Month: <span>April 2020</span>

Iron john
Recommended Reading • • By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

Iron John By Robert Bly

Robert Bly writes that it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by popular culture are worn out, that a man can no longer depend on them. Iron John searches for a new vision of what a man is or could be, drawing on psychology, anthropology, mythology, folklore and legend. Robert Bly looks at the importance of the Wild Man (reminiscent of the Wild Woman in Women Who Run With the Wolves), who he compares to a Zen priest, a shaman or a woodman.

You Are More Than A Bod
Reflections • • By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

You Are More Than A Body by Marisa Donnelly

I am currently working on pulling together material, thoughts and meditations that I will post on my site soon that can support you with “Body and Breath work” and have been reflecting on how we are so much more than our bodies, thoughts, feelings and emotions and came across this beautiful poem by Marisa Donnelly. We all have a cognitive, emotional, physical and spiritual side. Depending on your philosophical beliefs this spiritual side is sometimes referred to as the Soul.

You Are More Than A Body

You are cells and synapses, fibres and fascia, brains and biceps.

You are the hands you have held, sweaty and delicate against the creases of your palms. You are the eyes that have made someone else fall in love.

You are the legs that have kicked and the toe nails that have been painted pink and orange and green. You are the strands of hair that fall into your face and you are the wrinkles below your eyelids.

You are the mountains you have climbed, the skinned knees your momma has bandaged, the runny noses you have wiped on the corner of your shirtsleeve, and the mouths you have kissed.

But you are so much more.

You are so much more than a body, created and capable, futile and flawed. You are more than the muscles that line your legs or the fat around your tummy. You are more than the calories burned or the bones that have been broken. You are more than the hands that have touched you, the lips that brushed your collarbone.

You have more to offer this world than your skin and your limbs. Who you are will never be solely defined by your body. You are so much more.

You are the thoughts you have created, the minds you have blessed. You are the feelings you have given others by your words and actions, by your presence.

You are the universes you’ve discovered in the turns and twists of your brain. You are the laughter, the voice that fills the air. You are the memories, the love you have shared, the happiness you have bought to life because of who you are.

This is not because of a body. This is because of a soul. Your soul.

You are more than a body. More than flesh and fingernails, creaks and creases, weight and wrinkles and imperfections that seem to stare back at you in the mirror.

You are more than what you see, even more than what the world sees sometimes. You are light, an energy, a ray of sunshine. Soul.

Women Who Run With The Wolves
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Women Who Run With The Wolves By Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Dr. Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.

Healing Candles
Reflections By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

Reflections April 2020 – I feel Gratitude

Its quieter outside, less traffic, less people, no planes in the sky.

This year the birds songs are clearer and louder, as is the insects buzz and hum. And this year I notice more bees dancing in and around the blossom and flowers in the field and in the park.

And I feel gratitude.

I queue to get into the shop, the queue snakes around the car park, everyone stands two metres apart, despite the odd joke and chirpy banter the energy that engulfs me is that of fear and distress and I long for the sanctuary of my home.

I refill the larder and the fridge is well stocked, I am healthy and I am well.

And I feel gratitude.

Online Therapy
Latest News • By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

Online Counselling Service

These are unprecedented times and in order to continue to support my community and extend that support to the wider community my counselling practice needed to evolve and grow.

I have been working in Mental Health for nearly two decades and have taught trainee counsellors. I am a very experienced, highly qualified, psychotherapist/counsellor who has been running a highly successful, established, private couple therapy and one to one counselling practice in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, for over 10 years.

On the occasions face to face clients have been unable, for various reasons to get to my practice in Bishops Stortford, therapeutic support has been provided online, via Skype, WhatsApp and Zoom. Until face to face work becomes viable again all therapeutic services will now be offered online. For those of you who are unsure if online therapy is a medium that would work for you, 30-minute online sessions are being offered to enable you to get a feel if it would. These sessions are available on Thursdays from 2pm. If demand dictates this service will be expanded.

Until face to face work becomes viable, all therapeutic services, one to one and couple therapy, will be available online. Counselling will have a critical role to play during this Pandemic, it can support you to process changing work and family circumstances, financial insecurity, isolation, grief, loss, anxiety, Coronavirus anxiety, uncertainty and trauma. Being on the Coronavirus frontline will leave some feeling very traumatised. Therapy can support you with this.

I feel very fortunate to have access to the technology that I need in order to continue to support and serve my local and wider community during these extraordinary, challenging times. I have a new website through which you can book appointments online and make payments through a secure Worldpay payment gateway. Concession rates are available, please ask, if eligible, I will provide you with a concession code to apply at checkout.

We have provided links below that you can click on, which will direct you to instructions on how to install Skype, WhatsApp and Zoom.

Skype: https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/

WhattsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/download

Zoom: https://zoom.us/download

Leonard Cohen
Reflections By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

Leonard Cohen

For those of you who struggle with the perfectionist in you perhaps reflect on Leonard Cohens wise words when he writes “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. Thats how the light gets in.”

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Yeah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never freeRing the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets inWe asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to seeI can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
And they’re going to hear from meRing the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets inYou can add up the parts
You won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart to love will come
But like a refugeeRing the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring (ring the bells that still can ring)
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in

Soul Retrieval
Reflections By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

Soul Retrieval

Sandra Ingram, Soul Retrieval.

“My external world begins to mirror what i am feeling internally. Lets take the concept one step further. If we as human beings have lost our souls, could it be that we are having that mirrored back to us by our envirnment? Are we living on a planet thats lost its soul? Perhaps the environmental problems we are seeing reflect our own soul loss. Are the diseases we see today mirroring back to us how the planet has lost its soul? Consider the immune deficiency diseases that effect us in epidemic proportions”

“I wonder wether bringing back significant number of souls will help to recover the soul of the earth, mirroring back to us our return to harmony”

Sex Love & The Dangers Of Intimacy
Recommended Reading • • By Karen Brewster 0 Comments

Sex, Love and the Dangers of Intimacy – Nick Duffell & Helena Lovendal

Relationships as a spiritual path – transforming conflict into intimacy

Most couples feel conflict is the sign of a problem arising in a relationship. Nick Duffell and Helena Lovendal have come to appreciate conflict as a means for reaching greater intimacy. This book will enable readers to transform potentially difficult situations into opportunities for greater self-knowledge and truer partnership.

Case studies from the authors’ own experience, courses and counselling provide key insights into how to make relationships work.

Love Hearts

The Truelove

As we step into the new year i share with you a poem by David Whyte about the courage to finally say "YES" to life and love. …

Lotus Flower

A Moments Pause by Mary Oliver

Sharing one of my favourite poems with you, written and narrated by Mary Oliver.  This poem invites you to reconnect with …

men

Orthodox Masculinity – Angry Men – (Part 2)

Men I have worked with have described how other men judge men who express emotions and feelings, other than anger. Anger, …