Pauline Bradley, Counsellor

16/11/2025

"But the real work for an empath isn’t to love harder; it’s to tone down the hyper-attunement and turn that empathy inward. It’s to stop confusing emotional labor with love and to stop mistaking chaos for connection."

Article link in comments. 👇

13/11/2025

Forgive yourself
for what you had to do to survive.
Forgive yourself for who you were
before you knew better.

Forgive yourself
for being fallible, broken,
for being less than perfect.

Touch the earth
in your small humanness.
Feel the dirt beneath your feet,
between your fingers,
and how your tears water
the parched, cracked soil.

Forgive yourself
for not being more,
for not knowing more,
for learning through experience,
or the hard way.

For what you did to survive life’s winters,
across life’s thin ice.
For your mistakes.

You survived.
You are here.

And in the forgiveness,
let your hands reach down
to soothe your own broken heart,
and from there,
the broken hearts of others.

For we grow humble in our falls,
compassionate through our imperfection,
not our perfection.

Forgive yourself.
Let the weight of these lessons
hold you firmly
in their dark wisdom
to the earth —

And from there,
like a sky of shining lanterns,

set your soul free.

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

From "Soul Songs" by R.A. Falconer Now at Barnes & Noble, Waterstones & Amazon.

art by Pixabay.


https://amzn.to/46o5Nbo

09/11/2025

Once, when you thought no one was looking,
I saw you open your heart so wide that the earth fell in.
Once, when you thought no one was listening,
I heard you sigh so deep that the oceans roared with support.
Once, when you thought no one was around,
every atom in this universe rushed forward to embrace you.
Again.
Thank you for existing so intensely.
~ Sera Beak
Art from Pinterest

Rivers in the Ocean

19/10/2025

How To Defeat Fear
Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle.
The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons.
The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, "May I have permission to go into battle with you?" Fear said, "Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission." Then the young warrior said, "How can I defeat you?" Fear replied, "My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power." In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear.
~Pema Chödrön
🎨 Luzdy Rivera

Rivers in the Ocean

13/10/2025

✌️❤️🫂🌎

26/09/2025

Goodnight Poetry lovers ❤️❤️
Poem by Ida Banks ( Pinterest)

25/09/2025

Have you ever been so consumed by a crush that you couldn't stop thinking about them? Or when you weren't around them, you felt sick to your stomach?

There's a word for that, and it's called "limerence." The term was coined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s to describe romantic obsession characterized by extreme emotional highs and lows.

Neuroscientist Tom Bellamy explores the condition in Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence and How to Make Love Last. The book, published in April, offers a roadmap for those looking to overcome infatuation and foster healthy romantic relationships.

"Limerence is a state that many of us go into in the early stages of love: a profound romantic infatuation with another person," Bellamy says. "They give you an extraordinary natural high, so you feel a powerful desire to bond with that person."

But if you're unable to actually bond with them, and the limerence goes on too long, "it can shift from happiness and euphoria into anxiety and craving," he says.

Bellamy, an author and academic based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, talks to Life Kit about how to identify limerence and break its cycle. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Read the story here: https://n.pr/4gCNAKv

25/09/2025

When you give of yourself,
you become part of a greater rhythm,
like a river that nourishes everything it touches,
yet is never diminished by its flow.
In service, the walls of separation dissolve.
You discover that kindness is not leaving you,
but circling back,
singing in the quiet harmony of the world.
Rivers in the Ocean

10/09/2025