Wellbeing Archives - KBwellbeing

Emotional Health & Wellbeing Resource

Oct 20

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

Negative Thoughts Can Be Helpful

What if I gave you a gift… I had the ability to give you a life without physical pain. Great hey? At first this would seem like a great thing – never to feel physical pain. However, when you actually stop to think about it it would be very dangerous. How would you know that your hand is burning on the cooker? How would you know you’d sprained your ankle on your run? You wouldn’t know if you had persistent headaches which were telling you something was wrong. Physical pain can actually be very helpful and is necessary to keep ourselves safe. So, what about negative thoughts. What if a person never had any negative thoughts? This person never thought they were an idiot. They thought that everybody liked them. They thought that everything and everyone in the world was safe. They thought that they excelled at everything. Wow – they’d be the happiest person ever, right? Well… maybe… but I’m not convinced. I’m also not sure I’d like to meet this person. This person would never have felt the need to change, to grow, or to better themselves. They’d be the same person they were as a […]

Mar 07

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

The Problem with Positivity

I’m hearing a lot about positivity lately. The word seems to be everywhere. People talking about how to be positive during these times. How to stay positive. How to develop a positive mindset. How to keep a positive attitude. And so on and so on. Now, these messages can be ok depending on what your definition of positivity is. If your definition of the word ‘positivity’ includes ‘being happy’ then this is where things can start to go wrong. More and more in our Western society there seems to be a pursuit of happiness. Even though we are all ‘saying’ it’s ok to not be ok we still don’t like to ‘feel’ any so-called negative feelings. We don’t like suffering. We also have specialists and doctors telling us we have a mental health issue or a disorder if those feelings go on too long or are too much for us to cope with at that time or we don’t understand them. This can lead to a society that is desperately trying to be happy all the time. Because of all this it can be very easy for someone to mix up ‘positivity’ with ‘being happy’ […]

Dec 24

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

Support Agencies – Kirklees and Nation Wide

At this time that might be difficult for a lot of people I thought I would post my guide of Support Agencies both in Kirklees and throughout the nation. There are a lot of agencies that offer telephone talking support that might be helpful for people at the moment. If you know someone who might benefit from this booklet please share this with them. Signposting Guide Please be aware that a lot of these agencies come and go due to being temporary or because of funding. Therefore, some of the links may no longer work. I hope you find this helpful.

Mar 31

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How To Worry Well.

Hands up if you’re a little worried right now. Yep, that’s what I thought. To be worried at a time like this is perfectly normal. There is a lot of uncertainty around. People don’t know what is happening with their jobs, they don’t know what’s going to happen with their money, they don’t know whether they might get sick, or somebody they love might get sick. On top of this there are other stressors being piled on like having to look after children at home, not being able to get food like we used to and not being able to keep to normal routines. These all cause worry. Oh, and on top of all this, we have the most existential worry known to mankind… death. Often human beings try to distract themselves from thoughts about our own deaths or the deaths of the people around us. However, in times of sickness, it can be really hard not to think about it. So what do we do about all this worry being piled on us. Well the important word in the previous sentence is ‘do’. Worry can quickly become overwhelming if we feel powerless. In fact […]

Aug 31

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

When talking isn’t helpful…

So, if you didn’t already know, I’m a talking therapist so that must mean that I ALWAYS think talking about your problems is the best way to sort them out, yes? No! In fact, there are times when I think that talking about your problems isn’t helpful at all. Let me explain. Back in the 80’s a psychologist called Paul Ware wrote an article about personality types. In this article he also talked about ‘Doors to Therapy’. He stated that people/clients tend to have a preferred ‘way of being’ and this will be either thinking, feeling or doing. For example a person with a ‘thinking’ way of being will intellectualise a lot. They will talk in terms of “I think” as opposed to “I feel”. A person with a ‘feeling’ way of being will be most comfortable talking about their emotions and how they feel and a person with a ‘doing’ personality type is the one who doesn’t really talk about how they think or feel – they just do. He went on to talk about the client’s Open Door, their Target Door and their Trap Door. The Open Door is where the client is […]

Jul 13

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Parents – your children need you to fail!

I am not a parent yet. This blog is written from the experience I have of sitting with hundreds of clients who have spoken about their relationships with their parents/care givers/children. From this I have gleaned one thing that a lot of parents don’t seem to believe is true… Your children need you to fail them sometimes. I am using the word ‘fail’ because it’s a word that I most often hear from parents when talking about how they may have reacted/acted with their children. I DO NOT believe the word is actually accurate in the sense that I am going to be using it but I will use it for now for the purpose of making the point. So, what do I mean by ‘failure’? I mean when a parent thinks they have done something wrong or acted in a way that means they are not a good parent. For example, getting angry at a child, making a mistake, shouting, crying in front of them, getting frustrated. Basically anything that the parent thinks may have a negative effect on the child’s wellbeing/development/character. Let’s use getting angry at you child and shouting at them […]

Jul 02

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A blog about change…

I believe everyone can change. I wouldn’t be a therapist if I didn’t. However, I believe that change is bloody hard! (Please excuse my language.) When I talk to my clients about change I use this metaphor… If you came to the edge of this field, and you needed to get across, which way are you likely to walk through it? Most people say they would take the easy path – I know I would. If you decided to go a different way through you might have to beat the grass back with a stick. You might trip over some unseen stones or fall into an unseen hole. There might be nettles or thistles that sting or scratch you. It might take you a lot longer to get through it and make you a lot more exhausted than if you just took the set path. This is how the brain/body works every day. We wake up and automatically take the easier path. This is called learned behaviour. It is our habits and patterns of being. So, even though our learned behaviour/habits may be harming us, we know them and they are easy for us […]

Jun 23

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

On trying to be something you’re not.

I’m going to recount a session that I had with my own therapist today. When you become a therapist you have to have a lot of your own therapy. To put this in context I had been seeing this therapist for a while and we had a very good relationship. I remember starting the session by bringing up the subject of spontaneity. All my life up until this point I remember wanting to be a free spirit, wanting to be spontaneous. I talked to my therapist about seeing films and tv ads where beautiful young women would jump in a car and drive anywhere and do exciting new things without a care. I was different. If you told me you were taking me on a surprise holiday tomorrow this was more likely to cause me panic than excitement. If I jumped into that car it would need to be fully packed with all the essentials that I had ticked off a carefully prepared list that I had made weeks ago. I am the furthest thing from spontaneous that you could imagine – yet I was desperate to change. I thought that being spontaneous would make me happier. […]

May 15

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

Love Your Neighbour as You Love Yourself – The Importance of Self Care #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek

‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’ is a verse from the bible. Apparently similar verses can be found in other religious texts as well. However you do not have to be religious to benefit from the theme of this verse – self care. A lot of people have grown up thinking that they need to put other people’s needs before their own. They feel that this is the noble and right thing to do. They believe that they should be at the bottom of the pack that their children, partners, parents, friends should all be put before them. Then I come along and tell them this way of being might be harming them. I use the metaphor of an oxygen mask… If you have ever been on a plane before (or watched any films) you will know that the stewards do a safety briefing before the plane takes off. This talks about the brace position, the life vests and what to do if the oxygen masks are released. They usually show a picture like this. They say that, if the oxygen mask comes down, it does not matter if you are with your 5 year […]

May 14

by Kelly in Wellbeing 0 comments

Jealousy – The Last Taboo #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek

I think we can agree that we are doing much better as a society/world at accepting emotions. There’s so much more normalising talk around the subject. We have great things like #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and they even teach children at school now about emotions. However, I still find there is one emotion that not a lot of people like to admit to… Jealousy For some reason this still seems to be a very taboo emotion. If I ever bring it up in the therapy room I get people thinking that I might be judging them and they immediately will start justifying themselves. Even in my everyday life it seems to be the one emotion people still think is dirty. So I thought I would start by making my confession:- “Hi, my name is Kelly and I’m a jealous person.” I get jealous of my friends. I get jealous of people who are more successful than me. I get jealous of people who have nicer houses than me. I get jealous of people who are famous. I get jealous of people who are rich. The list goes on, and on and on…………….. There that’s done. And, […]