If you are someone who experiences anxiety, you may have been asked, “have you tried deep breathing?” or been told, “you need to learn grounding techniques!” Do you find these suggestions unhelpful, or struggle to put them to use?

The human attachment system is a natural and biological process that motivates us to stay in connection with others. Human beings have always lived in a community, and we depend on these connections for our survival.

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in awareness of mental health and its impact on individuals. However, I know such efforts don’t reach everyone, nor are they comprehensive or understood by all. To help make mental health more accessible to understand I’d like to illustrate the parallels or similarities of physical health/illness and mental health/illness, their impacts and their treatments

We all go through life transitions, and although most are exciting, they are also change and change is hard.

Life transitions often mean a shift in the way we view ourselves and the way others view us.

From the moment babies enter the world, they need a supportive, caring, helpful caregiver who is able to attend to their needs and soothe them when they are distressed. When the baby cries, the caregiver will notice they have a problem and seek to help solve that problem. Does the diaper need to be changed? Is the baby hungry or tired? Is the baby scared or lonely? Does gently rocking the baby help? When the caregiver takes action to help soothe the baby’s distress, they are helping the baby regulate; this is known as co-regulation.

If you are pregnant or you are a new parent, you probably have a variety of emotions right now.

If you are an animal lover, you have likely felt the deep love and connection that pets can bring into your life. Pets provide us with comfort, love, companionship, and overall meaningful relationships.

Critical incidents are defined as events that are sudden, powerful, out of our control and often unexpected.

When we understand that our emotions are actually physical experiences and we learn to become more in tune with these sensations, we can build tolerance for uncomfortable feelings and we can actually alter our emotional responses.

The emphasis on self-care in the last 10 years has really increased, so much so that it has become a common job interview question in some sectors, but what does it really mean?

Can you recognize your adult self?

Is there a time when you feel the most like “yourself”? Or moments when you have stayed calm, even in a stressful situation? Is there an environment or activity where you feel confident and self-assured? This might be your adult self!

So often, clients I work with come to counselling because they have overwhelming emotions that negatively impact their lives.

It is common for people to believe that if they simply change their thoughts they should be able to change how they feel. There is truth to this; when we shift how we think about things we can positively affect how we feel and act.

It is now recognized that trauma is experienced by those who not only experience traumatic events but also by those who perceive a threat to their life. Additionally, the accumulation of several, chronic and stressful experiences can equate to trauma.

As humans, we are experts at trying not to feel our emotions. While we might succeed temporarily, not feeling our emotions disconnects us from our internal experience. The Change Triangle, created by Hilary Jacobs Hendel, is a visual representation of our emotional experience that can help guide us to feeling into our emotions and coming back to our authentic selves.

Feeling emotionally numb is the experience of feeling disconnected, empty and unable to identify your emotions. We numb not because we are empty, but because we are too full. It’s a way of shutting ourselves off from something painful or overwhelming and is closely linked with the nervous system’s freeze response.

While there are comprehensive definitions, essentially, “mental health is our ability to respond to challenges” (MindMattersAustralia). How well we respond to life’s challenges can be a good indication of how we are doing emotionally. Just like our physical health, our mental health is on a continuum with mental illness or disorder on one end and positive mental well-being and living life to your fullest potential on the other end. Where we are on this continuum is not static; we tend to fluctuate depending on a variety of factors. These are known as risk and protective factors.

As a small child, you were likely open and free, sharing all of yourself with others. As you grew and matured, however, you may have learned that the world can be a very painful place. You learned that not everyone is on your side, and not all situations are going to go your way. You may have adapted to making yourself small from growing up in a chaotic and loud environment, or you may have learned to not share your feelings because nobody listened. The deepest wounds often come from childhood. They can affect the way people see the world, themselves, and their relationships.

SHAME, in my experience, is the least talked about but one of the most powerful emotions we all feel. Shame is the feeling of humiliation or embarrassment when we have done something or have perceived to have done something wrong, immoral, improper, or dishonest. It’s an emotion that has allowed humanity to survive. It is also a very painful emotion.

It is human nature to live on autopilot, reacting unconsciously to things happening in our lives. The problem with that way of living is that often we react to difficult experiences with strategies that end up making us feel worse. Thinking things through turns into ruminating on a problem for hours. We distract ourselves with TV when we have an unpleasant task to do, but later feel worse that we spent the day procrastinating. We don’t like the fact that we are feeling down, so we turn to self-criticism, telling ourselves we should be able to snap out of it. The practise of mindfulness is to pause in these moments of distress, to just be present with our experience, rather than solving it, judging it, or avoiding it.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a type of talk therapy that focuses on how you think and what you do, trying to help you change those thoughts and behaviours to feel better. In this line of therapy, your therapist will explore your thoughts about yourself, the world and other people and how your behaviour affects your thoughts and emotions. CBT focuses on the “here and now” problems and difficulties, but this doesn’t mean your therapist won’t ask you questions about your past. There will be times when talking about the past will help you and your therapist understand how it is affecting you now.