Restoring Love (2025)

09/09/2025

Therapist: What do you say when a client says they love you and fantasise about you?

Me:
I share in this situation- "Some clients feel this way when they come to therapy - especially if they had emotional neglect. It's a vulnerable space - I'm trained to respond with empathy and care. This can FEEL like love - and it's not. It's not mutual, I'll never date you, I'll never have a relationship with you. This is a one sided professional relationship where my focus is on supporting you to gain the skills to healthy relationships so you can thrive outside of therapy. "

I check in how that is to hear...

I share I'm a messy weird human - fu**ed up from childhood, and gone through my own s**t in childhood. That I've trained myself to show up like this - but this isn't mutual. Client is not having to meet my needs, and I don't share details of my life. So what they've built up is an illusion and fantasy. I share that it's common for folk who had neglect to fantasise because that is how they could get love - in their imagination. And they now deserve nourishing, reciprocal love that's a reality. Therapy is all about making secure love a reality.

And then I share the things that we'd be working on
- consent and boundaries - that even fantasing about someone you need consent - and I do not give you consent
- processing the neglect
- reparenting - so their inner voice can give that inner child the love needed
- looking at blindspots/entiltement/patterns of disconnection - and understanding the programming
- growing the skills to secure attachment - so they gain capacity to hold space for others, empathise, respond healthily, be accountable, and repair.

09/09/2025

✨Your worst memories can become your most empowering ones ✨

Do you ever have a song or a smell take you straight back to a painful memory? For years, that was me. I lived with complex PTSD and memories that haunted me.

At 8 years old, a bully in my class wrote a song about me to the words of When I’m Sixty-Four by the Beatles. The whole class sang or hummed it whenever I moved. Another time, after being scapegoated, I hid in the school toilets from 7.15 to 12.15 until a group of girls found me and chanted “cry baby.”

Those moments shaped how unsafe the world felt.

So, I worked with them. I met every feeling, the fear, rejection, rage, sadness, humiliation, until each part of me felt cared for.

It took safety, regulation, inner strength, a sense of protection, the capacity to hold space for emotions, processing the feelings in my body, responding to myself with empathy, tuning into what I needed for repair, being responsive to myself, seeing the goodness of who I am, removing the beliefs that were imprinted, and replacing them with the truth of my goodness.

Now when I look back, I see my 8-year-old self-radiant, joyful, and free.

That shift is changing my future. I feel more radiant. I know who I am. People may or may not like me, but what matters is that I stay connected to myself and love this precious human, no matter what. Healing our past changes our present. We feel less reactive, more whole, and more able to love. My future feels sparkly.

If you would like support in growing these skills and processing what happened so you can be free to create a life you love, I would be honored to work with you. 💛

This is the work I love to do with others in intensives. If you want support to shift your own memories into freedom and care, you can find details here: zariyalufu.com/intensives

06/09/2025

Therapy intensives are incredible. So deep and profound. I did a four hour intensive yesterday. Such accelerated and transformative work. Space to share, extended time to process trauma, unshame, understand dynamics, gain self belief and practice new skills.

04/09/2025

Therapist asks about a client with Paranoid Schizophrenia.

My response?

I'd look up Moreno - founder of Psychodrama - how he worked with delusions was incredible. Melted them away. He agreed, welcomed, and loved the person. His care and validation helped them to trust him. He didn't question them. He empathised, and worked with the paranoia to see what it was trying to do for the client - and then supported the delusion to do it's job. No resistance.

I'll give you an example when I did this (I trained for 3 years in Psychodrama thirty years ago. Now going back to do a 4 year post grad). Someone was sectioned for violent hallucinations. After a few weeks on meds she was let out. I asked her what the hallucination was. She said "the doctors, nurses and psychiatrists hadn't asked her ever." Not in weeks!

I shared: that must have been awful to have no one interested - yet they all thought they knew what to do without even knowing what it was.

So I set up two chairs. I shared that one chair was for her and the other for the hallucination. I asked her what she saw - it was a violent image.

Then she swapped, and we asked the image about itself - why it was hear, where did it originate, what did it want, what did it need...
Her nervous system calmed... She felt met... She felt understood...

Zero resistance.

We weren't trying to help her/fix her/get her to help herself... I was trying to support her to meet herself with validation, love and care.

She was so grateful.

I've never met a hallucination without a deep and profound message - that takes someone into what their soul is trying to communicate.

Too often therapists are trying to normalise clients, and fix them into an ideal - rather then meet what's happening, honour it, and trust it's wisdom.

The most violent images - of chainsaws, graphic pain, etc - come with incredible insight where the soul is talking in images to integrate aspects of the client.

04/09/2025

Healing from Gaslighting

Once you’ve gone through gaslighting, you can lose your sense of self, feel like you’re crazy, and believe you are bad. It can cut you off from your inner knowing and leave you second-guessing every thought and feeling.

Having worked with many people using both Brainspotting and Relational Life Therapy to support them, these are the essential elements of healing:

1. Naming what happened
🔍 Recognizing gaslighting as emotional abuse.
🤯 Understanding that this was not about your flaws, but someone else distorting your reality to maintain control.

2. Tracing the roots back to childhood and trauma healing
😵‍💫 Seeing how early emotional abuse or neglect trained you to doubt yourself and believe you were bad.
🌀 Using specialized trauma therapy like Brainspotting to process what happened, so your body and nervous system know you are not bad or wrong and it was never your fault.
⚖️ Naming that what happened in childhood was wrong and that you never deserved it.

3. Separating the voices
🎭 Learning to tell the difference between the critical, shaming inner voice (the echo of childhood messages) and an honoring, compassionate voice.
💖 Beginning to listen for the voice of care, respect, and truth, rather than the one that tears you down.

4. Growing secure attachment with yourself
❤️ Attuning to what you feel in the moment.
📝 Naming your emotions, processing them, and responding to yourself with care.
🏡 Learning that you are safe in your own inner world.

5. Finding your voice
🗣️ Reclaiming the right to say, “I know what I feel, I know what I saw, I know what happened.”
🌟 Trusting your own truth, even when others deny it.
🌈 Standing firmly in your goodness.

6. Unshaming yourself
🛑 Undoing the belief that you were bad or wrong.
🌹 Remembering that you have always been worthy of love, care, and goodness.
💔 Understanding that the brokenness belonged to your family or the gaslighter, not to you.

7. Separating from the gaslighter’s voice
✂️ Disentangling their distortions from your identity.
🛡️ Refusing to let their words define your sense of self.

8. Choosing healthy environments
🩹 Recognizing how unhealthy or critical settings can trigger old wounds and self-doubt.
🤝 Placing yourself in environments with people who affirm your goodness and reflect your worth.
🌳 Letting healthy connection restore your nervous system and your sense of self.

9. Growing skills for healthy love
🧭 Learning relational skills: boundaries, accountability, honesty, and respect.
🌠 Practicing how to honor yourself while also caring for others.
💞 Building relationships that are rooted in truth, mutuality, and love.

10. Integration and creating new life around you
🏔️ Surrounding yourself with people, practices, and creations that reinforce your worth.
✨ Living from the deep knowing that you are good, worthy, and lovable.
🌺 Letting this truth shape your future, rather than the distortions of the past.

Healing from gaslighting is about understanding the harm done to you, knowing that you never deserved it, and growing the secure attachment, you always needed. This way you can feel strong, safe, stable, and supported in your life, and able to thrive.

If you’d like therapy that helps to heal from the impact of gaslighting, both in your childhood and current relationships, get in touch.

03/09/2025

Have You Been Feeling Like You’re Going Crazy?

Maybe you’re experiencing things like:
😟 High levels of anxiety
🔒Mistrust or paranoia about others
🌊 Being flooded by your nervous system
⚡ Reacting quickly, then shaming yourself for not being perfect
🌀 Struggling to connect your thoughts
🚧 Feeling completely spun out and disorientated

If this feels familiar, it may be that you are in a relationship where you are experiencing gaslighting.

What Is Gaslighting?

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation where another person makes you doubt your own perceptions, feelings, or memories. Over time this breaks down self-trust and leaves you deeply confused.

Some examples include:
🙅 Denying things they clearly said or did
🗯️ Telling you that you are “too sensitive” or “crazy”
🔀 Twisting events to make you question your memory
🎯 Blaming you for their harmful behavior

The impact is devastating. Instead of seeing the abuse, you may believe you are the problem.

Who Gets Gaslit?
Were you someone who grew up with abuse, emotional neglect, or scapegoating?
Were you bullied or treated as though you were always the problem?

If you lived this in childhood, you may have come to believe that this treatment was normal and what you deserved. This causes a deep belief that you are bad, broken, or that something is fundamentally wrong with you.

But it is not your fault. You never deserved this. It was wrong that it happened then, and it is awful that it is happening to you now.

I Want Support to Heal from Gaslighting

I am trained in Brainspotting and Relational Life Therapy (RLT).
🎯Brainspotting helps process the trauma of the past, so you can heal from what you lived through and know it was never your fault.
🤝Relational Life Therapy supports you to grow the skills to find your voice, stand for yourself, and build healthy ways of relating.

If you are still in a relationship with a gaslighter, RLT can also help. Many people gaslight because they grew up modelling it as “normal.” RLT supports them to shift into healthier ways of relating, where both partners learn to honor, care, and respond to each other.

If you recognize yourself in this, please know you are not broken. This is not normal, and you deserve so much better. Reach out if you would like support.

30/08/2025

It baffles me that anyone would diagnose Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is both victim blaming and pathologising the person for the reaction to trauma they’re experiencing. It would be best for the therapist to admit incompetence!

Right diagnosis? Complex trauma. It’s essential the client knows the symptoms are common and normal reactions to trauma. As we process the past with a trauma therapy and gain the skills to healthy love and communication these symptoms of trauma stop rampaging.

29/08/2025

The spiritual belief on you choose your abuser and make agreements - is bypassing, victim blaming and violating.

Instead of asking someone who’s been abused: “Why did you choose this?” Or “Why did you make the agreement for this to happen?”

Ask: “How did you survive this? What qualities in you got you through that?”

This way - instead of blaming the child for the parent’s behaviour - you’re supporting the person to see their inner child with kindness, empathy, resilience and strength.

27/08/2025

As a therapist who had emotional neglect and emotional abuse in childhood, I went no contact from my own family. When I turned to therapists for support, I was stunned by how ineffective and even harmful they were.

They did not help me navigate estrangement in a healthy way. They did not support my mother to take responsibility or gain the skills to change. Instead, I was left carrying the grief of losing family without real support, and at times I was re-violated by therapists who bypassed my pain or asked me to minimize it for her comfort.

That is why I trained to do this work differently. Because estranged families deserve more than abandonment or bypass. They deserve therapy that holds with accountability and care, so that both parent and child are honored, and repair is possible.

Here is how I do this work:
1. With the parent 👩‍🦳

I support them to understand their defensive anger and navigate their triggers so they do not fall into defense, shame, or silence. From there, we work on:
🌪️ Shifting out of defensive strategies
💔 Facing the impact of their behavior
🙏 Building the capacity to take accountability and apologies
💞 Growing new skills to respond with empathy
🌟 Beginning to break the cycle with proactive, loving choices

2. With the adult child 🧑

The focus is on safety, voice, and thriving. Together we explore:
🗣️ Expressing what happened one step at a time
💌 Receiving the responses they need
🧘 Regulating so communication stays honoring rather than reactive
🫶 Developing secure attachment within themselves
🌈 Reparenting the inner child so they can begin to thrive

3. Together 🤝

When both parent and adult child are ready, I bring them into the room at a pace that feels safe. The process includes:
🎯 Tackling one issue at a time so that the overwhelm can be managed
💧 Repairing each wound deeply before moving to the next
💬 Learning new communication skills
🕊️ Breaking patterns of toxic behavior where the adult child has been abused, neglected, or parentified

This is slow, deep, and tender work. But when both sides are supported, repair is possible.

You are welcome to share this with anyone who is estranged, so that together we can create a deeper community where profound healing is possible.

And if you are somebody who has lived through emotional abuse or neglect, I want you to know this: what you went through was hell. You never deserved it. It was never your fault. I am proud of you for standing up for yourself, for protecting yourself or your children, and for asking for something better. You deserve to be honored. You deserve care. You deserve safe love.

💡 I offer both weekly sessions and therapy intensives to support people navigating estrangement. If you and your parent are ready for the depth of this healing, reach out.

26/08/2025

Esther Perel says: “When things are good we have less incentive to change. When things are bad we have less creativity to change.”

That’s the tricky thing with love. So many couples only come to therapy when they are in crisis, when everything feels unbearable. At that stage both partners are reactive, frazzled, and just trying to keep their heads above water. It makes complete sense, but in that place it takes time to settle enough to even begin learning new skills. Then, once calm arrives, many people stop therapy. They think the worst is over. Yet calm is not the final destination.

And part of why we stop is because of what we grew up with.

Some of us had parents who were busy, walled off, or simply didn’t prioritise intimacy. Closeness wasn’t important, so it never felt natural.

Some of us had needs that were not met, were treated without regard, or even harmed. That kind of disregard shapes our self-worth, and leaves us believing we don’t matter enough to be cherished.

Others were falsely empowered. Given entitlement instead of guidance. Praised as special but not taught the skills of care, repair, or accountability. Vulnerability was never modelled. Intimacy was not prioritised. So cherishing feels foreign, unnecessary, or even frightening.

All of these childhood patterns leave us with a limited picture of love. We absorb a level of closeness as “normal,” and unconsciously decide that is all we can expect or deserve. Throughout life we might pass through crisis, conflict, calm, connection, or cherishing, but most of us stabilise in the place that matches what we think we deserve.

🌑 Crisis
Everything feels unbearable. There may be threats of breakup, explosive arguments, or moments where it feels like the ground is falling away.

🔥 Conflict
It might not be a full crisis, but arguments are frequent, tension is high, and both partners are on edge. There is a strong motivation to change, because the pain of staying the same is so exhausting.

🌿 Calm
The fights have stopped. Things seem “fine.” But it can feel flat. Some couples in calm fall into habits where life is okay but not deeply nourishing. The trap here is pseudo-harmony. It looks calm on the surface, sometimes even looks like connection in public, but underneath there is avoidance of conflict. Hearts are distanced. The intimacy that could heal old wounds never gets close enough to spark growth, because as soon as real closeness rubs, childhood issues begin to surface.

💫 Connection
Here, you start to feel more ease and warmth. There are glimmers of closeness. Shared laughter, gentle touches, moments of understanding. The relationship feels like a safe enough harbour. Many couples pause here because it feels good enough. And good enough can be tempting. But going deeper means facing the tender parts of you that never knew such closeness before.

✨ Cherishing
Cherishing is something altogether different. It is when the bond between you feels sacred. You are treasured, seen, and held with reverence. You feel the preciousness of one another’s hearts and the delight of being deeply loved. In cherishing, your relationship becomes creative, flourishing, and life-giving. It is a depth of love that many people have never experienced.

So I wonder where you tend to live.
Do you live in crisis and conflict, where everything feels dysregulated and there is little space for connection?
Do you live in calm, where there is no fighting but also little intimacy?
Do you live in connection, where things feel good but you have not yet realised there is more?
Or do you live in cherishing, where you feel a sacredness and preciousness between you that holds you both tenderly?

I wish with all my heart that no one would quit on themselves before they reached cherishing.

If you and your partner are ready to move from crisis to calm, from calm to connection, or from connection to cherishing, a three-day intensive can be a beautiful way to get there. These days give us the time to look honestly at your hardest moments, to understand where they come from, to care for the parts of you that struggle to love as fully as you long to, and to grow the skills to not just calm and connect but to cherish.

I have two upcoming intensive weekends available:
🌿 5–7 September 2025
🌿 3–5 October 2025

If this speaks to you, reach out. I would love to walk with you from surviving into cherishing

25/08/2025

Individual therapists can be bad for your relationship.

While individual therapy can be wonderful for your own healing, self-esteem, and growth, it isn’t always good for your relationship.

I feel that when I look back at the therapists I saw when I was struggling in my own relationship, the common frame was “leave him.”

What I’ve come to understand is that what they were really saying was “I don’t have the skills to support you in repairing this relationship.”

So often, therapists are trained in individual empowerment rather than relational empowerment. Individual therapy can be so helpful for self-esteem, healing trauma, and finding your own voice. But when it comes to relationship struggles, individual empowerment often creates a void. It can strengthen boundaries and individuation without integration, which means the person grows stronger on their own, but not in connection. They may leave therapy feeling clearer about their own needs, but without the skills to love and be loved in a way that honours both people.

This is why many people who go to individual therapy for relationship issues end up separating. Research shows that:

📚 Frequently individual therapists are not trained in couple therapy. Without a couple skill sets, they can’t help both people grow the skills of love and connection.

🤝 Individual therapists may naturally ally with the client in the room, and validation can tilt into pessimism about the relationship. Studies show that when therapists make “relationship-undermining” statements, couples end up with worse outcomes.

⚠️ Therapists sometimes label the absent partner with fixed traits or even diagnoses “he’s narcissistic,” “she’s borderline.” This creates judgment and often contempt, rather than healing or skill-building. Research shows this kind of labelling correlates with poorer relationship results. And the truth is, no therapist has the right to diagnose someone they’ve never met. Our role is to work with behaviours, not to pathologise an unseen partner.

❤️ Individual therapy can support empowerment, but without integrating this into relational practice, it often tilts toward walking away instead of learning the skills of relational love regulation, healthy expression, repair, empathy, and cherishing.

As a relational therapist, it has been devastating to me to do deep and beautiful work with couples, only to see it undermined by a client’s friends or their individual therapist who focus solely on individual empowerment. This doesn’t build long-term health, because clients never get the chance to truly learn how to live in connection, where both partners are treated as worthwhile and deserving of honouring.

Of course, there are times when leaving is the safest choice, for example when there is violence and a partner is unwilling to do the work. But if both people are willing, even where there are narcissistic traits, there is hope. Relational Life Therapy (RLT) is one of the few approaches that directly addresses entitlement, anger, passive aggression, grandiosity and worthlessness, and shame. It helps people grow into healthier, more loving ways of relating.

That’s why I became certified in Relational Life Therapy (RLT). RLT gave me the tools to truly help couples move from disconnection into connection and cherishing, where you actually gain the skills to heal relational trauma and to love in a way where both people feel honoured.

💕 If you and your partner are struggling, and you want not just less conflict but real transformation, I’d love to support you.

📅 I currently have two intensive spaces until November:
🌸 6th–8th September 2025
🌸 4th–6th October 2025

These 3 day intensives are designed for couples who want to step into depth, to heal the patterns that block love, and to create a relationship where both people are honored and cherished.

Restoring Love

09/09/2025

09/09/2025

06/09/2025

04/09/2025

04/09/2025

03/09/2025

30/08/2025

29/08/2025

27/08/2025

26/08/2025

25/08/2025

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Thriving After Childhood