FSK: Minds Matter

29/08/2026

Eddie has somehow managed to get himself completely tangled up in my dressing gown.

Did he panic? No.
Did he ask for help? No.
Did he just keep going until the situation became significantly worse? Obviously. 😂

And I did think there was probably a therapeutic post in there somewhere about knowing when to stop struggling and ask for help…

But sometimes a dog tangled in a dressing gown is just a dog tangled in a dressing gown 😂

23/08/2026

23/08/2026

Sometimes I look at Eddie and think he’s got life pretty much sussed ❤️

The sun is shining.

He’s been fed.

His family are with him.

He’s got his ball.

He feels safe.

He’s free to run, play and just be.

And looking at these photos, I’m not sure there’s much else he needs.

We humans have a habit of making life incredibly complicated. Always thinking about what needs doing next, what we should be achieving, what we haven’t done, what we need to sort out.

Meanwhile Eddie is running around in the sunshine with a ball in his mouth having the absolute time of his life 😂

Maybe sometimes enough really is enough.

Fed. Loved. Safe. Free.

And a tennis ball obviously helps. 😂🐾❤️

22/08/2026

Yesterday Eddie encountered an adder.

A VERY angry adder who made it quite clear that Eddie was not welcome anywhere near him 😳🐍

Thankfully Eddie listened when we called him back and no harm was done.

But this was Eddie for the rest of the walk…

Right by my side 😂

And suddenly every stick was suspicious.

Every twig required careful inspection.

Anything vaguely long and thin was potentially another angry snake.

And it got me thinking about how quickly our brains learn from something that frightens us.

Eddie’s brain had basically gone…

Snake = dangerous.
Stick looks a bit like snake.
Therefore stick = potentially dangerous too.

And actually, we do exactly the same thing.

Something happens that frightens us, hurts us or makes us feel unsafe and our nervous system remembers.

Then sometimes it starts warning us about things that aren’t actually dangerous at all… they just look, feel or remind us a little bit of the thing that was.

It’s not us being ridiculous or overreacting.

It’s our brain trying very hard to make sure we don’t get caught out again.

Sometimes it just needs a little help learning the difference between an angry adder…

and a stick 😂🐾❤️

🐾❤️

17/08/2026

Today’s FSK post comes courtesy of Eddie ❤️🐾

We’d been for a good walk along the beach and after all that hard work, he wandered into the water and just stood there for a while cooling himself down.

And as I was watching him, it made me think about trauma work.

Because good trauma therapy isn’t about pushing and pushing, digging into all the difficult stuff and staying there until it’s somehow “done”.

We do some of the hard work… and then we come back.

Back to safety.
Back to stability.
Back to regulation.

Sometimes we need to stay there for a little while before we’re ready to venture out and do a bit more.

And that’s not avoiding the work or going backwards. It’s actually a really important part of the work.

We’re not supposed to stay in the hard stuff all of the time.

Sometimes we need to do exactly what Eddie did today. Do a bit of hard work, recognise when we’ve done enough, and go and find somewhere that helps us cool down and settle again.

Eddie, of course, knows absolutely none of this.

He was just hot and fancied standing in the sea. 😂🐾

But as little reminders about trauma therapy go, I thought he demonstrated it rather beautifully. ❤️

Fran
FSK Minds Matter

13/08/2026

Same blackberries. Different recipe.

After last week’s post about the brambles, I still have a lot of blackberries to deal with…

So today some became jam and some became cake.

Same starting ingredient.
Completely different process.
Different outcome.

And, while I was standing stirring the pan, it struck me that this isn’t a million miles away from the way I work as a therapist.

I’m an integrative therapist , which basically means I don’t believe there is one therapeutic approach that works for every person.

Two people can come to therapy struggling with what looks, on the surface, like the same problem, anxiety, relationships, low self-worth, trauma, feeling stuck, but what sits underneath it can be very different.

So the work needs to be different too.

Sometimes we might need to understand what’s happening in the nervous system. Sometimes we might look at attachment and relationships. Sometimes there’s trauma that needs carefully processing. Sometimes we work with beliefs, patterns or younger parts of self. And sometimes what somebody needs most is simply a safe space to talk and begin making sense of things.

It’s not about squeezing everybody into the same therapeutic recipe.

It’s about understanding the person in front of me, what has brought them to where they are, and then working together to find the approach that fits them, because people are a lot more complicated than blackberries.

Although, judging by the state of my kitchen today, I’m beginning to think it might be a close call. 😂

Fran
FSK Minds Matter

12/08/2026

Tomorrow is Alevel results day, and I want to say something to every young person waiting nervously for those results…

Whatever grades are written on that piece of paper, please don’t underestimate what you have already achieved or how much effort it has taken to get there.

When I took my Olevels, I sat nine exams, one for each subject. Young people today can sit several papers for each qualification, spread across weeks. Then come Alevels, which are incredibly intense. You are still learning and covering the syllabus almost right up to the exam period, before being expected to pull everything together and prove what you know in just a few hours.

That is an enormous amount of pressure.

Of course, results matter because they may help determine what happens next, and it is absolutely right to celebrate the grades you have worked so hard for. But they cannot measure your creativity, kindness, humour, emotional intelligence, resilience or the person you are becoming.

So, whether tomorrow brings exactly what you hoped for or a different route than the one you had planned, please be proud of yourself.

You have done something incredibly hard, and you are so much more than a set of grades. ❤️

12/08/2026

Eddie has spent a ridiculous amount of time today trying to catch one tiny fly 🪰

He’s watched it, followed it, lost it, found it again… and remained completely determined that nothing else can happen until that fly has been dealt with.

It made me think about how easily our minds can do the same thing.

One worry, one comment, one awkward conversation or one thing that hasn’t gone to plan can suddenly take up all of our attention. We follow it around in our heads, replaying it and trying to resolve it, even when there’s absolutely nothing useful we can do with it at that moment.

Sometimes we need to notice when our mind is chasing flies.

Pause. Look around. Come back to what is actually happening right now, and remember that not every thought needs to be caught.

Eddie, however, remains unconvinced. The hunt continues… 😂🐾

Fran
FSK Minds Matter

11/08/2026

Adoption became legal in England and Wales a hundred years ago.

But adoptions are now at an all-time low.

Last year 3,000 children were waiting to be matched with an adoptive family in England.

But there were only 1,350 approved adoptive families waiting to be matched with a child.

Nicky Campbell asks - modern adoption: your stories?