Tag Archives: letting go

Toko-pa Turner – False belonging & conditionality

Posted on October 3, 2019 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

“Our longing for community and purpose is so powerful that it can drive us to join groups, relationships, or systems of belief that, to our diminished or divided self, give the false impression of belonging. But places of false belonging … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, actualizing tendency, autonomy, awakening, community, consciousness, cultural questions, growth, interconnection & belonging, internal locus of evaluation, self, Toko-pa, transformation | Tagged accepting risk, actualising, actualizing, affordable counselling exeter, belonging, Belonging Remembering Ourselves Home, conditional acceptance, conditional with self, constricting growth, constriction of the soul, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, devotion to the group mind, false belonging, g;ass ceiling, growing into our truth, human growth, individuating, individuating and belonging, internal locus, letting go, limiting growth, living with uncertainty, longing for community, longing for purpose, longing for tribe, longing to belong, low cost counselling exeter, need for growth, need to grow, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, person centred counselling exeter, rebellion and growth, rebellious impulse, self conditionality, stepping into uncertainty, Toko-pa, Toko-pa Turner, transformation, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Jeff Foster on Sadness and anger

Posted on September 10, 2018 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

Some extraordinarily important words from Jeff about our relationship with emotions perceived as ‘difficult’ and the judgments these attract…. We are often struck by how common those judgments are, even among the ‘spiritual’ and even among therapists – as if … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, anger, boundaries, congruence, Disconnection, emotions, human condition, Jeff Foster, loss, love, meaning, perception, power, presence, sadness & pain, self, self concept, shaming, spirituality, surrender, transformation, vulnerability | Tagged acceptance, acceptance of emotions, acceptance of feelings, affordable counselling exeter, anger and boundaries, anger and power, authenticity, boundaries, coming home to ourselves, congruence, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, difficult emotions, ego mind, impermanence, Jeff Foster, letting go, love and impermanence, low cost counselling exeter, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, person centred counselling exeter, purpose of anger, purpose of sadness, remembering ourselves, sacredness, sadness and being open, self protection, separate self, shame and difficult feeling, speaking truth, speaking your truth, transience, use of anger, use of sadness, wholeness, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Hearing the Cries of the World – Mark Nepo

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

https://parabola.org/2016/06/14/hearing-the-cries-of-the-world-by-mark-nepo/ “True connection requires that a part of us dissolves in order to join with what we meet. This is always both painful and a revelation, as who we are is rearranged slightly, so that aliveness beyond us can enter … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, awakening, community, compassion, consciousness, cultural questions, Disconnection, emotions, empathy, encounter, ethics, fear, flow, grief, growth, interconnection & belonging, kindness & compassion, loss, love, paradigm shift, perception, power and powerlessness, presence, relationship, resilience, sadness & pain, surrender, tears, transformation, trauma, violence, vulnerability | Tagged Abraham Heschel, affordable counselling exeter, Akhilandeshvari, aliveness, all our relations, allowing feeling, allowing vulnerability, armouring, authenticity, Avalokiteshvara, being alongside, being broken, being with anxiety, being with pain, being with suffering, belonging, Black Elk, bodhisattva, broken heart, caring for others, chi, collective compassion, collective heart, compassion, compassion fatigue, connectedness, connection, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, cries of the Holocaust, cries of the world, de-armouring, denial of being human, denial of humanity, Earth is the Lord’s, empathy, encounter, engaged heart, Enlightened Heart, expanding consciousness, expanding the heart, falling apart, fear of breaking and dissolving, fear of fear, feeling guilt, finding inner resource, finding inner strength, finding inward resource, finding inward strength, fully engaged heart, genocides, genuineness, Ghalib, going numb, grief bruises the heart, grief process, Guanyin, heartbreak, Heaven and Hell, holding the broken, holding the dying, honoring another’s pain, honouring another’s pain, how to help, importance of grief, importance of grieving, importance of lamenting, interbeing, interconnection, inward strength, Joseph Epes Brown, kindness, kinship, Kuan yin, Kwun, lacrimae rerum, lamenting, letting go, life energy, life force, living softly, low cost counselling exeter, making the mystery visible, Mark Nepo, Mirza Ghalib, mourning, mourning for others, mourning for the world, muting suffering, need to feel, need to internalise, need to internalize, need to process, never not broken, oneness, oneness with all things, opening the heart, opening to suffering, openness of heart, overload, overwhelm, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, Parabola Magazine, person centred counselling exeter, personal suffering, pleasure from suffering, powerlessness, pulling back, reclaiming humanity, refusal to stay vulnerable, replaying of tragedy, repressed grief, resistance, resources of life, Roman Holiday, running from fear, Sacred Pipe, sadism, sadness, saturation news coverage, Schadenfreude, sea of joy and sorrow, seeking to avoid suffering, sensitivity, shelter in the storm, simple caring, softening, song of existence, source of healing, space to reflect, spiritual growth, staying vulnerable, story-telling, suppressed grief, surrender, tenderness, tending the wounded, torn life, true connection, true kindness, unexpressed grief, unfolding, Unfurling, unnecessary suffering, unvoiced grief, violence, vulnerability, vulnerability and compassion, wanting to help, weight of grief, withdrawing, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

What about when meditation doesn’t help with anxiety?

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

http://www.nondualtherapy.life/2018/01/28/q-what-about-when-meditation-doesnt-help-with-anxiety/ Click on the above link to visit http://www.nondualtherapy.life for this helpful response to a reader’s question. Our experience is that very often people’s understanding of what meditation or mindfulness offers, is distorted and misses the heart of the practice … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, awakening, conflict, consciousness, cultural questions, Disconnection, embodiment, emotions, empowerment, fear, identity, interconnection & belonging, loneliness, meditation, mindfulness, movement meditation, perception, power and powerlessness, presence, self, self concept, spirituality, surrender, transformation, trauma, trust, vulnerability | Tagged abandoning ourselves, accepting, affordable counselling exeter, alienation, aliveness, allowing experience, allowing fear, anxiety, anxiety attacks, awakening, bargaining, being with fear, being with vulnerability, busy mind, catalyst of awakening, collective consciousness, conditional mind, connectedness, connection, conscious movement, contraction, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, dance meditation, denial, denial of fear, denying emotion, denying experience, denying feelings, disconnection, dissolving conflict, ego mind, escaping suffering, evolving consciousness, existential isolation, existential loneliness, expanding consciousness, expansion, experiencing life, fear and resistance, fear as sensitivity, finding peace, finding release, finding rest, get rid of, grounding yourself, human suffering, individual suffering, inherited trauma, interbeing, interconnectedness, interdependence, intrusive thoughts, is meditation safe, is mindfulness safe, isolation, letting go, loneliness, low cost counselling exeter, meditation, meeting yourself, mental freedom, mindfulness, movement meditation, negating experience, Nondual Quality, Nondual Therapy, not identifying with stories, oneness, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, panic attacks, person centred counselling exeter, personal suffering, powerlessness, radical acceptance, rejecting fear, rejecting ourselves, rejecting suffering, repressing anxiety, repressing emotion, repressing feelings, repression and denial, seeking control, separate self, separation, separation mindset, sitting with fear, sitting with vulnerability, space of limitation, straw into gold, stress in the psyche, suffering and resistance, suffering of the whole, thinking mind, transformation, transformative change, transmutation, trauma, troubling thoughts, vulnerability, war against suffering, web of life, wholeness, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Sweet Darkness – David Whyte

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

Beautiful, resonant words and photograph from David’s Facebook page. Here’s the text, for those who have difficulty seeing Facebook links:- ‘SWEET DARKNESS When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone, no part of … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, creativity, David Whyte, Disconnection, interconnection & belonging, loneliness, meaning, perception, physical being, resilience, sleep, surrender, vulnerability | Tagged acceptance, affordable counselling exeter, aliveness, aloneness, autonomy, belonging, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, David Whyte, depletion, disconnection, exhaustion, freedom, letting go, low cost counselling exeter, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, person centred counselling exeter, replenishing, replenishment, resilience, resting, self care, self nurture, smallness, surrender, Sweet Darkness, tiredness, vulnerability, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Be An Island – Tracy Cochran

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

Be an Island Click on the above link to visit Tracy’s own site for this helpful piece, which we found through Parabola Magazine on Facebook. Some of the fundamentals around mindfulness practice, presence and gratitude. Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, autonomy, awakening, community, compassion, consciousness, cultural questions, Disconnection, embodiment, emotions, encounter, external locus, fear, flow, gratitude, immanence, interconnection & belonging, internal locus of evaluation, kindness & compassion, loneliness, meaning, meditation, mindfulness, natural world, organismic experiencing, perception, physical being, power and powerlessness, presence, sadness & pain, self, self concept, spirituality, surrender, transformation, trust, wonder | Tagged 4 directions, 7 directions, acceptance of change, affordable counselling exeter, alienation, aliveness, Alphonse Osbert, ancestors, and this too shall pass, autonomy, basic goodness, be an island, be islands, be refuges, being grounded, born anew, bringing attention to our experience, building stories, change and acceptance, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, craving, craving and dopamine, cultivating the witness, death and meaning, desire and dopamine, desiring, dropping down, dropping judgment, ego mind, emotional reactions, everything passes, existential meaning, experiencing without reacting, external locus, feeling cut off, feeling isolated, finding ground, finding meaning, finding stillness, focusing attention, four directions, freedom, fully alive, giving gratitude, giving thanks, gratitude, gratitude practice, Great Mystery, grounded, here and now, holistic, human craving, human desire, human loneliness, human responsiveness, human wanting, hypervigilance, immanence, in the present moment, inhabiting experience, internal locus, introjection, Kodo Sawaki Roshi, learn to relax, learning to relax, letting go, letting go of judgment, living experience, living fully, low cost counselling exeter, making sense of life, making sense of living, meaning of life, meditation, microcosm and macrocosm, mindfulness, mortality and meaning, observing without reacting, obsession, organism always up to something, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, part of the flow, part of the whole, paying attention, person centred counselling exeter, posterior cingulate cortex, practice of meditation, presence, prizing independence, quieting the mind, reacting and responding, reactive emotion, recovering spontaneity, remember who you are, resistance, resistance and suffering, resting in the beat, root of suffering, Roshi, rumination, self sufficient, settling, seven directions, Silence of the Water, spirituality, spontaneity, standing down, staying with now, still point, stillness, telling stories, the way of the Buddha, Tracy Cochran, transformation, transience, transience and meaning, trusting experience, trusting intuition, value of life, ways of grounding, wholeness, witnessing, wonder, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

The descent experience: metaphor for serious illness – Sheila Joshi

Posted on August 3, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

The descent experience: metaphor for serious illness Click on the link above to visit Monica Cassani’s wonderful, resource-rich site, http://www.beyondmeds.com, for this piece by Sheila, exploring descent myths in the context of serious illness or distress. ‘In the Fall of 2010, … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, actualizing tendency, awakening, consciousness, cultural questions, emotions, empowerment, encounter, fear, identity, immanence, Joseph Campbell, Jung, loss, meaning, metaphor & dream, Monica Cassani, power and powerlessness, presence, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, psychosis, sacred illness, sadness & pain, schizophrenia, self, spirituality, surrender, transformation | Tagged affordable counselling exeter, annihilation, archetypes, ascending soul, biochemical model, breakthrough experiences, Carl Jung, contribution to the world, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, dark night of the soul, death and rebirth, death metaphor, death myths, Demeter, descent experience, descent myths, descent narratives, disembodiment, dismantling of identity, dismantling of self, economic factors in health, Enki, enlightenment, evolving soul, expanding understanding, experience of suffering, experiencing darkness, facing darkness, falling apart, fear as gateway to enlightenment, finding illumination, finding wholeness, giving your gifts, Hero with a 100 Faces, Hero with a Thousand Faces, hero’s journey, holistic being, human psychology, human suffering, illness and metaphor, Inanna, initiation, invisible world, Ishtar, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Campbell, journey myths, journey to otherworld, letting go, letting go of attachments, letting go of old habits, letting go of the old, listening to yourself, longing for the Divine, low cost counselling exeter, magical reality, meaning of suffering, medicalisation of distress, medicalisation of emotion, medicalisation of feeling, medicalisation of human experience, medicalisation of sadness, medicalising distress, medicalization of distress, medicalization of emotion, medicalization of feeling, medicalization of human experience, medicalization of sadness, medicalizing distress, meeting darkness, metamorphosis, metaphor and myth, metaphysical reality, Monica Cassani, mystic experience, mystical, myth and metaphor, neurological rewiring, occult help, otherworld journey, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, perceiving the Divine, Persephone, person centred counselling exeter, personal darkness, personal shadow, political factors in health, presence, psych med neuro damage, psych recovery, psychotropic drugs, psychotropic toxins, purging, purification, re-embodiment, Red Book, Red Book Dialogues, releasing old habits, response to misfortune, sacred illness, shamanic initiation, Sheila Joshi, social conditioning, soul passage, soul searching, spirits of the dead, spiritual insight, spiritual reality, St John of the Cross, staying present, surrender, transformation, transitional experiences, transpersonal experience, trials and ordeals, trusting the desert, underlying reality, what is illness, what is sickness, what is suffering, www.beyondmeds.com, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk, yearning for the Divine | Leave a comment

5 things I wish you knew before euthanizing your dog – Kelsey Beth Carpenter

Posted on July 13, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

https://pupjournal.com/5-things-wish-knew-euthanizing/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pj-share Click on the above link for this reflective, kind, helpful piece on a difficult theme by a veterinary technician. The writer of this post has seen many beloved creatures on their final journeys, and resonated with these comments, whether … Continue reading →

Posted in acceptance, accountability, communication, compassion, cultural questions, cultural taboos, dependence, dying, emotions, empathy, empowerment, encounter, ethics, gratitude, grief, interconnection & belonging, kindness & compassion, loss, love, presence, relationship, sadness & pain, tears, trust, vulnerability | Tagged affordable counselling exeter, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, death process, dying process, euthanasia, euthanising, euthanizing, grief and loss, grief process, grieving process, holding space, honoring endings, honouring endings, Kelsey Beth Carpenter, letting go, losing a pet, loss of a pet, low cost counselling exeter, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, person centred counselling exeter, pet bereavement, relationship with a pet, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

How To Create A Homemade New Year’s Ceremony – Elizabeth Gilbert

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

The writer agrees with Liz, on the importance of ritual and ceremony, on its unhelpful neglect in our cultures, and on the ‘how’ of creating our own (arising from within, not imposed from without). Don’t be put off by missing … Continue reading →