Penni Osborn, Associate at Anglia Counselling (Newmarket), offers counselling and therapy support to those experiencing the menopause and who may be struggling with both the physical and emotional symptoms. In this post, she shares her insight and thoughts about the menopause and how it can, for some, be the harbinger of positive new beginnings. [Read more…]
Receiving the message, in childhood, that your feelings don’t matter (in whichever way this message was relayed), can lead to an adulthood of being unable to connect with your ‘self’, others and the world around you. When our emotional experiences are dismissed, ignored or simply not encouraged during childhood, we intuitively shelve this important part of ourselves. We wall off our feelings, stop believing in them, stop listening to them and, in losing our connection with them, we lose belief in ourselves. [Read more…]
Criticism, at home or in the workplace can hard to take. It can be embarrassing. It can prompt feelings of being devalued or inadequate in some way. When we’re on the receiving end of criticism from a loved one, colleague, boss or friend it can feel like a personal attack. It’s perfectly natural, therefore, to react to this attack defensively. Reacting, however, is different from responding. [Read more…]
To be accountable is to take responsibility for our own lives – our choices, words and actions. It involves being open to experience and being willing to accept our fallibility as humans. It means acknowledging that we will, and do, make mistakes – say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing or make a poor choice – and embracing these errors as opportunities to learn about ourselves and therefore grow our empathy, wisdom and resilience. [Read more…]
In this powerful piece, our in-house therapist, Penni Osborn shines a light on the origins of anxiety, highlights ways in which anxiety can manifest and offers suggestions on how symptoms can be managed.
Now, more than ever, anxiety is making its stomach-churning self known. In these times of such uncertainty, it has latched onto our fear receptors and is making even those with the strongest of constitutions struggle with its message of impending doom. So, what can be done? How can we manage something that makes us feel, at times, so helpless and afraid? [Read more…]
As we take our first, hesitant steps towards a ‘new normal’, Penni Osborn shares with us a poem; the sentiment of which we feel resonates not just at this time, but for all time.
An honest and insightful piece from one of our in-house counsellors here at Anglia Counselling, Penni Osborn. Here, Penni covers the topic of patience and the many benefits it can bring to all. On the cusp of a New Year, resolutions will be at the back of all our minds; will patience be one of them?
I see so much impatience these days. But then society offers everything we could possibly need or want in an instant; instant credit, instant acceleration, instant pain relief, instant coffee. So, I suppose we can hardly be blamed for expecting there to be a magic wand at our disposal whenever things go a little pear-shaped or an unexpected curveball hits us.
Call me old fashioned, but much of the #impatience I see is on our roads – ridiculous speeds and dangerous manoeuvres, petulant horn honking and middle digits that look like they’ve had an attack of cramp.
A heartfelt piece from one of our in-house counsellors here at Anglia Counselling, Penni Osborn, as she approaches the next decade of her life!
Oh no, the ‘big five-oh’! As my fiftieth birthday looms, I’ve found renewed wonder in the beauty of the Suffolk countryside as it makes its annual transition from summer into autumn. With views of freshly ploughed earth against a background of brooding skies and the rich crimsons, coppers and golds of the trees, autumn brings with it the opportunity to consider the changing seasons and, for me, the changes I have seen in this world, those I’ve witnessed in the lives of others, and those that I’ve personally experienced over the last five decades.