Clear Heart Counselling

03/09/2025

New group starting in October. Please get in touch if you would like to join. Venue to be confirmed.
Most likely, Cupar or online. Depends on numbers.

01/09/2025

Lots of lovely Autumn events happening across Fife.

September is here, and we're starting to prepare for the harvest season and the arrival of Autumn 🍂

Check out everything to look forward to at the Garden as we more into the new season!

Head to www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/st-andrews-botanic-garden-31020416481 to see all our upcoming events and get your tickets 🎟️

🌼 Friday 5th - DAISY Friday
🌱 Tuesday 2nd, 9th, 16th & 23rd - Little Oaks Early Years Group
🌳 Wednesday 17th - Seeds of Thought Lunchtime Talk
📖 Thursday 18th - It's Only the End of the World Book Club
🐾 Saturday 20th - Growing Together Accessible Activity Session
🌾 Sunday 21st - Becoming Multitudes Supper Club
🍂 Sunday 28th - Autumn Open Day & Plant Sale

📷 Fiona Drummond

31/08/2025

❤️

Behind You~

You stopped asking the white sky for answers.
The drifting clouds
never wrote back.

For years, you lived inside
a room where the music played
that same era, on repeat.
Hands scarred by flints
of hot, though fleeting
justice,
as the needle struck and slipped
against that old record,
over
and over again.

Resentment circled your life
like patient moths, searching for a flame~
only for something else in you
to die
each time they found it.

There was no forgiving such wrongs.
No overlooking such transgressions.
But you had also become
your own victim,
in the re-living.

You tried talking it out,
working it out,
ignoring it,
blocking it.

But the thin shard only needled in deeper ~
phantom pains,
an elephant upon your chest.
Dreams sitting you upright at night,
rivers against your pillow
come the morning.

You forgot to hear her
as they had ...
~that lonely storehouse of your body
where it still
remained.

But finally
you shook the stiffened limbs,
sobbed the pain out,
danced like a mad woman,
pushed hands
into the earth.

And was slowly rewarded
with a growing peace
wrapped
in the billowing flag
of surrender.

And through it, you learned
not every wound or violation
needs a reason.
And that bad things happen (and far too often)
to good people.

And, more slowly still ~
that healing can be yours.

You do not forgive to absolve.
You do not forgive to forget.
You do not move on
to say what happened
was OK.

Instead, you carry your truth
like life’s war wound ~
one that no longer
keeps you up at night,
but whose gait and deep harrow
have become a part
of your story.

Maybe, just maybe
this is what freedom feels like.
And sometimes you glimpse it ...
this freedom,
past it all.

Not a clean break ~
no, there's too much injury for that ...
but the simple, grace-filled
step forward.

One no longer shadowed
by the life-stealing burden
of unforgiving.
..The door
a soft,
yet magnificent
click

behind you.

Rachel Alana (R.A. Falconer)
Midwives of the Soul

art | Edward Hopper

You can find more of my words and poems in Soul Songs, now on Amazon. https://amzn.to/4muQtz0 ad]

21/08/2025

🚨 Nationwide Emergency Alert Test — Sunday 7th September, 3pm

The UK’s new emergency alert system will send a loud siren, message, and vibration to every compatible phone even on silent. Survivors of abuse with hidden phones could be put at risk if the device is discovered.

You can opt out in your phone’s settings to protect your safety:
✅ iPhone: Search “Emergency Alerts” in settings → Turn off Severe & Emergency alerts

✅ Android: Search “Emergency Alerts” in settings → Turn off Severe & Emergency alerts (and other threat categories if listed)

13/08/2025

Across the country many of our teaching colleagues are heading back into school, with pupils back any day now. 🎒

As such, it seems like a good time to remind people about our new resource, launched to support schools in thinking about su***de prevention. 💭

The guide includes a series of case studies from different areas across Scotland that reflect practice, in relation to the Whole School Approach Framework. 🫶🏼

Two podcasts have also been published to coincide with the new resource. 🎙️

🔗 https://www.su***deprevention.scot/articles/launch-of-new-resource-to-support-su***de-prevention-approaches-in-schools

Tag a teacher who should see this! 🏷️

13/08/2025

🐝 Bee amazed at the world of 🐝 bees 😊

Free workshop: Pollinators - join us on Saturday 16 August (11am-12) to be amazed and delighted by the world of bees...

Did you know there are over 270 species of bees in the UK, and with only one being the Honey bee? Join us to explore the captivating world of these vital pollinators and discover how they contribute to growing your fruit and vegetables.

All wild bees are facing challenges from pesticides, climate change, habitat loss, and a lack of suitable nesting sites. At this workshop, you will learn about the new bee banks and bee hotels we have installed for solitary bees, as well as the other work to support pollinators at the farm. We'll help you identify various bee species, and finish with a game of Bee Bingo!

This wonder-filled workshop is offered by specialist volunteer Huw Pennell (who also carries out the bumblebee monitoring surveys at the farm)

Suitable for ages 16+

It is free to attend but spaces are limited, so please book, and if you can no longer attend, please cancel your space so it can go to someone else:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sow-grateful-pollinators-tickets-1537622362879

~~~
About Sow Grateful
When we sow seeds to grow food, we continue a lifelong partnership between people, plants, pollinators and the hidden world of microorganisms in our guts and in the soil. It’s not just human hard work that makes a harvest. This is a day to celebrate the web of life we’re in.

With thanks to the Kũmatha group (allotment holders at the farm), and all the contributors, we are offering a choice of two morning workshops (ages 16+) on ‘Our Biomes‘ and ‘Pollinators‘, plus an open, all-ages live music gig in the afternoon.

All the contributors to Sow Grateful are generously gifting their time for free and we are so grateful to them too.

27/07/2025

23/07/2025

If you’ve ever felt stuck in survival mode, trauma response; fight, flight, or freeze... if rest feels impossible... if your body won’t let you exhale... this video is for you. The world bombards us from every direction so we end up dizzy in the sea of overwhelm. These are the practices that have truly helped me feel safer, softer, and more connected again, without adding pressure or perfection. I don't get things right 100% of the time but I am finding that by bringing these tools to reset as day to day habits, I can more easily and regularly escape survival mode as my normal anxiety level. I grow in confidence everytime I get it right to truly learn to feel.

🦋 For more content join the community on Patreon ~ https://www.patreon.com/theunexpectedgypsy🦋 Instagram ~ https://www.instagram.com/theunexpectedgypsy🦋 T...

23/07/2025

Absolutely, expressing emotions rather than suppressing them. Consider moving, journaling.

I enjoy learning about journaling from Wendy, The Unexpected Gypsy see her latest video above this post.

“Grandma, how do you cope with pain?”

“With your hands, honey. If you do it with your mind instead of relieving the pain, it toughens even harder.”

“With your hands grandma?”

“Yes, our hands are the antennae of our soul. If you move them; knitting, cooking, painting, playing or sinking them into the ground, you send care signs to the deepest part of you and your soul lights up because you’re paying attention to it. Then signs of pain will no longer be necessary.”

“Hands are really that important?”

“Yes my daughter. Think of babies: they start to know the world through the touch of their hands. If you look at the hands of old people, they tell you more about their life then any body part. Everything that is done by hand is said to be done with the heart. Because it’s really like this: hands and heart are connected. Masseurs know well: when they touch someone with their hands, they create a deep connection. It is precisely from this connection that healing comes. Think of lovers: when they touch their hands, they make love in a more sublime way.”

“My hands grandma.... how long I haven’t used them like this!”

“Move them, my love. Begin to create with them and everything within you will begin to move. The pain will not pass away. And instead what you do with them will become the most beautiful masterpiece and it won’t hurt anymore. Because you have been able to transform its essence.”

~Elena Bernabe
(Translated by Takiruna)

art | Tamara Phillips

20/07/2025

🥰

If someone you love is grieving, you may feel helpless. You want to do something, anything, to make it better. So you say, “If there’s anything you need, let me know.” It is kind. It is meant with love. But I want to gently tell you that this phrase, while well-intentioned, often lands in a way you do not expect.
When I was in early grief, hearing that felt like one more thing I had to figure out. I could barely remember to eat or answer a text. I did not know what I needed. I just knew I was drowning. And being asked to name my needs felt like pressure... pressure to respond, pressure to direct, pressure to think clearly when my brain and body were in shock.
The truth is, the only thing I needed was impossible. I needed my person back. Everything else was just noise. The offer of help became another weight on a plate that was already spilling over. I knew people meant well, and I appreciated their care, but what I needed most was for someone to show up without needing me to give them instructions.
If you want to support someone who is grieving, offer something specific. Say, “I’m dropping dinner on your porch Thursday.” Or, “I have time this weekend, can I run errands or sit with you?” Or just send a card, a text, or leave flowers without expecting a reply. Go to them and sit with them...in silence, even. Take the work off their plate, not add to it.
Grief is disorienting and brutal. The person you love is trying to survive something that cannot be fixed. They are not ungrateful or distant. They are in pain. Your presence, your steady kindness, your willingness to keep showing up without needing anything in return... that is what helps.

17/07/2025

Researchers are answering the question: What’s going on in the body when we take slow, deep breaths?

17/07/2025

Absolutely, 💯

When life breaks you, it is because you are ready to be put back together differently. Every piece of you that feels shattered is a piece that will find a new place, a new purpose, a new meaning.
Trust that the cracks are where the light gets in.

And sometimes, in our brokenness, we find our greatest wholeness.
We find the courage to rebuild, to reimagine, to redefine what it means to be strong.

You are not broken; you are breaking through.

Attributed to Vasantha Jeyaseelan

art | Aiden Kringen
https://www.aidenk.com/