Author: <span>Karen Brewster</span>

Healing Candles

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

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

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

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

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, …