All around you, they’re growing, like tiny blades of grass, if only you’ll stoop down to see them. Little moments of living mindfulness.

So come down for a moment, down from the seemingly lofty heights of ambition and theoretical knowledge and social matters. Drop out of the school of thought that teaches you there’s only one right way to be.

Drop down to earth (perhaps literally). Down to just yourself as a living being right here with other moments of aliveness running through you.

And, wherever you are, just be…

From down here, you can feel the  distant drum of your faraway heart, suddenly so close.

You can sense the numbing sting of a gust of cold wind.

Or the bloom of warmth across your back as the sun drips its pollen on you.

Or the light in your eyes as it bursts through the trees for a moment.

From here, there are sometimes clouds in the puddles on your path.

Impossibly beautiful nuances everywhere…

This stuff, the small stuff, comes together like stitches knitting the very bones of us. These momentary moments that have nothing else to do but fade away to transience, whether you notice them or not.

These are the things your life is made of. Until it isn’t.
The smallest of the small, and so easy to miss; so easy to live a day, a week, a life, without them.

So how long has it been since you’ve gotten down close to them? Close to this living mindfulness blooming all around us, for even just a moment…

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Text and photos copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

When was the last time you rested?

Truly just put aside some time – a minute or an hour – to do whatever it is that recharges you.

And what is that for you anyway?

What does rest look like – for you?

Is it kicking back and taking the phone off the hook and just breathing in the sun?

Or do you rest best while you’re mindfully engaged in some activity – like maybe gardening or cooking or drawing or something else – where your mind can get involved just enough in the minute-by-minute process that it can let go of holding onto everything else?

Rest seems underrated sometimes. Misconstrued. Painted in the colours of lazy or unambitious. And then compared to the razzle dazzle ‘importance’ that busyness likes to decorate itself in.

But maybe rest is at least as important as busyness…

Apparently, in traditional farming practices, the fields were often rotated. One field was allowed to lay fallow for a while – not to have to be quite so obviously ‘useful’ or ‘busy’, ‘required’ or ‘involved’ all the time. Instead, it had the time and space to find its own vital force again. To only do the work of replenishing itself through nourishment and rest.

Are there parts of you that could use a break like this?

What might it feel like to just follow that impulse and let yourself fall into it for a moment?
Or an hour.
Or a day.

Perhaps rest is a rescue from the hard stuff in life. The opposite of depletion. The opposite of overwhelm. An antidote for burnout.

And maybe, despite our western workaholic ways, rest can be just as important as action. Maybe it’s a kind of therapy where you can be both the therapist and the client.  Maybe, just like in the fields, rest can add a calming, quiet balance to the cycles of your life.

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Text and photos copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

It’s an old story. Old as the hills. And yet new every time it tells itself again.

Have you heard it told to you lately?

The clouds have gathered, thick and dark, on your skies. They’re banked up and rolling heavy to your horizon. Maybe the rains have already started, pouring their grief over everything you know and soaking it all through with shadows. And then maybe the wind starts up. The lightning. It seems everything is going wrong at once.

It’s hard to imagine ever riding out this storm.

And yet, if the story has its way, there will come a moment. A moment you might not notice at first. A moment that can start out smaller than small. But it’s enough.

Enough to invite a shift – an infinitessimal shift – that’s almost no shift at all. Except that it is.

So something tiny changes.

And somehow that awakens the next little change.

Until, gradually, all these fragile moments come together – like countless particles of light converging – almost invisible on their own. But together, slowly, they can start to pull the temperature of your day in a warmer direction. Together, they start to matter.

They build to a tipping point and spill over, pouring colour into what was once only grey.

And suddenly, inexplicably, the storm is lifting.

Somehow everything has changed again. There’s a new beginning again; perhaps even more beautiful for the dark place it’s come out of.

And now, seemingly out of nowhere, a banner of multicoloured hope is arcing through your sky…

This is the story so many of us know. It’s a story I sometimes hear from my clients, and sometimes have felt myself. The other day, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, it was a story that reminded me it would not be forgotten, as the monochrome moods of clouds were hijacked by a rainbow that snuck up out of nowhere.

And maybe, even if all you can see around you is grey, maybe this story is in the process of telling itself to you, too…

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Text and photos copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

Have you forgotten your phone anywhere lately? Accidentally left it behind somewhere, until you realised you “needed” it? And it wasn’t there?

(I just did).

It’s amazing how much daily living can be kind of woven through this little device. Pixellated inside it. So seemingly handy. And yet…

When you’re without your phone, are there other parts of your life that you’re more with?

If you forget it, do you remember you?

(And what might that tell you?)

When you dive into your phone, are you plunging yourself into somewhere other than right where you are? Somewhere other than here, where your life is actually unfolding around you? Are you more “over there” or “lost in your head” than “just here”?

And, if so, is your phone sometimes a sort of anti-mindfulness device?

It’s an interesting thought…

So why not experiment with it all a bit?

Instead of automatically disappearing into your phone when you’re next in a waiting room or a train (and potentially disappearing from your very own lived experience in a way), what might it be like if you took a moment to deliberately forget it. If you chose to remember you instead?

Just here.

Inside these few fleeting seconds of wherever you happen to be, which can never come again.

Maybe sometimes connection isn’t just about texting or talking or surfing, but just being.

And maybe sometimes that’s worth remembering…

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Text copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Image credit

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

One of the things I love about living in Australia is the grace of the gum trees.

Even in the bustle of the city, they’re dotted around the streets, their leaves quietly whispering of stuff more grounded and true. And recently it’s been the time of year for some of them to shed their bark (like in the photo, above).

It’s an inspiring process in a metaphorical way – a time to slough off the old and let the new parts of you come to the surface.

Sometimes, for the trees, it might look messy for a while, with great strips of their old selves peeling off and swinging in the wind before they fall away. But, with a bit of time and persistence, they come clean again, with brand new skins to face the world in.

So, if you could shed your own bark like these trees, what would you be shedding?

Are there any habits which hold you back in some way? Maybe you devalue yourself in some way, or judge yourself harshly? (Or maybe you’ve tended to judge others in that light).

Or maybe your bark is a kind of isolation you keep yourself cocooned in – never quite connecting authentically with other people because it’s been too painful in the past.

Or perhaps there are habits of thinking you’d like to shed – or automatic responses that want to dive in and make your decisions for you when certain buttons are pushed.

Maybe there’s a certain sense of complacency that’s set in over the years that you’d like to shift.

Or maybe you just hide some parts of you that long for the light.

So many reasons… so much ‘bark’.

What might it be like if you could just let it all drop away from you? Even if it’s a process that takes a bit of time, like these trees.

What might it be like to see that perhaps these things which are shed aren’t necessarily “you.” But perhaps just ways of being that you got used to wearing.

How might you feel to stand tall and clean and shining, having shed the stuff that just feels a bit old to you now? Overdone. Overused.

And how amazing to think that it might be possible to invite that process into your life again and again, as your own internal seasons shift, and you feel ready to release the new new.

(It all brings to mind a whole new layer to the idea of ‘turning over a new leaf’).

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Text and photo copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

Trust is such an important part of therapy. And, of course, of life…

So do you trust yourself?

To know yourself.
To grow yourself.
To heal.

A gentleman born in the early 1900’s trusted you, even though you’ve never met. His name was Carl Rogers, and he was a psychologist. And he believed that you – that all of us – have the innate power to understand and heal ourselves. He believed that somewhere inside, you have the solution, the answer, the salve for your life’s struggles. And that trust will help unlock them.

So how do you do that?

Well, maybe you can take a leaf out of therapy’s book and sort of see if it might apply to you in your life, and the way you might treat yourself (or not).

In therapy, if you and your therapist follow Rogers’ approach, it’ll be called “person-centred therapy.” And the person it’s centred on will be you. So you’ll set the pace of things – your therapist will take your lead, as they have faith in your mind, your emotions, your entire being to know the right pace to go.

They’ll listen to you. Deeply. Because they’ll believe that everything you say is a clue. That everything you say has value.

And they’ll trust that, much as a plant knows to grow toward the sun, you know how to grow toward your healing, and you’re probably already starting to do that. So they probably won’t plaster you with other people’s opinions or theories, or tell you how you “should” think.

How would it be if you could apply these things to yourself?
Consciously.
Willingly.
Generously.

To extend a hand of trust to yourself in barren times and know that you will grow again. That you’ve already started. That deep down, something in you knows the way out of pain. And back to being whole. Even if you’ve never grown this particular way before.

To really listen to yourself. To hear every resistance or desire that your gut is trying to communicate to you. To look for the signs that your body – that most intricate sense data collector – is giving you about your world.

And to trust yourself enough to just let yourself grow towards the light in your life. Not to overburden yourself with other people’s “shoulds.” But to just be where you are and going where you’re going. In your own direction, rather than someone else’s.

Sometimes, in really tough times, it can be really helpful to do this in the company of your therapist.

And sometimes, maybe it’s enough to start the healing – the trusting – yourself.

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Text copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

On a day that started with torrential rain and umbrella wrestling (and weather forecasts of doom), it seemed almost miraculous to be able to stroll the street in a dry golden-blue-sky evening.

But that’s what happened. Unexpectedly. And it was exactly then that this notice on a shopfront window caught my eye (you can see it in the photo, above):

“All things must pass.”

(And they certainly seem to).

Sometimes this apparent truth about the world feels confronting. Unfair, even. Because these “things which must pass” inevitably include the things we love, and the things we celebrate. The things we might want to hold on to and never let go.

But they’re not the only things that this saying is on about…

And so this transient world which holds us so lightly, and whose only stability is change, can still offer us comfort.

For it is living proof – with infinite reminders – that all things move on somehow. (Not just the “good” ones). That they’ll all evolve in some way or other. That they can only stay stuck for so long.

Even the pain.
Even the sorrow.
Even the torrential rain.

So, sometimes, if you’re in the middle of a really hard time, that ephemeral transience, itself, can suddenly become a very solid thing to hold on to…

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Text and photo copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

A lot of therapy is about sort of stepping back and seeing things – seeing yourself – from a different perspective. Getting out of the weave and the warp of the moment and looking more at the whole fabric of the situation you’re in. Seeing if there’s any repeating motifs or themes that might help you unlock some solutions… or even unlock parts of you.

And the wonderful thing is that you can do this without being in formal therapy.

Don’t get me wrong, traditional therapy is a great way to get the hang of this pattern-spotting business. And it’s incredibly powerful to work with someone who’s got your back and can help you see any blindspots you might have. But once you’ve become a pattern watcher, you can use it anytime you like, to find deeper insights and often deeper healing, too.

So what sort of things might you try to notice? What helps spot the patterns?

Sometimes questions like these are a good place to start:

When have you felt like this before?

Is this particular sadness or pain or fear or anger really only related to just this situation at hand (which it may be) – or is this about a repeating pattern you know from some other time in your life? Does it feel familiar? What are the common elements? What does it tell you about what you need or want or hope for?

How have you handled situations like this one before?

Did you run? Or hide? Or fight until there was only you and some scorched earth left? Or maybe you insisted on doing the “proper thing” even though it hurt you in the long run. Did you put others before yourself?

And, in light of all that, how do you want to respond this time?

When there are patterns, it can be hard to break them (even if part of you wants to). You might feel different about yourself if you try it. So, if you’re used to looking after others before yourself, but you don’t this time, you might feel like “the bad guy.” Or if you’re used to unleashing your fury, but you decide to find another way, you might feel like a bit of a “pushover.” But it’s probably only habit speaking. Just be prepared that it might feel a bit strange if you do things differently this time.

What do you want?

Rather than leaping out of some knee-jerk reaction, it’s always worth asking yourself what you actually want here. What do you want in the longer term? What will you have wanted when this thing is resolved. (Not just in the heat of the moment, when all your emotions might be crying out for “justice” or “retribution” or even automatic “peacemaking” before you can intercept with your mind or your heart).

What does the pattern want for you?

It’s a strange question, I know. But it can be so revealing. If you ask this question and really sit with it a moment, what sort of answer arises for you? Does the pattern want the same thing you do? Or would it like you to stay stuck in old habits? Does it want to protect you in some way and keep you so safe that you start to rust? Or is it protecting other people in your life? What does it want?

Stepping back like this and seeing things from a different perspective means that you can use your very life as your guide. You can turn to your history and your habits for insight that only you can give yourself.

And, as Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck put it:

“If I can observe my mind and body in an angry state,

who is this ‘I’ who observes?

It shows me that I am other than my anger,

bigger than my anger…”

And bigger than your patterns, too…

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Photo: the patterns of my skirt and the rug in my therapy room.
Reference: Joko Beck, C, 1989, Everyday Zen, Thorsons, p.49.

Text and photo copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

Have you ever felt anxious about something that turned out to be nothing?

Worried about an event that never ended up happening (except maybe in your own imagination)?

Perhaps you’ve caught yourself planning for trouble before it actually hit.

And feeling the feelings that comes with all of this… 

It can be pretty sickening – a lurch in your gut, a fast-beating heart and sometimes you might even get the sweats. And no wonder. For your thoughts are joined to your feelings – intricately linked. As one moves, the other will probably follow.

So it’s important to keep an eye on your thoughts, to monitor them a bit, so a sudden downward spiral into darker feelings doesn’t catch you unawares. And so you can nip any unnecessary anxiety in the bud if you want to.

Just the other day I caught myself on the brink of one of these spirals – worrying that “the worst” might happen in a situation I faced. The anxiety started wanting to set in (lurch in my gut, faster-beating heart, sense of dread). So I went for a walk to the library just to get out and distract myself and see if I could clear my head a bit.

And there I saw the scene in the photo above:

“Fiction Overflow”

 And I chuckled to myself, because that’s exactly what was going on: in the fiction section of the library, and in the fiction section in my mind…

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is one way you can question your thoughts and catch any “fiction” at work. It offers a way of spotting the silent, underlying beliefs you might have that drive some of the thoughts (and feelings); thoughts which might not always have a lot to do with what’s actually happening, but they have a real talent for imagining the worst, and then putting it on endless loop in your mind. (Thanks for that…).

But this idea of questioning your thoughts and sort of checking if they’re “fiction” or not, doesn’t belong to CBT alone.

You might also recognise this idea from a saying that gets around:

“Feelings aren’t facts”

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Or from some of Radiohead‘s lyrics in their song “There There“:

“Just ’cause you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there.”

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Or even from the Roman Emporer, Marcus Aurelius:

“…the soul is dyed by the color of your thoughts” 

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So, what colour are you dying your soul?

If the spiral of darker feelings like worry or anxiety starts to get you down, it can be worth just returning to your thoughts.
Getting to know them.
To see them.
And to get curious enough about them to let yourself question them…

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Text and photo copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.

I was winding my way through the early morning rush hour at the station, past crowds of people blurring by, when this strange little moment of stillness opened up.

And then I saw it: a lost sole.
(In the picture, above).

A visual metaphor, reminding me of the times I’ve felt a bit like a lost soul myself. Or the times I’ve spoken with clients in counselling who felt they’d lost touch with their sense of soul and the things that really mattered to them.

Have you ever felt that way?

Where maybe some part of you was lost?
Disconnected?
Maybe covered over by sadness or grief?
Or buried alive under a pile of convention or expectation that you felt you “should” live up to?
Or maybe you just became so busy you gradually lost sight of it?

There are so many ways to lose touch with what really matters in your life – to let the everyday grind take over instead. Or to let habits or old thought patterns get in the way.

Sometimes it’s important to take a step back and reconnect with yourself. To remind yourself of what you want this life of yours to be all about. To find yourself again.

But how might you do that?

Well, even though it might seem counter-intuitive, it can sometimes be the hard times, the pain, that can help.

For instance, it was one of the hardest times of my life that ultimately helped me. Though it took me to some of the darkest places I’ve ever known, and left me feeling lost for quite a while, it also taught me what I want to live towards. What I need to do to build a life that makes sense for me. Where to look when I’ve wandered off track and I want to find myself again.

Is it the same for you?

If you step back for a moment and gently revisit some of the painful (and perhaps formative) times you’ve weathered, what did you take from them?

What learnings did you draw from the experience?
What did the pain uncover about what’s fundamental for you?
Or what you want to make more time for in your life?
Or what’s strong about you?
Or what you want to avoid next time?
Or where you feel the pulse of life?

Sometimes, if you’re feeling lost, working with a therapist can help you explore all of this – to follow the steps you’ve taken in your life until you find yourself again.

And sometimes, maybe it’s enough to consult your own therapist within…

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Text and photo copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.