Therapy Beyond The Walls: Connecting with Ourselves and the World.

Therapy is not just within four walls. The wild is an extension of therapy and vise versa. Therapy is about connecting to yourself in a way that feels safe, consistent and transparent. When we engage in an opportunity to connect we have the possibility to heal parts of us that are hurting which are showing up in our relationships and how we are treating ourselves. This creates space for love, happiness and fulfilment too, that is often masked amongst shame, exhaustion and depression.

Connection is the ocean breeze, a laugh with a loved one, a warm embrace, a familiar scent, a conversation with a friend, a dance, "being seen", a revisit to your favourite place, the loss of a loved one, a weeping cry, a heavy heart and much much more. 

When we disconnect, we create isolation, loneliness and become stuck and overwhelmed. Although our intention may not consciously be to disconnect, our bodies are hardwired to respond faster than what we are consciously aware of. Naturally we may have felt safe to disconnect, but now, in our adult years it may not be what we need. By slowing down this process in therapy together, we can get a good understanding of how we arrived to the place where we are at and work towards re-creating a path that feels true to you.

It is my intention to create a secure, safe, homely and nurturing space with you that is uniquely yours. This allows you to take courage, strength and lessons from therapy into the wild.

Just like how a bird confidently relocates its nest and calls it home, do I aim to relight the courage and strength collaboratively within you, so that no matter where you are, you have got this.

-Jackson

What is Compassion?

The more we can understand our feelings and thoughts the more we are in control of our day to day. At times, when we think about how we are progressing with our goals, wishes and expectations we can be confronted with anxiety. Anxiety is built into us to alert us for danger. Most often it can be used as a guide that something is happening in our life that is important to us. Depending on how we respond to this anxiety, can differentiate the outcome of our feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Sometimes we can respond overly critical on ourselves which often results in feeling low, unmotivated, numb and withdrawn from others. We can respond to these almost automatic critical thoughts with compassionate behaviors. Self-compassion is using the courage of care we have for ourselves to overcome challenges. Compassion is the part of us that speaks up when things are unfair, mistreated or “not quite right”. Importantly, when we tune into compassion for ourselves, we create a safe and caring place to visit some of our anger, sadness, grief and happiness. Think of compassion as the drivers seat of the car, our feelings are the passengers, the engine room is our brain,  the wheels are our planned behaviors to get us from a to b and the boot is some of the struggles that we carry through from our past. Sometimes we need to change up a gear, some times we need to slow things down or sometimes we need to process and digest at the current speed. Most importantly, we make sure our car and all of us are heading to the same place. The road we travel on can get confusing when each part of us is not on the same team. Overtime, this can create states of depression and constant anxiety. Just like our cars, we need regular maintenance, regular repairs, regular upgrades. We can run on empty for a while but suddenly, when it breaks it can be bad. Compassion is our upgrades, our repairs and it is important to make sure we are running smoothly.