Holly Healy Counselling & Psychotherapy

24/12/2024

12/07/2022

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28/03/2022

Self care in the form of self soothing with Touch - Hug someone 🫂

01/03/2022

Self care in the form of self soothing with Vision - Look at nature around you

27/02/2022

Self-care is a continuing process of caring for ourselves; consciously doing things to maintain, improve and restore our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual wellness.

Keeping your five senses in mind, try and imagine a scenario that could create a sense of wellbeing for each one... What smells make you smile? Is there a food or drink that brings you comfort? A sound that you find soothing when you want to shut off your busy mind.

I will start sharing ideas over the next few posts and invite you to comment how it worked for you or share your own ideas 😊 let's promote the importance of self care x

13/02/2022

We sometimes don't realise just how much we have been carrying over the years until we physically cannot take any more... Finding someone to help you unpack & making a choice to leave stuff behind or give it back to who it belongs to could really help relieve that heavy feeling 🙏

20/01/2022

I would like to share a nice little meditation exercise using our 5 senses. A handy tool for grounding that can be done in a couple of minutes, or slowed down and enjoyed over a longer period.

19/01/2022

Just because the process hurts doesn't mean the results won't be beautiful 🖤

23/12/2021

This time of year may be stressful for some. Whether it is trying to get organised, the pressure of the perfect family Christmas, money worries, the weather, being with family and/or friends, not being with family and/or friends, the seemingly never ending covid-19 related fears and so on...

I created this little image as a helpful guide to what our happiness chemicals are and how to hack them.
There are 4 main hormones that are primarily responsible for creating those feel-good emotions and sensations. They moderate our feelings of well-being, and are influenced by our lifestyle choices, self-care, and stress levels.

Here are the big happiness chemicals in your body:

DOPAMINE - Released during pleasurable situations

ENDORPHINS - Releases a brief euphoria - Primarily helps deal with stress and reduces feelings of pain

OXYTOCIN - Linked to life satisfaction levels - Bonding - Love and trust [can provide a multiple hit, by stimulating dopamine & serotonin, whilst lowering anxiety]

SEROTONIN - Mood stabiliser - Well-being, happiness & decreases our worries and concerns

Our brains get wired by experience. Every time our neurochemicals surge, our neurons build connections. Experience has wired us to turn on the brain chemicals in the familiar way they have before; our patterns. They build easily when we are young, but it gets more and more difficult the older we get. Building new circuits will take repetition. So, pick a new happy habit and start repeating it until your new habit feels as natural as your old ones, and start enjoying having more power over your happiness 🥰

15/12/2021

If you have been considering counselling for some time but are unsure how it might help you, here are five main principles of counselling and why it can be helpful ⬇️

http://ow.ly/OqUZ30rXStM

If you have been considering counselling for some time but are unsure why or how it...

08/12/2021

THE DRAMA TRIANGLE (Karpman, 1968)

Do you find yourself stuck in a viscous cycle of negative patterns within a relationship, feel that it is full of drama, draining or even toxic?

This interesting piece of theory offers an explanation of how we can sometimes, subconsciously, take on roles that may not always be helpful to ourselves and others in a social interaction.

This theory is represented by a triangle, as demonstrated in the video, and could best be summed up as describing how we play out certain roles in situations of conflict. Each corner of the triangle represents a role that a person might "play" in the Drama Triangle: Victim, Rescuer or Persecutor. Although a person might naturally favour a particular role, they aren't fixed, and we can switch between each one depending on the interaction.

The trick is not to get drawn into or trapped in the Drama Triangle by increasing our self-awareness. Does it feel familiar? What feelings come to the surface during the interaction? How does it result? Part of "stepping out" of, or breaking the triangle is to recognise both your process and the psychological game that is being acted out between you and the other person.

https://youtu.be/E_XSeUYa0-8

​ Kress, The Business Scientist explains The Drama Triangle, a transactional analysis framework that was created by Stephen Karpman to help us underst...