Are you a therapist?

Therapists are often perceived as the “fixers” of problems. We are often expected to be strong, resilient, exude unbridled health and vitality.

Any decent therapist will tell you that we need to do our inner clearing and resourcing, so that we can hold space and support our client through their pain and trauma.

In times like this where we are drawn into our own drama of fear and insecurities, and the collective trauma of the world’s chaos and sufferings, I would like to offer a little reflection for therapists that has nothing to do with how to set up online streaming and Zoom videos, but to take a pause on acknowledging our own state of affairs.

As therapists, healers, lightworkers, we are now under immense pressure to clean up our own act, keep up an image of positivity, bliss, strength... even as uncertainties and trepidations show up ever more starkly in our consciousness, even as cities go into lockdowns, even as our anchors, routines and security blankets get disrupted and ripped apart to reveal our flawed human-ness and vulnerability...

So -
Can we still show up and be good if we are NOT good?
Can we comfort and support others if our own grounds are shaky?
Can we heal others when we realised how broken we are?
Can we choose love instead of fear when our hearts are now shattered - from losing our jobs or our income, from loss of social support systems, from being separated with loved ones, from grieving the loss of human lives….?

How do we show up and be present to love - without pushing away our pain, without pretending that we are okay, without faking till we make it?

Can we see sorrow as the other side of pain, love as the other side of fear, chaos as the other side of order?
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The next time you walk into the therapy room, I invite you to lean into the other side of your suffering, and meet the other person nervous system to nervous system, from one flawed human being to another.
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Meet in the heart space of truth and belonging.

In the last quarter of 2019, I made a very difficult decision to leave Australia, to return to Singapore and start over again.

What this means in hindsight now are -

I was able to escape the worst bushfires in Australia's history in December

I didn't have to deal with the storms and floods that followed in January

I am in one of the safest places in the world right now in light of the pandemic, with enough resources and no lockdown.

The borders between Australia and Singapore closed 4 days before Rod and I were due to meet after more than 4 months apart

With tighter measures implemented daily since, and neither of us being able to claim offocial residency in the other's country, the chances of our reunion in near time is now bleak...

But I am still grateful
Grateful to be in the country I can call my home
To be with family and community
To have food and supplies
To be able to contribute to health and wellbeing of those around me
To share. To teach. To create
To be outdoors and in green spaces
To be healthy and useful

So hold your loved ones, your family and community close
May we keep offering care to community, and gratitude for all the resources we have to see us through this times
May love grows ever more deeply to fuel courage and resilience
May we learn humility as a human race, to listen and heal Mother Earth
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#loveinthetimeofcorona #gratitudejournal #healing

Many of us have heard of Fight, Flight, Freeze.
The Fawn Response is a coping mechanism that is not unfamiliar. It's our need to connect in order to survive (a relationship or relationships), so we do things that we don't feel compelled to in order to belong, to not be shamed, to please... We try to be who the other person (or society) wants us to be instead of our authentic self. Do you know that this nervous system response can actually hurt us physiologically?
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#nervoussystem #fawnresponse