Dr Elizabeth Blackwood, Psychologist

13/02/2018

How do you define what love is? In my younger years it meant day dreaming on the bus home about my plus one♥️, practising my signature with his surname tacked on the end 🖋and having endless imaginary conversations with him in my head even when we weren't together. Now for me, love is the knowledge that you can be vulnerable with your partner and rather than shut you down, they will embrace you.

06/02/2018

One of the most destabilising aspects I see in clients is a feeling of unworthiness. It gets in the way of their ability to connect with partners, back themselves in their working lives and even be present to enjoy their children and families. Whilst these feelings of not being good enough are usually embedded in childhood, they are pernicious in their power to close us off from really embracing our lives.

For one client, a sense she wasn't worthy was borne out of a perceived sense of abandonment as a child. This led to forming relationships with people she felt she could control, and a series of overly defensive behaviours when she perceived someone was rejecting her or criticising her. Whilst this allowed her to deflect any indication from others she interpreted as meaning she wasn't good enough, what it actually resulted in was a series of sabotaged relationships and friendships and an embedded neural response of believing the world was not a safe place. It was as if she had wrapped herself in a bubble of ongoing pain, peering out at what the world might be, but feeling too scared to embrace it.

Whilst all this may seem insurmountable, just the fact she was ready to seek help was a huge step towards healing. This meant she was stepping back from a pattern of avoiding the emotional pain to being courageous enough to examine her thoughts of unworthiness and the painful emotional response that accompanied them. We are working together on a process of helping her notice and define her thoughts and feelings, and just this small mindful practice has given her some relief from the intensity of those feelings and allowed her to appraise them using her logical brain. Once the fight or flight response in the brain has calmed, it's a question of helping her sit in that place of suffering in a supported and self compassionate way. And this is where a lovely dose of self compassion and self acceptance slips in through daily meditation and mindfulness. Not a hint of self sabotage allowed! An ongoing practice but building the foundations of a kinder life.

22/01/2018

I'm in the last stretch of writing my doctoral thesis 👩🏻‍🎓and the thought of another 8 hour stretch of writing is driving me to despair🤦🏻‍♀️. I've got to get this done so I've been researching ways to keep the ideas flowing and my brain pumping. You see our brain doesn't like doing the same thing for more than about 90 minutes, it's wired for novelty and to scan our environments for things to worry about 🔦Which is why writing, studying or focusing on one sedentary task eventually makes our brains feel like they have ground to an almighty halt. ⛔️To reactivate that neural spark, just take a 20 minute walk when you can🚶🏻As you can see in this scan it sends lots of lovely blood flowing to our memory centre and the parts of the brain involved in creativity and focus. You'll have those aha moments 💡and return to your desk with a far greater chance of nailing that task.

18/01/2018

Comforting someone who is grieving can be very challenging. Often we stay away out of a fear we will not know what to say. And yet this presents another type of grief for the person who has lost someone: the knowledge that it is more important for us to avoid feeling awkward around them than to be there for them in their time of loss. And as time goes on, approaching them becomes harder. So many friendships and family friendships are tested in times of grief and many go by the wayside because of this. This is a great article with some tips on how to help someone grieving.

No one wants to watch a friend suffering with grief, that natural emotional response to loss. It’s a painful emotion to observe in anyone but even

09/01/2018

Morning commute....

09/01/2018

Often in life we feel so hurt by other people's actions, effectively putting the control of our happiness in their hands. When we approach our interactions with others with kindness, we reclaim that control. Think of times when others have shown you kindness and how this triumphs over any negativity, hurt or resentment.

05/01/2018

Looking back to 2017, what were the thoughts that masked your capacity to feel fully alive, to be your best self and to appreciate the joy and possibility around you? Imagine gently loosening your grip on those thoughts, understanding why you hung onto them so tightly until you can let go and watch them float away, making space for hope and self love ❤️