Parentification is a potential form of neglect (Hooper, 2008). Parentification is the lack of boundaries within a family unit which means the children or a child, takes on duties and responsibilities that are usually the domain of adults (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, …
Emotionally Immature Parents
When we have been raised by emotionally immature parents the tendency is to be either emotionally immature ourselves as adults, or to become parentified children and later over responsible adults. Let’s start with the emotionally immature parents. Your parents were …
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
1 IN 4 AUSTRALIAN ADULTS HAVE COMPLEX TRAUMA. Complex trauma is different to single incident trauma. Someone who experiences single incident trauma and has to recover, is working on reconnecting with their internal resources and past ability to self-regulate. Someone …
How To Be With Suffering
Have you ever been in distress and the person you share your distress with also becomes distressed and you end up wishing you had not said anything? I think there is an art to being with suffering. I think it …
The Benefits of Mindfullness Meditation
Coming to a place of mindfulness is really about bringing our awareness into the present. So often we are physically present, but mentally somewhere completely different. When we are connected to our body, thorough mindful breath or mindful walking, we …
The First Meditation Experience
Mindfulness has been a big part of my personal healing journey. I first learned to meditate when I was about 22 – that is 20 years ago when the research and hype about meditation had not yet landed. I …
The Positive Seeds
Thich Nhat Hanh – No Mud, no Lotus. Most spiritual teachers, if you listen long enough, will start to talk about the mind as having ‘seeds’. All the ‘seeds’ in the mind have a different vibration to them. There might …
Letting Go
Thich Nhat Hanh – No Mud, no Lotus. Letting go is Thich Nhat Hanh’s first principle for transforming suffering. Letting go of attachments. He tells a story of a wealthy person who lived in a mansion and was afraid behind …
Why Do I Feel Anxiety?
Feelings want to be understood and be in connection, when we stuff them down, that’s when problems arise, and we get surprised. We can get really creative about HOW we stuff them down. I might be overeating, overworking, or causing …
What To Say To Someone With Anxiety
It is easy to think that when speaking to someone with anxiety, the best thing to do is to empathise. That might sound like, ‘I know how you are feeling, I get anxious before interviews.’ For someone with an anxiety …