Maryna Iaremenko - ACT-Based Psychological Counselor

24/03/2026

This morning, I was making myself a cup of tea.
I picked up a pack of oolong I brought back from Thailand this summer.
Thai letters on the packaging, an old price tag, slightly worn edges - all of that made something shift in me immediately. For a moment, I was back there in Samui: the sun, the beach, slower pace, a sense of ease.
Then my mind did what it does best: it compared.
My current state of fatigue, a hint of burnout after a demanding few months against that sweet memory. It was like it told me: “the past was good, today is not" and it felt so true in that moment! I felt a wave of sadness and hopelessness, anticipating another day of rushing between work, family, and studying and wishing, even for a moment, that I could be teleported back to Thailand!
This is a great example of a cognitive distortion that''s called idealization of the past / emotional comparison. The mind selects a vivid moment and turns it into a benchmark, making the present feel like a loss. But it’s not an objective evaluation. It’s a state-dependent story.
A small but powerful skill: pause before believing. Notice:
“This is a thought.”
“This is a feeling.”
“This was triggered.”
From that observer position, you regain choice: do I follow this narrative, get hooked by my emotions and continue my day feeling like sh...t OR do I relate to it differently: observing it, noticing it, making space for it, but then choosing consciously not to believe this distortion and without letting it decide what my day becomes??

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06/03/2026

Tomorrow is an evaluation. And your brain is already writing a failure script.

It’s not that you’re “overreacting.” It’s your body preparing for an attack.
For it, a test can feel like a lion behind your back.

The problem starts when you can’t sleep, keep thinking “what if…,” and enter the cycle:
more cortisol → worse memory → more fear.

Stress can prepare you.
But it can also shut you down.

It all depends on whether your body stays in the “optimal zone of arousal.”

How? — breathing, clarity about where to start, less pseudo-control and less useless mental replay.

It’s okay to be afraid.
But it’s even better to understand what’s happening inside you.

Save this if you have an interview / exam / evaluation / presentation coming up.

Joëls, M., & Baram, T. Z. (2009). The neuro-symphony of stress. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 459–466.
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422.
McEwen, B. S. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation. Physiological Reviews, 87(3), 873–904.
Lupien, S. J., et al. (2009). The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition. Brain and Cognition, 65(3), 209–237.
Sandi, C. (2013). Stress and cognition. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 4(3), 245–261.
Vogel, S., et al. (2016). The effects of stress on the neural correlates of goal-directed behavior. NeuroImage, 132, 33–41.

04/03/2026

01/03/2026

We are raising a generation that struggles to tolerate frustration.

Screens are fast.
Available.
Rewarding.

The brain adapts quickly:
Discomfort? Remove it.

But real life doesn’t work that way.

Growth requires:
– waiting
– losing
– hearing “no”
– trying again after failing

When frustration isn’t practiced, it doesn’t disappear.
It explodes.

Tantrums.
Rage.
Emotional fragility.
Dependence on instant dopamine.

The issue isn’t screens alone.
The issue is that we replaced resilience with immediate relief.

Frustration is not trauma.
It’s a developmental muscle.

And muscles need training.

— Inspired by Dr. Becky Kennedy

Sources

• Becky Kennedy — Good Inside
• Good Inside Podcast (Dr. Becky Kennedy)
• Jonathan Haidt — The Anxious Generation
• Anna Lembke — Dopamine Nation
• Stuart Shanker — Self-Reg

08/02/2026

Overthinking is often praised as intelligence.
Especially in competent people.
The ones who care.
Who want to make the right decision.
Who feel responsible for consequences.
So they analyse a bit more.
Then a bit more.
Then “just one more scenario.”
On the surface it looks like rigor.
But in my work with professionals, I rarely see overthinking coming from lack of clarity.
It usually comes from something else: the belief that if you think long enough, you can eliminate risk.
As if there existed a version of the future where you finally felt 100% certain.
There isn’t.
At some point, thinking stops being problem-solving and becomes a form of emotional self-protection.
Not “How do I choose?”
But “How do I avoid the discomfort of choosing?”
Let me share a story.
I once worked with a product manager — let’s call him Lucas — who had all the data, all the frameworks, and all the logic in the world. His team trusted him. His product strategy was solid. But every roadmap decision took weeks of internal debate, spreadsheets, Slack threads, risk matrices.
One day, Lucas said to me:
“I know what direction we should take. I can feel it. But I can’t launch anything until I know it.”
The problem wasn’t uncertainty. It was the need to feel safe.
So we did an experiment.
Instead of adding data, we added a time limit:
Three hours of analysis. Then a decision.
What happened was interesting.
He didn’t suddenly become careless.
He simply learned to tolerate not knowing.
And once he accepted that discomfort, decisions started happening faster.
Not because he had more information —
but because he stopped trying to feel certain before moving.
The people who move forward aren’t the ones with better analysis.
They’re the ones who are willing to feel uncertainty — and keep going anyway.
In other words, it’s not a cognitive skill.
It’s an emotional one.
And no amount of thinking can replace that.

12/01/2026

When the problem is not anxiety, but values conflict.

Not all anxiety is pathological. Sometimes anxiety appears when you are living in conflict with your values — not when something is “wrong with you”.
ACT helps people stop fighting symptoms and start listening to what their discomfort is pointing to.

That’s often where real change begins.

11/01/2026

You don’t need therapy — but you might need counseling!

Some people don’t need therapy.
They function. They work. They think.
But they feel internally blocked, conflicted, or exhausted by overthinking.

Psychological counseling is for people who want:

- clarity
- direction
- internal coherence

Not a diagnosis.

10/01/2026

Living between countries changes your psychology.

Living internationally often creates invisible psychological pressure.
You adapt externally — but internally you carry ambiguity:
Who am I now? Where do I belong? What am I building?

Many people feel “fine” but internally fragmented.

Counseling helps integrate these parts — without forcing premature answers.

09/01/2026

Many people believe they lack motivation.

In my work, I see something else: people lack clarity about what matters.

ACT doesn’t ask “How do I feel better?”
It asks “How do I live meaningfully with what I feel?”

This shift is often what allows movement when years of self-analysis did not.

08/01/2026

What ACT is NOT for

ACT is a powerful approach, but it is not for everyone, and that’s important to say clearly.

ACT is not:

• A quick fix
ACT does not promise immediate symptom elimination or instant relief.

• Positive thinking or mindset coaching
ACT does not try to replace “negative thoughts” with positive ones.

• Avoiding or suppressing emotions
ACT encourages openness to emotions, not control over them.

• Purely intellectual insight
Understanding why you feel a certain way is not enough in ACT — change happens through practice and action.

• A technique for becoming calm all the time
ACT helps people live well even when calm is not available.

ACT may not be the right approach if someone:
– wants only symptom removal
– expects advice or solutions from the therapist
– prefers purely analytical or explanatory work
– is not ready to explore values and personal responsibility

ACT works best for people who are willing to:
– develop a new relationship with their thoughts and emotions
– accept that discomfort is part of a meaningful life
– take responsibility for small, consistent actions
– focus on living well, not just feeling better

ACT is not about fixing you, it’s about helping you live more fully and consciously.