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http://www.mymindfulcounsellor.com/

The Mindful Counsellor, Broome, Craven Arms (2026)

21/06/2026

Do you ever find yourself feeling challenged by things that seem bigger than your ability to change them?

Me too.

This week I’ve found myself reflecting on how much energy I can waste getting frustrated by things I can’t currently change (although I concluded I might be able to influence some of them if I choose carefully where I spend my spoons!).

Things like health conditions with no known cure, wider societal issues, potholes (!) and just the general frustrations of daily life that, on their own, are manageable, but when added together can feel exhaustingly irritating.

The reality is that some problems don’t have quick fixes. And I/we try to take responsibility for every problem all at once (and that’s what our brains can try to do), there’s a risk and high chance we could eventually burn ourselves out.

So I’ve been focusing on a few small things that are still within my influence this past week as a CBT ‘behavioural experiment’.

🌿 Nature – spending time in the garden listening to birdsong and noticing the huge world beyond my own worries. There is something grounding and reassuring about being reminded that life continues to grow, change and everything changes. The birds seem remarkably happy and unworried despite everything! I think the chicks have hatched as the house-martins are very busy!

❤️ Connection – catching up with a friend. There’s something lovely about spending time with a calm, wise person who knows how to listen without trying to fix everything. Sometimes feeling understood by just one person is enough to soothe a need to feel understood.

💆 Body – having a massage and giving my body some therapeutic care and attention. I noticed a shift not just physically, but in my energy and sense of wellbeing too.

🧠 Mind – practising CBT defusion by imagining difficult thoughts floating away on leaves in a stream, rather than arguing with them, rabbit holing with them or treating them as facts. Just stick it on a leaf and watch it float away: simple but oddly effective! It gave my very busy brain a five-minute holiday from hyper-scrolling about 50 random things.

None of these things solved a single one of the bigger issues.

They didn’t cure my fibromyalgia or remove post-op fatigue. They didn’t fix the things in the world that concern me.

Nothing outside me changed this week, but my experience of the week did and that felt like a really amazing experience! Same life but shifted experience.

One question I often ask myself is:
“What is the smallest thing I can do today that might help me become even 0.5% healthier, happier or more at peace?”

Then I try to take the very first step within 30 seconds.

I’d love to hear your own tips when life feels heavy or outside your control - please post them in the comments…

14/06/2026

I was discussing happiness and purpose recently.

I concluded that once people’s basic needs are met and they feel reasonably financially safe, more money and “success” don’t seem to create the meaning, health or happiness we’re told they will.

In fact, what if this pressure for more, better, bigger, more flashy could be even pulling us away from ourselves — into busyness, striving and disconnection which are the things we know make most people overwhelmed.

I reckon that human beings need something deeper than ‘more’ - thing like: purpose, connection and belonging, community, nature, creativity, making choices, helping though choice not necessity and feeling we matter somewhere.

And it got me thinking about women particularly, because I see so many struggle emotionally when children grow up, retirement comes, work stops or caring roles reduce. I’ve experienced it myself!

On paper this stage of not ‘having to x, y, z’ should feel freeing: more time, less pressure, more choice.

But often it can feel very unsettling instead.

I wonder if it’s because for many women, our purpose became wrapped up in being needed but without much choice: we have to work, have to care, have to remember, have to get the shopping even when no energy and not much of any of that feels much above transactional, mundane and maybe even totally unrecognised etc.

So when life comes to quietening, the deeper question underneath can become: “If I’m no longer constantly needed… and I have time and resources to choose, who actually am I? What do I now choose?” And the answer comes back “No idea!”

Though it may be challenging having suddenly no purpose when working ends or kids leave, maybe this stage of life is not a long-term dead end at all, but an invitation.

And an invitation not to become endlessly busy again but to rediscover:
What truly brings me alive rather than merely useful?
What would I do in the next year if no one else was around?
What parts of myself went quiet just to survive adulthood?
What now feels meaningful to me?
If I’m led by my body energy what do I want to do today?

Maybe purpose in later life looks different: less about others who need us but with those who we have time to intentionally care for even when it’s not essential, more aligned with who we really are and
more filled with our choices not only necessity!

Here’s a poem that sums up the stories and my own experiences to some degree based on the poem Leisure, given at the end.

Now I have time to stand and stare,
When I look up, no-one is there.
The children grown, the house grown still,
I’m no longer bent to every will;
No packed lunches, chores or calls,
No echoing feet through empty halls.

No rushing round from day to day,
No always giving self away;
No folding life into a role,
While I neglect my very soul.

I spent my years in “just getting by”,
Working, caring, watching time fly;
Holding it all, keeping things tight,
Too worn to notice my looming ‘night’.

Now I do have time to stand and stare,
And I wonder who I was back there.
Beneath the many roles I wore—
Mother, wife, teacher… and so many more.

Who was that woman underneath,
Beyond the duties, beyond belief?
Beyond the tidy, behind the lines,
Beyond the self lies that made things fine?

Families scattered, friends apart,
Silences gathering round the heart.
And purpose, once thought so sharp and clear,
Now leaves a newer kind of fear:

If no-one needs me quite the same,
What now remains beneath this name?

Now I have time to stand and stare,
And meet the parts still waiting there:
The longings hushed to keep things right,
The softer self kept out of sight;
The quieter voice, the slower pace,
The human being needing grace.

Not only useful, strong, or known,
Not only what I’ve always shown;
But something tender, unconfined,
Still becoming, yet defined.
Someone wilder, happier, free
With all the time to just do me!

Now I have the time to stand and stare—
I slowly learn I am still there.

Based on:
Leisure
W.H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I hope if you’re in transition, this post is hopeful. Please feel free to share.
With life and love ❤️
Dionne

09/06/2026

Apparently today is “Call Your Doctor Day”. That feels either very helpful… or slightly like irony to me but I’ll let you decide. That said I want you to urge you persevere, if you ARE feeling you are not getting answers to a health concern and to encourage that 'call your doctor' message.

When you’re unwell, especially with something that isn’t immediately obvious, we sometimes don't get answers even when we do see doctors, is the sad reality.

The research about women's health is too depressing to write in full here but it's there to read about just how long our diagnoses can take: approx 4-6 years for fibro, 9-12 years is common for Endo, sometimes decades for PTSD and 2--40 years for ADHD diagnosis or ASD! I find that unbelievable inequality and shocking. I'm one of those statistics and it is draining! I’ll write more about my own version of this another time — 11 years, four conditions, and a manager who suggested I might enjoy working in a florists. But that’s for another day. Lol

So whilst it's call a doctor day, I’ve learned (the very painful and hard way) that persistence will matter. If something doesn’t feel right, it’s okay to say it again. And again. And again. Write stuff and give them short notes. Bring your recorded patterns. Take someone else with you. Ask them to record on your record what you’ve shared.

And please, don’t give up if you’re still searching. Don’t shrink your experience, keep persisting, ask for another doctor, challenge why am I not getting a diagnosis, what other things do you need to do/rule out/what's left on table, what can I do to test these possible diagnosis?

My best hope for all of us is that we will not feel a pain in the a*** because we keep turning up speaking up for our bodies and we do keep 'calling that doctor!' until we get an answer that fits our body experience.

Also… good luck actually getting through on the phone. I think that might be the most realistic awareness campaign of all.

06/06/2026

Modern psychotherapy was built on language, analysis, interpretation, and diagnosis.

Dance and somatic movement therapy asks something radically different: What if healing happens before words and can be achieved and represented in our moving bodies?

A joyful watch but also I do believe in the way we move our bodies with intention and intuition is healing medicine… I wish I had it in me to move like this nowadays 😉 It’s how I’d move today!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXZhh1mDiuM/?igsh=aWhpMWhkYmpudWls

31/05/2026

‘Radical rest’ = a Sunday habit when you sit on your balcony ignoring everything and everyone (except the dogs) in order to create the best conditions to be the healthiest you …. but then ruin it after 20 minutes and spend energy fighting boredom so create cute dog images on AI!

30/05/2026

This is a review just posted on Google from someone I worked with last year. The dogs always get a mention too - I love that!

28/05/2026

What are the chances of being properly heard and seen as an older woman? About the same as landing the lead in a Hollywood film (which The Independent reported this week, statistically, is less likely than a talking animal or yet another man called Chris getting the role!)

Only 5 of the top 100 grossing films in recent years centred a woman over 60, as Emma Thompson highlighted this week. Older women become invisible. Their voices lost.

I’ve been annoyed about not being listened to all week myself and so this is a bit personal and a bit edgy but wanted to call it out like Emma did too.

Diary date: Medical appointment for minor surgery yesterday…
I went in prepared with notes and actual evidence about nil by mouth protocols that have been updated since 2005 (2005, in case that number needs a moment to land) because I have learned from bitter experience to do my own research about my own medical situation which is not conventional.

Nil by mouth carries real risk for people with CFS and POTS at any time, let alone in the middle of a heatwave, so I wanted to request fluids prior to the operation — the kind that go directly into a vein so I didn’t end up in difficulty under general anaesthetic or dizzy with slower recovery triggering cfs worsening.

I raised it carefully and what I got back from the anaesthetist, within about 5 seconds of mentioning there was research suggesting I’d benefit from fluids, was “I don’t listen to AI” — not show me your sources, not walk me through your concern, just that.

It was as if I hadn’t spent years living in this body and researching what that actually means medically.

For him, it was as if the problem was the technology I might have used rather than the straightforward inconvenience of me having an informed and clearly necessary opinion about my own care.

I went quiet, which I didn’t decide to do, it just happened. There was even a sign on the wall saying ‘Sip Til Send’ — updated guidance, right there — but it made no difference he was not budging even though against the hospital policy the nurses were told don’t give me water even to sip l.

I had to regulate my feelings in the moment and then he was gone, and the next time I saw him I was in a hospital gown, granny socks on, in no position to argue, trying to hold onto some faith that it would be fine whilst he stuck his needle into my hand whilst I was feeling dismally resigned.

Today I’m not happy: still recovering and still sitting with why speaking up felt so impossible in that moment and predictably so dizzy I couldn’t stand up til just now.

Earlier this same week there was another story that’s this point: our voice is not heard… I have a concrete shed slab in my garden that was slanting — visibly, obviously slanting in a way you could see with your normal functioning eyes from a standing position — and when I pointed this out to the builder during snagging he turned his back on me and walked away while I was literally mid-sentence.

I tried again, got nowhere, so most bizarrely what I did next was go inside, locate the spirit level, come back out into my own garden and formally measure something I could already see was wrong, just to make absolutely sure I was right.

WTAF. The spirit level and I were in complete agreement. The builder was not interested in our findings and left petulant that my 57 year old eyes seemed better than his male trade-man ones!

What I keep coming back to is that it’s not just the dismissal in the moment — or the fact I’ve had the predicted dizziness today and still have a purposeless slanting slab — it’s what dismissal does to you over time; the way it nags at you until you’re in a comedy scene standing in your own garden with a spirit level checking reality. Or the way even I go quiet in rooms without deciding to, literally furious and worried about harm to my own body but staying quiet anyway. Or again annoyingly the way I spent the journey home wondering if I was too much, too prepared, too insistent on my own experience and research mattering over an outdated protocol.

Long gap… Lot of processing… Emma I’m annoyed with you.

I do need to say though — there was some hope. The surgeon (who came in immediately after) but pre-op, stopped and asked proper questions and gave answers that actually reassured and validated me, and it was so disarmingly normal that I genuinely didn’t know what to do with it except wanted to cry. Feeling properly heard after not being heard is that powerful.

Which is exactly why I’m writing this — not just about my week, but because this pattern is everywhere and it matters.

Endometriosis still takes an average of nine years to diagnose in the UK and more than half of women report that their pain hasn’t been taken seriously. That is not an abstract statistic. Even Wes Streeting was saying the other month one of his biggest challenges is women not having needs met in the NHS.

The women I work with in therapy — many living with chronic illness, fatigue, fibromyalgia — have done the reading. They know their own bodies better than most clinicians who’ve had ten minutes with them. And yet for literal decades some of us have still been coming out of appointments wondering if we made it up, because we have been redirected and managed and waited so long that self-doubt has started to feel like our own thought rather than something that was put there.

This is why being properly heard matters so much. When nobody reflects your experience back to you accurately and consistently, you stop trusting it. You lose the thread of your own judgement, and that has real consequences for how you move through the world and the decisions you make about your own health and your own life. And you end up with wonky slabs.

The good doctor this week reminded me that listening doesn’t have to be exceptional. The rest of the week reminded me we’re not there yet.

Still annoyed, just checked again and it is confirmed. I’m annoyed, frustrated and still glaring at a wonky slab still feeling slightly bloody dizzy.

🥴

23/05/2026

“I’m fine.” (… when you’re really not.)

Most of us have said it. Many of us live there!

I just heard there’s some interesting research that followed people over 12 years and found this:

Those who regularly kept their feelings in — stayed pleasant, didn’t want to upset others, avoided sharing what was really going on — had a slightly higher risk of health problems over time.

Not because feelings are dangerous. But because carrying everything alone can be.

Before this sparks worry — this is important:
This isn’t about blame.
It’s not saying “this causes illness.”
And it’s definitely not about needing to spill everything to everyone.

It’s a gentle nudge towards something we often forget: feelings need somewhere to go.

When they don’t, they don’t disappear… they tend to show up in other ways:
* tension in the body
* exhaustion that rest doesn’t fix
* feeling overwhelmed or shut down
* coping habits that don’t really help long-term

So the question isn’t “Am I expressing things perfectly?” It’s more like: “Do I have anywhere I can be real?”

That might be:
* one safe person
* a journal where you don’t filter
* a quiet moment where you actually admit how you feel
* letting yourself say “that was hard” instead of brushing past it

You don’t have to become someone who shares everything. But you also don’t have to be the one who holds everything.

And maybe, just maybe…
“I’m fine” gets to become “I’m not, actually… and that’s okay to say.”

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3939772/

17/05/2026

Setbacks, knockbacks, or big life quakes can affect how safe you feel (or don’t), how you trust (or struggle to), how you rest (or can’t), and how you get through everyday life (or don’t).

And it can feel like that’s just how it is now. Literally GRIM!

But there is something underneath all of that I am reminded of: hope that healing is possible, even likely and perhaps even programmed in to us as humans.

In therapy, we work from the belief that with the right conditions, people do heal. Not in a straight line, and not on demand, but there is potential for movement eventually .

And even more wonderful and hopeful: it’s not a return to who you were, or a polished version of that.

But over time, life quakes can start to reshape things — into a version of you that feels steadier, more real, more you than ever before. It’s like the fire burned the c*** off or away.

So in my hope, may we all find our way through set backs, knock backs and the aftershocks…

And nicely grounded, I’ll see you on the other side, changed.

With kindness,
Dionne

09/05/2026

Sorry Sir David - I missed wishing you happy birthday and saying thank you for your love of nature.

The Mindful Counsellor

21/06/2026

14/06/2026

09/06/2026

06/06/2026

31/05/2026

30/05/2026

28/05/2026

23/05/2026

17/05/2026

09/05/2026

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