Val Leveson - counselling and therapy

17/12/2025

Uncover the surprising link between ADHD and anger. Learn why the brain reacts this way and strategies to manage emotions effectively.

16/12/2025

If your mind in a good place, these habits should feel natural.

16/12/2025

Healing From Trauma: The Quiet Wins That Matter Most

When you think of healing, you might imagine breakthroughs, therapy sessions, or dramatic changes. But the truth is, healing often looks much smaller on the outside — even invisible to others. For those recovering from trauma, these “small” moments are the actual victories. They may not come with applause, but they are signs that your nervous system is learning something new: safety, trust, and peace.

Let’s talk about what healing really looks like.

Noticing a Trigger Before It Spirals

Healing isn’t about never getting triggered. It’s about recognizing the sensation before you lose control. That second of awareness before your body spirals into shutdown or rage? That’s progress. Trauma responses are fast — survival doesn't wait. So when you begin to catch yourself, to pause even for a second, you're already shifting years of conditioning.

Taking a Deep Breath Before Responding

This one might sound too simple to matter — but for someone with trauma, choosing to breathe instead of react is revolutionary. That breath interrupts the automatic fight-or-flight. It signals safety. It says: I am here. I am present. I don’t have to react to survive. And with every breath like this, your brain rewires what it believes about danger.

Letting Someone Comfort You

One of the hardest things trauma teaches is: you’re alone, no one is safe, don’t trust anyone. So when you allow someone to see your pain and offer comfort — and when you let them — it’s not weakness. It’s proof that your body is slowly learning that connection doesn’t always mean harm. Letting someone in, even a little, is one of the bravest acts of healing.

Choosing Rest Instead of Pushing Through

Trauma often wires us to perform to feel worthy. Productivity becomes survival. So choosing to rest — without guilt — is radical. It means you're learning that rest doesn't make you lazy, weak, or selfish. You're beginning to treat your body like it deserves kindness, not punishment.

Feeling an Emotion and Letting It Move Through

This one is massive. When trauma lingers, emotions get stuck. Anger, sadness, grief — they’re terrifying because they once led to danger, abandonment, or shame. So we learn to suppress them. But true healing begins when you allow yourself to feel without judgment. To cry without apologizing. To be angry without fearing rejection. That’s emotional liberation.

Not Giving Up, Even When It Feels Slow

Healing isn’t linear. Some days feel like you’ve regressed. But continuing the work, even when it’s slow, even when nothing feels “fixed,” is everything. Progress in trauma recovery isn’t about speed — it’s about consistency. It’s about choosing not to give up on yourself again and again, even when it’s quiet, even when it hurts.

This is what healing looks like.
It’s subtle. It’s slow. It’s often unseen.
But it’s also real, powerful, and deeply transformative.

If you’re doing any of these things — even just one — you’re not behind. You’re healing.

And that matters.

15/12/2025

13/12/2025

Could you have been raised by emotionally neglectful parents? Look for these 16 signs in your current relationship with them.

13/12/2025

“Keith’s death would have been challenging enough on its own, but overnight I also became a single mother of three. Worse still, I was pregnant with our fourth child.”

13/12/2025

"Be kind to yourself, and allow yourself space and time to grieve."

12/12/2025

DBTSkills : T.I.P.P Skill.
DBT's TIPP skills are a Distress Tolerance technique used to manage intense emotions by quickly changing your body chemistry.

The acronym stands for Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, and Progressive Muscle Relaxation. These skills can help reduce emotional arousal when you are feeling overwhelmed, allowing you to think more clearly and avoid impulsive decisions

12/12/2025

It would be so much simpler if we started therapy and then made steady progress each week. But it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes we make quick progress, but a lot of the time – for me at least – it can be frustratingly slow. Many times I seemed to take one step forward and two steps back. And there were long periods when nothing seemed to be happening at all: times of ‘winter’.

In this short video I explain that, just because it’s ‘winter’, it doesn’t mean to say that there’s nothing happening under the surface …

Watch this 2-minute video to find out more:
https://youtu.be/-HV1MnG5f7A

12/12/2025

2. Being too rigid about connection.

12/12/2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/magazine/ethics-troubled-friend.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8E8.WOuO.WfB8iHuPYSn2&smid=nytcore-ios-share

At what point is stepping back self-protection rather than abandonment?

12/12/2025

If your father was never emotionally present when you were a child, it can affect you in your adult years.