/2025

11/09/2025

04/09/2025

19/08/2025

15/07/2025

03/07/2025

17/06/2025

11/05/2025

10/04/2025

05/04/2025

17/03/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category