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Rowland Counselling
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face-to-face therapy | outside therapy | online therapy.
info@rowlandcounselling.co.uk 07422 651829
Here are my reflections on life and living. I won't tell you what you should do or think. I'll just tell you what I'm learning and what I'm struggling with. Because learning is power and the unspoken is usually what tangles us up.
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Wondering about dreams: finding clarity in the murkiness
Dreams can feel rather mystical. What do they mean? Are they trying to tell us something? What’s it saying about me? If we come from a...
6 min read
Just One Thing: A New Year's Demand
It’s the New Year! And I wish I had some resolutions I could believe in. Believe that I could, with some renewed determination that...
5 min read
How to deal with Christmas stress
Brené Brown has an insightful definition of stress The Atlas of the Heart: We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as...
6 min read
Ordinary Tea. Ordinary lives.
I would quite like a teapot at the moment. Not a big one; ideally, just big enough for two average-sized mugs. I have an image in mind,...
4 min read
The tyranny of happiness: why positive psychology needs to see its shadow
We had a staff training day a while back. It was about happiness. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? I was excited about a day purely focussed on...
5 min read
Is religion good for your mental health?
I remember sitting on my bed one evening. I’m 11, looking up at the stars: ashamed, alone, unable to talk to anyone about it. You see, I...
7 min read
Being "spiritual" - what does it mean?
In my lifetime, being ‘spiritual’ - as with many previous taboos - has become acceptable, endorsed, validated, even fashionable. I find...
6 min read
How to find a counsellor you can trust
I hate finding a car mechanic. I know next to nothing about cars. I often feel like the people I speak to think I know more than I do. So...
6 min read
Disappointment
My heart sinks. I had hoped. I had made tentative steps. And then the door slams in my face. The path gives way before me. Was I a fool...
3 min read
The healing encounter
Some meetings feel different. They have a quality about them that touches us, renews us. They seem to heal or bind up something within....
4 min read
Decolonising our souls
Imperialism was British policy just over a hundred years ago. This was post-’Enlightenment’. It dominated foreign policy even after the...
4 min read
Overwhelmed by mess
I dislike mess. This fact is impressed onto me daily by a son who seems rather fond of it. Or, at least, a son rather fond of making it...
5 min read
Being Me. Being White.
I am white. But what exactly does this mean? I used to think it meant, well, being normal. I say think. It wasn’t that I actually thought...
5 min read
Learning to be me
The other day, I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen since our school days together. I found myself wondering what they remembered of me:...
6 min read
Anxiety
Over the last few days, anxiety has increasingly become an unwelcome presence. Not that it’s usually absent. It’s often there, chattering...
4 min read
Loneliness
As I sat in my favoured coffee shop, I noticed an elderly man, one whom I could imagine being called doddering, sitting opposite me. He...
3 min read
Grief & Joy
The other evening, we received news that someone close had only a few days to live. It wasn’t unexpected. In some respects, it was a...
2 min read
Men & Work
The working man is a central, vital figure in the male psyche. It conjures images of competency, success and value, as well loneliness,...
8 min read
Toughen up, son
Can you take it? Don’t be soft! Toughen up, son. These are the mantras we instil in our boys. Our means of education are criticism,...
4 min read
Finding rest...and coffee
How to look after the boy within.
4 min read
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