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Clare Morris Counselling

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Clare Morris Counselling

Therapeutic counselling service for long or short term therapy, Person-Centred approach, trauma informed, general therapy, CBT �

25/05/2025

Bank Holiday weekend! For some, a slower pace, time to relax a little, enjoy time with family and friends.

For others, the absence of work can be difficult - lack of structure and distraction can mean it’s more difficult to run from that which we want to escape.

The phrase ‘sit with your emotions’ can seem like a foreign language to anyone who has spent a lifetime avoiding them, purely because they are too big, too painful, too scary, we literally don’t know how.

So here is a little visual to show that the process is quite simple - the outcomes may not be however.

A reminder that it’s ok to feel, it’s essential to feel, nobody can tell you how you feel
Is wrong. Feelings always pass (but maybe not as quickly as you’d like them to!). And they will always need to be felt - otherwise they’ll always come knocking - in the form of triggers, fears, anxiety, overthinking, unhelpful behaviours, self sabotage….

I’m spending this Sunday quietly, mostly unplugged, catching up with myself after a busy week. We are our own most valuable resource. 💜

06/03/2025

I took this photo on the way home from work one evening this week.

I’d had a long, positive day and my head was full of my work, lists, tomorrow, yesterday….
Then I looked up and paused - the beauty of the world doing her thing whilst we go through our day without taking time to look around us, take a breath and reconnect.

This view tells me that Spring is most definitely springing - the long winter is over and whilst I love walking home in the chilly evenings, I love this more.

The world will keep turning, regardless of our stresses, our hurt, our responsibilities and general adulting. She is there for us every minute of every day, if we only choose to look and immerse ourselves in her power.

If only for a minute 💜

10/11/2024

I saw this a couple of days ago and it resonated deeply with me - I wonder how it makes any of you feel?

Anger is often the external sign of internal pain (rejection, fear, abandonment, injustice, abuse, frustration, disappointment, confusion, neglect…….)

Our feelings and emotions are usually based on need of many kinds and these needs are often rooted in love or connection (because you know, we are human!).

If there is a relational rupture (partners, friends, parents, colleagues) which cannot or will not be repaired, if we are not heard, if our pain is not validated, then that love needs to go through the process of anger in order to be seen, felt, dispersed and let go of.

Sometimes, if this process cannot happen, it creates a trigger which then stays with us and changes the way we relate in the future. It becomes a relational pattern.

Allow your anger…it is there to help you. Use it to help yourself whilst not harming you, or others x

24/10/2024

Another step in the right direction for supporting mental health 🙌🏻
Share the life out of this x

03/09/2024

I love this - it’s a very simple summary for what can be a very long and painful journey.

When we first start to heal, often we need people to hear every painful detail of what happened to us. We need to be believed, understood and validated - this is an important, initial step.

In every retelling, we accept our pain a little more and we start to understand it from a place of self-compassion rather than self-condemnation.

Every time someone meets our truth with belief, nurture, empathy and gentleness, we begin the end of perpetuating the shame and judgement which was poured upon us.

We learn self-worth, self-belief and self-love - we begin to see ourselves through the eyes of people who only want to see us heal and grow.
To witness the uncovering of who we truly are.

Along this journey, we learn to hold healthy boundaries and we put down behaviours which keep us stuck in toxic cycles such as people-pleasing, numbing, avoidance, self-harm, escapism, stoicism, minimising, normalising……

We lose people - those who benefited from us having collapsed boundaries.
And we gain others - people who enjoy and accept our true selves, without question or agenda.

And we discover Agency - the ability to choose who we have in our lives, knowing we have the right to decide how we deserve to be treated.
We finally come to know that, without guilt, some people have no right to be there at all.

We choose 💜

22/05/2024

Can you see the slight path which has been trodden through this long grass by people repeatedly walking?

I walked this path on my way home from work yesterday evening and it reminded me of how we form habits….

Our Neural Pathways, where habits and automatic cycles are formed, are conditioned by repetition.

When we repeat a pattern over and over, it wears a path. That path becomes clear and easy to navigate - so easy that we eventually don’t think about doing it (walking, driving a car, making a coffee….). This can be helpful and frees our brain for other tasks.

Other paths (patterns) of performing the same task become overgrown and neglected, seemingly inaccessible. So automaticity becomes the norm = habit.

Now think about habits which are not so good for us - emotional eating, doom scrolling, relational patterns - anything which keeps us stuck in destructive cycles and situations.

Because we keep walking the same path, alternatives become overgrown - we would have to cut through them with a scythe - this feels like hard work and we can’t guarantee we will make it through - it can look overwhelming.

Breaking habits can feel a bit like that. No clear way through, full of brambles and pitfalls - it makes it seem easier to stay on the clearer, flatter path, knowing we will end up at the same destination.

But what if you had someone walking alongside you, helping you cut your way through, navigating the path with you, keeping you from falling into the pits?

Little by little, the path would become clearer, it would offer you a different perspective, a new way. And eventually, the old path would cease to look as easy to traverse.

This is how therapy can work - someone walking with you, supporting you to cut a clear path to a different outcome, new habits, new relational patterns, reconnecting with a way you already suspected was there.

💜

19/05/2024

Absorbing Vitamin D helps lower our Cortisol levels - our stress hormone.

So even if life is kicking you in the teeth at the moment, some time outside will be helpful.
Sometimes - you gotta do the opposite of what your survival responses tell you to do.

Just an hour - in your garden, in a park - listen to the sounds around you, feel the warmth of the sun heal your core - be in the moment ☀️

01/05/2024

Often, our obstacles are not immediately in front of us - they can be set in the distant future.

The ‘what if’s’, the ‘this will probably go wrong’, or ‘it’s possible now but will likely get more complicated’….

And we psyche ourselves out of the game.

Experience can tell us that whatever our intentions, however motivated we are - the odds will ‘probably’ be stacked against us and we will fail.

Fear stops us trying.
Experience stops us trying.
Shame stops us trying.

We then reinforce our cycle of hopelessness.

What if - trying it differently offered something else. We may still not get the outcome we hope for, we may fail, we may succeed further than our expectations.

What we will definitely get is a change in experience - we will not reinforce hopelessness, or shame, or powerlessness.

Try 💜

06/06/2023

Sometimes we need to retreat from all that is not essential.

Time to reflect, to grieve, to hurt, to sleep, to heal.

As humans, we are hardwired for connection - however, in this hectic and noisy world we sometimes can’t hear our own, true voice.

With modern media being what it is, we are expected to be constantly accessible and this creates pressure on top of our existing responsibilities.

We lose sight of our needs and lose touch with our Authentic Selves. We can feel like we are spinning plates and failing miserably.

Old coping strategies and safety behaviours can kick in as we leave our Window of Tolerance and reside in Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn.

This takes us further away from our Authentic Selves.

It’s ok to retreat - to take time, to reconnect with self. To sit quietly and try to hear what we need, where it hurts and discover how we can help ourselves.

Sometimes that looks like reaching out.

Other times it requires some mindfulness, creativity, music, walking…

For me, it takes quiet and nature. Sitting in the fresh air, warming my core with the sun, planting new bulbs and nurturing life in order to nurture myself. Taking off my shoes and walking in the grass, grounding myself within the universe. Using silence and peace to drown out the cacophony of voices and noise which fill our days.

Ask yourself what you need and give yourself permission to take that time 💜

08/02/2023

Often we can feel the urge to change - that deep well in the pit of our being which tells us some part of who we are needs to be heard and seen.

And we know we have the strength and courage to make those changes.

However, those around us, those we love and depend upon may want us to stay the same because they are comfortable and familiar with that version of us. And, if we don’t know better, if we’ve never been given permission to listen to our authentic selves, then we may give in to their needs and stay the same.

This is called reliance on an External Locus of Evaluation. Depending on other’s opinions about how we are acceptable.

This creates conflict within us. A rupture between who we truly are and who we are told to be.

This conflict may result in symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, overthinking, addiction, emotional withdrawal …..

That constant voice in our mind which says ‘but what if…..?’

Staying the same will always result in further internal conflict.

Change is risky - yet it brings rewards - self-knowledge, self-acceptance, authenticity and self-love. There is the risk of losing people, a period of time where you don’t ‘fit’ anywhere.

Eventually though, you will fit with you 💜

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Poole

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