Wise Minds Counselling & Psychotherapy

27/10/2025

26/10/2025

24/10/2025

23/10/2025

I have experienced safe therapy, and I have also experienced hugely unsafe, damaging therapy. When done well, it can be life-changing. When done badly, it can also be life-changing ... How can we ensure it's safe?

Read more: https://www.carolynspring.com/books

23/10/2025

🌿 Self-Confidence, Self-Trust, and Self-Abandonment 🌿

So many of us spend years trying to build self-confidence — thinking it’s about being bold, speaking up, or believing we’re “enough.”

But underneath confidence lies something deeper and quieter: self-trust.

Self-trust is what allows us to say,

✨ “I know what I feel.”

✨ “I can make decisions that are right for me.”

✨ “Even if I make a mistake, I’ll handle it.”

Without self-trust, confidence can feel fragile — dependent on how others respond or whether we “get it right.”

And often, that’s where self-abandonment begins.

Self-abandonment happens when we silence our own needs, intuition, or boundaries just to keep the peace, to be liked, or to avoid conflict.

Over time, it erodes our sense of self, leaving us unsure of who we are or what we want.

True confidence grows when we start coming home to ourselves —
when we listen to that quiet inner voice instead of pushing it aside,
when we honour our “no” and celebrate our “yes,”
when we stop apologising for existing exactly as we are.

It’s not always loud or glamorous.

Sometimes it looks like resting when you’re tired.

Saying “I don’t agree.”

Or simply trusting that you’re allowed to take up space in your own life.

💛 Confidence is the flower; self-trust is the root.

Tend to the root, and the flower will bloom naturally.

22/10/2025

Our post-traumatic responses are not our character. They are survival instincts. This is the double-whammy of trauma: we get hurt, and then blame ourselves for saying 'ouch'. Read more: 'Shame is the handbrake on anger' at http://www.carolynspring.com/blog/shame-is-the-handbrake-on-anger

22/10/2025

Understanding the ACEs Study:

How Childhood Experiences Shape Our Health and Wellbeing

In the 1990s, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study, led by Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Robert Anda, revealed a powerful connection between early life experiences and long-term physical and emotional health.

The study identified 10 categories of adversity that can occur before the age of 18, including:

• Abuse (emotional, physical, sexual)

• Neglect (emotional, physical)

• Household challenges (substance misuse, domestic violence, parental separation, mental illness, or incarceration)

Each “ACE” adds to what’s called an adversity score, and research found that the higher the ACE score, the higher the risk for challenges later in life—such as anxiety, depression, addiction, physical illness, and relationship difficulties.

But here’s the hopeful part:

ACEs don’t define us.

Healing is always possible.

Supportive relationships, therapy, self-awareness, and safe environments can help rewire our brains, calm our nervous systems, and build resilience.

At WiseMinds, we believe in a compassionate, trauma-informed approach—helping clients understand how their past experiences may still be influencing their present, and supporting them in creating new, healthier patterns.

✨ You are not your past—you are your potential. ✨

22/10/2025

22/10/2025

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22/10/2025

When we don't talk about child sexual abuse, who are we really protecting? The taboo only ever serves the abusers. We need to break the secrecy, silence and stigma: it's the abusers' shame, not ours. More: http://www.carolynspring.com/online-training