Robin Vanderplank Clinical Psychologist Traumatologist

10/10/2025

07/09/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16wzA12hj9/

I wish more people understood that grief isn’t just being sad and crying.
Grief is being angry, being numb, being broken, and being everything in-between
Grief is so different for everyone and you just have to go thru the motions and roll with the punches.
When you’re grieving the loss of someone you grieve for what was and what will never be, grief also takes a big toll on your mental and physical health.
Grief is LOVE with nowhere to go.
Grief is trying to remind yourself that “this too shall pass”
Grief is forcing yourself out of bed to shower and eat.
Greif is isolating yourself
Grief is surrounding yourself with people and things to distract your brain from reality
Grief is ugly and rough, so if you cannot understand why people grieve so hard for so long and so deep consider yourself lucky to not understand.

12/08/2025

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13/07/2025

DON’T DO ANYTHING. JUST REST.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that doing nothing… means doing nothing for yourself.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that not being productive is somehow a failure.
That if it doesn’t have a visible outcome, it doesn’t count.
That rest is wasted time.

We’ve become so used to being busy —
to checking off boxes,
to tracking our progress,
to measuring worth in output —
that we’ve forgotten something essential:

Rest is productive.

It’s the moment your body heals.
Your mind exhales.
Your soul whispers.

Reading a magazine.
Taking a long shower.
Sitting in the garden with a warm cup of coffee.
None of it is a waste.

Because time spent resting… is time well spent.

We’re not machines.
We’re not meant to hustle 24/7.
We are human beings.

And sometimes, we just need to be.

— Becky Hemsley
Echoes of Insight

01/07/2025

Befriend your own Nervous System - by Leanne Miller

Learning to understand our own nervous system and how it works is so important. As the name implies, our Autonomic Nervous System works automatically, well below conscious awareness. So when your nervous system feels Safe, this is when you can comfortably, actively and happily connect to others and to the world. When your nervous system doesn't feel safe ie it feels threatened and the world is seen to be unfriendly, it automatically puts you into Fight or Flight and when it senses even greater unsafety (danger, life threat) it will automatically put you into Freeze.

What does Safety look like? - Being interested, focused, peaceful, fun, active, happy, creative, inspired, playing, doing things with others, feeling safe to reach out to others when necessary.
Health benefits of Safety: healthy heart, regulated blood pressure, healthy immune system, good digestion, quality sleep, overall sense of wellbeing.

What does Fight/Flight look like? (rush of adrenaline and cortisol; chaotic, agitated, frantic, hypervigilant)
Fight: Angry outbursts, controlling, bullying, explosive behaviour, narcissistic
Flight: workaholic, over-thinking, perfectionist, anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, difficulty sitting still, addiction
Health consequences of Fight/Flight: headache, sleep problems, chronic neck, shoulder and back tension, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain/loss, can't focus, memory impairment, stomach problems, increased vulnerability to illness.

What does Freeze look like? Difficulty making decisions, stuck, dissociated, shutdown, collapse, weakness, no energy, too tired to think or act, despair, numb, isolating, the world looks empty, dead and dark, depression, foggy brain, memory problems.
Health consequences of Freeze: chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, stomach problems, low blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, weight gain/loss, vulnerability to illness.

When we begin to befriend our own nervous system and start becoming aware of its state at any one time, we are then on the path to learning to address the stressors in order to heal and regulate our nervous system.

For more on the nervous system and how to regulate it, I encourage you to watch YouTube videos by Irene Lyon, a wonderful nervous system specialist. There is much to learn from her and as Irene says: "healing starts with learning and healing is learning applied."