Concentric Counselling
0
ConcentricCounsellingLogo.jpg

Journal

 

welcome to the concentric journal

 
Featured
Fat Bubble: Bethany Rutter
Fat Bubble: Bethany Rutter
Why Bingeing is Only Half the Story
Why Bingeing is Only Half the Story

When people come to Concentric Counselling with a history of bingeing, they are often surprised that one of the first things I ask them is how often they restrict their food intake. To them, they are coming because the issue is bingeing. But what continues to reveal itself in the therapy room is that for many people that struggle with bingeing these episodes punctuate long periods of restriction.

The Heart of Body Collaboration - Intentions and Inspirations
The Heart of Body Collaboration - Intentions and Inspirations

Let me share with you some more details of the exciting model that I’ve been developing. Called Body Collaboration, it has emerged from my practice over the last ten years, a compassionate response to clients sharing a persistent issue - ‘I’m trying to hate myself into being ok with myself’. Body Collaboration is a pushback to a kyriarchal culture that teaches us to admonish ourselves rather than accept ourselves. It’s a radical practice of gathering in the most abandoned parts of ourselves, and offering them healing. And it’s a lovesong to what I think is the most powerful thing on Earth – partnership, collaboration, working together for the good of the all.

Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery
Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery

I often meet clients when they're in a particular spot... they’ve turned their back on intentional weight loss, knowing that going back into that way of life will only cause harm and open them up to risk. At the same time, they don't know how to transition into a space of body acceptance, knowing that there will also be loss in that decision.

From apology to entitlement - battling body assumptions
From apology to entitlement - battling body assumptions

In my corner of the world, we talk a lot about anti-fat bias or fatphobia and, more broadly, how it is to live in a body that is marginalised by dominant culture – through race, gender and sex, body size or shape, or disability.

Sometimes our conversations about anti-fat bias can take on a very theoretical and abstract form – as a systemic issue, of course we often look at it through a wide-angle lens. More recently, though, I’ve been thinking more and more of the individual impact of anti-fat bias – what it really means to live in a fatphobic culture.

Sensory Five - safety at your fingertips
Sensory Five - safety at your fingertips

Overwhelm and burnout don’t just happen in Covid times – these are themes I’ve been working for since the very beginning of my counselling career. It’s when our nervous system becomes overloaded, and we really struggle to regulate ourselves; feeling either anxious and agitated, or zoned out and flat.

Introducing A Modern Practice - Let Me Tell You More
Introducing A Modern Practice - Let Me Tell You More

For those of you who follow me on Instagram or subscribe to my mailing list you will know that I have been building towards a space for therapists to come together and connect. I’m so happy today to be able to outline this a little more, and introduce this idea to you.

Lessons from the ebb - how to get through when life draws back
Lessons from the ebb - how to get through when life draws back

We're in an ebb season, collectively, I think. And we're not encouraged to think about this at all. The effects of the pandemic, here in the UK, have been upon us for eleven months. And what’s been so surprising is how little accommodation we will often make for this. We’re living in a global tragedy – a collective trauma. Life has, necessarily, had to recede. We have had to lean hard on our internal resources – our patience, our hope, our tenacity. Understandably, we’re feeling a little depleted.

Embracing a non-diet new year - setting body positive resolutions 
Embracing a non-diet new year - setting body positive resolutions 

The relentless treadmill of diet resolutions is about to crank itself up again, at the start of the new year. After all the festive food adverts, Boxing Day onwards will see the focus shift instead to weight loss programmes, diet foods and new ‘healthy eating’ cookbooks, sold to you by slim people. It is a predictable, exhausting cycle, which perpetuates unhealthy ‘all or nothing’ thinking, and punishing and unsustainable restriction.

A beginner’s guide to developing body acceptance
A beginner’s guide to developing body acceptance

And so begins December, the month where dominant culture tends to deep-slide into a clarion call for ‘indulgence’ before, as regular as clockwork, the adverts and articles that promise ‘new year, new you’. Christmas is an exaggerated example of the pendulum swing that diet culture encourages; ricocheting between too much and not enough – all governed by a deep fear that we ourselves are not enough.

A garden of gratitude, and an emotional compost bin

Working in The Walled Nursery, nature is often on my mind. We live in a really beautiful corner of the world and every step I take I'm confronted by all the change and growth that occurs in spring and early summer; often, I’m struck by the parallel process of growth and change in therapy, and growth and change in nature.

It's something that I've reflected on recently in sessions with some clients - how we are affected by our surroundings, what we can learn from our surroundings, and how we mirror our surroundings.

32089830_327463107779584_3386297493435187200_n.jpg

With one client recently we've been talking about the power of a gratitude journal, and in session last week this idea intersected with our environment - the Walled Nursery around us. With her permission I have shared this here, because it was such a wonderfully inspiring vignette of how we can slightly change our approach to something to make it a more constructive part of our life.

We were talking about what we do with our mistakes and how we can move on from them. There is so much to be gained from a positive approach to learning from our mistakes, rather than revisiting them in our vulnerable moments to re-criticise ourselves for when we didn't quite do as well as we wanted to do.

My client described this as 'the bin’ - into the bin goes every mistake, every not-quite-right, and every almost-good-enough. And those mistakes stay in the bin, perfectly preserved, ready to be revisited by her inner critic.

32215096_327463027779592_7590014837682339840_n.jpg

And then we thought… does it have to be a rubbish bin? Maybe it could be a compost bin. Because the compost bin is a really vital part of any serious gardener’s garden. It's the place they put every mistake, every not-quite-right, and every almost-good-enough. They allow nature to do her magic, break it down, then use the nourishment of the compost to help sustain growth and nurturing of all their beloved plants and shrubs. And the only reason they would ever go back and rake over the compost bin was to help it break down. My client had been watching Gardener’s World the night before, and Monty Don had described compost as 'black gold'. And we were struck by how wonderful it would be if we could see our errors as black gold - that we could take our mistakes, our not-quite-rights and almost-good-enoughs, and turn them into nourishment, nutrients and sustenance for all our intentional growth.

32089604_327463024446259_1030599435857428480_n.jpg

So we're running with the idea of a compost bin and, alongside that, creating a garden of gratitude; little seeds planted for every achievement, mini win, and success from the day. A chance to intentionally grow awareness and nurture all the ways we do well, but often don’t acknowledge when we’re so busy attending to our mistakes. And the compost bin is there only as a source of nourishment to help grow the seeds of gratitude and achievement. 

And after the session, in the beautiful sunlight at The Walled Nursery, I went round and I took pictures of the beds, bursting with flowers nourished by black gold. And then I walked over the lawn and I took pictures of the compost pile. That stuff is all purpose magic, learning that can be liberally sprinkled over every new seed of achievement.

And I turned around, with the compost pile behind me and all the nursery laid out in front of me, and saw just how much beauty and growth was made possible by the mistakes, the not-quite-rights, and the almost-good-enoughs.

32218827_327463014446260_3116631177117564928_n.jpg
Seasons, The Walled Nursery, Nature, Gratitude, JournallingVicky BellmanThe Walled Nursery, therapeutic space, nature, gratitude, growth mindset, journallingComment