Bringing Sparkle Back

This has been something I’ve been wanting to do for some time - to share my learning and help improve the efficacy of therapists in practice, which in turn, enables therapists to work towards providing the best possible practice for their clients.
Because as a therapist, you are the person that sits with people in the dark, very often at their lowest points. You enable others to off load their troubles, their biggest fears and their darkest secrets. You help to heal wounds, a...nd reprocess memories.
Those hours you spend inside your clients minds is to help your clients understand themselves on a deeper and more meaningful level so that they feel empowered and have the knowledge to change how they think and how they respond to the stuff life throws at them - so having someone to offload to, and to help you reflect, is paramount to your ongoing development and growth as a therapist.
I’m excited to say that I am now accredited to work with therapists as a supervisor on a 1:1 basis via Skype, providing supervision as part of their CPD.
If you are a therapist, and are looking for a supervisor who can support you and help grow you to that next level, please get in touch ⬇️
https://www.bringingsparkleback.co.uk/wor k-with-me
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Your inner critic can make you question your ability to do the things you know you can do, and your worthiness of the space you inhibit.
✅You are highly capable. ✅You belong here and you have worked hard to be here. ✅You can do this.
... #MondayMotivation
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Essential Monday night viewing is #divorce, created by the unstoppable Sharon Horgan.
What I’ve learned about divorce is that some are acrimonious, others are amicable. Some involve children, others not.
Some are joint decisions, others are one sided. Some offer a sense of relief, others cause heartbreak.
... Some cause you to carry guilt, others to feel anger and resentment.
Whatever the circumstances and however you got here, you have arrived at destination 'new life'. You have an opportunity to start a whole new chapter in your life, on your terms and start living a life you have either been yearning for or have been dreading the sheer prospect of.
Where do you start and how do you move on?.
First and foremost you have got to allow yourself to deal with the emotions you are feeling. Regardless of who left who, or whether this was something you wanted or not, you need to allow yourself permission to deal with the emotions you are feeling post divorce.
You will feel a sense of loss (even if it's something you wanted). That loss may be losing your home, not seeing your children every day or losing your extended family, and friends. There are inevitable financial losses, loneliness, a change of lifestyle, the emotional pain of seeing your ex remarry and start a family with someone else, imagined losses of what might have been, and of memories of what once was.
You may perhaps feel like a failure for your marriage not working out and a huge amount of guilt where children are involved. You may feel sheer relief to be out of your marriage and 'free', which might also make you feel guilty for not feeling heartbroken. Because you are dealing with emotions of grief and loss you need to allow yourself to grieve.
You will go through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance post divorce. There is no formula on how you move through these stages, or how long these stages last.
Unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realise that what you once had is over, you cannot move forward.
Letting go doesn't mean forgetting.
You are strong and you have a whole new chapter to start.
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“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
I know first hand just how tumultuous female friendships can be, but this woman, she’s been by my side for the last 14 years. Life has got in the way far too much over that time, and we’ve both had our fair share of curve balls.
Highs and lows.
... And because we are both fiercely independent, when we are dealing with our own stuff, we tend to retreat and disconnect from the world until we’ve worked through that stuff.
But actually, we’ve discovered that’s when we need each other the most, and that when we go quiet, that’s when we really need to check in.
Tonight we’ve hatched a plan to reconnect with each other. To just have some time for us. No children.
No play dates. Just us, starting with a cottage in the middle of nowhere, and a log fire and a mountain we can climb together.
Just us, rediscovering us, celebrating us, being us and growing into a new version of us #bestfriend.
Who’s the woman in your life who knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still gently allows you to grow?
Give her a shout out below ⬇️
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Its a lonely, frustrating and soul destroying place to be watching the person you love live with a darkness you can’t see.
Here are 10 ways you can support a depressed partner ⬇️

‪Whether it's striving to live a healthier life. Wanting to meet the love of your life. That next promotion or career move. Starting a business. Writing a blog. Pitching for some work.
How many of us hit our F**k it button?

We’ve been telling stories since the beginning of time, and story telling isn’t just powerful in the therapy room, it’s equally as powerful in the bedroom.
Tap into that imagination of yours and unleash the power of your ✨SEXUAL SPARKLE ✨for a passion fuelled Saturday night.
Take the lead, and tell a story. One that you can both play a part in. Explore your sexual fantasies. If you are struggling for inspiration, start with replaying a previous encounter together which was ...passionate and exciting and blew your mind. Or play out a story you fantasise about. Embrace your sexual desire. Reawaken it. Explore your sexual fantasies. Unleash your sexual sparkle.
Sex causes increased production of oxytocin, which is often referred to as the “love hormone”. Before orgasm, oxytocin, released from the brain, surges and is accompanied by the release of feel good endorphins.
These feel-good hormones activate pleasure centers in the brain that create feelings of intimacy and relaxation. So it’s official, sex is good for our mental wellness.
Not only does it make us feel better, it connects us with our partner on an intimate level too.
And if you are single, lose yourself in that story in your own mind, you don’t need a partner to release those feel good hormones 😘
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Relationships. I’ve seen my fair share of women in the #bringingsparkleback clinic who come, more often not because they cannot make the decision of whether to stay or to go.
Relationships are complex - we commit our everything to them, and families form and grow from that love, so when they start to break down it’s no wonder making a decision to stay or go can feel like one of the hardest decisions you’ll ever have to make in your life - because the decision transcends way ...beyond you and your happiness, and that is why so many women I see put up with the daily deliverance of contempt from the person they have given their everything to.
The intimacy (so much more than sex) which disappeared years ago.
The hostility and lack of acceptance.
The loneliness they feel lying in bed every night next to the person who they no longer know or respect.
The verbal, emotional (and sometimes) physical abuse they are on the receiving end of.
The dreams and once shared future that are shattered memories of what once was.
The social situations and holidays they dread.
There’s no wonder then that they have lost their sparkle and need some help in guiding them to a decision. And for some women therapy helps them find ways of repairing the damage and rebuilding - identifying the areas that need to improve.
For others therapy helps with realising their self worth so that they have a much stronger foundation on which to make that decision.
What I know for sure is that it isn’t an easy decision and that if this is you right now, dreading the thought of spending another weekend in your relationship, no amount of denial or avoidance will help you get to the decision that you need to make.
You matter.
Your happiness matters.
You deserve to be in love with your life ❤️
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On Fridays I have a clinic where I can see clients face to face at Avalon Wellbeing just outside Skipton in an out of this world wellbeing centre on the Broughton Hall Estate. This is my therapy space #dreamspace

Probably one of the biggest misconceptions about therapy.
Therapy isn’t about ‘fixing you’.
It’s about helping you to understand you. Your story. How you see the world. How your mind works. It gives you the opportunity to reprocess things.
... It’s about empowering you to live a life which isn’t defined by your past. Rewriting the story you have been telling yourself.
Creating a whole new mindset - the foundations of which are built to enable you to see the world in a less threatening, more positive light, and resilient enough to weather the curve balls life throws.
Pic 📸 @redbrick_mill
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We spend our lives trying to avoid failure at all costs.
But what if daring to fail is actually the very platform on which we grow, learn and cultivate resilience?
What if some of the fundamental lessons we need to learn are wrapped up as epic failure?
... I want to share with you my story of epic failure.
I’m doing this because I want you to know that failure is the outcome of doing something different, and there should be no shame in that.
We shouldn’t be afraid to fail, and we should celebrate those who dare to lead and brave enough to take the risk and learn from their experience. I want to hear about the failures, the rock bottoms and the rising strong from it.
Because it’s those stories that inspire and we take great meaning from, and here's mine (one of them) in all its vulnerability.
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And it all starts with taking one small step forwards.
It’s not an easy path to take. It will be painful. It will be exhausting. It will trigger memories and traumas and experiences that have been buried deep into your subconscious for a very long time.
But the only way to move forwards and release yourself from that unconscious wounding is to face it, head on. Reprocess it.
... Change the narrative you’ve attached to it all these years.
Learn the lessons.
Free yourself from the pain and gift yourself the ability to anchor yourself in your present and to be unstoppable in the pursuit of happiness.
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One of my clients described her self-sabotaging, self-destructive behaviour as 'hitting the f**k it button'. How you can stop getting in your own way.

It is reportedly the hottest day of the year, and when the sun is shining there is an assumption that everything is great in the world, but the summer period for many, can see anxiety peak and here's 3 reasons why:

Nobody has walked your path.
Or knows your struggles. Nobody has shown up in your life every minute and every day other than you.
Without being in the arena of YOUR life, for even one second, no-one can make a valued judgement on decisions you make, nor if those decisions were the right ones to be made.
... Getting in that arena in the first place takes courage. Making decisions takes courage. Being visible takes courage. And no matter how hard you stumble or fall, just remember that you were the man or woman who was in the arena. You failed while daring greatly - “because there is no effort without error and shortcoming”. And you’ll rise strong.
This is why I love @brenebrown work, and this quote is loosely based on the work of #theodoreroosevelt who even in 1910 was fighting the battle of judgement.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt, the Man in the Arena. Delivered at the Sorbonne (Paris) on April 23rd, 1910.
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It’s reportedly going to be one of the ☀️☀️☀️hottest days on record today.
However despite the sunshine, and the fact summer is finally well and truly here, would it surprise you if I said that this time of the year can see anxiety hit an all year high too, for a whole host of reasons.
Join me LIVE at 10.15am this morning on the Stephanie Hirst show on BBC Radio Leeds for a summer anxiety special where I’ll be sharing my insights and hopefully some of our listeners too, or t...une in on @bbcsounds.
Is summer an anxious time for you?
📸 from a beautiful beach in Mexico.
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