Today is a tough time to be a beautiful person inside and out. We are filled with things we ought to be, growing up. Be nice, don’t be angry, and don’t talk about people behind their backs, being a nurse is a respectful job, get good grades at school or you won’t amount to much.
Then there is the way we are supposed to look, be skinny, wait! No skinny with a big bum!, have big breasts, actually it’s completely ok to have surgery if you don’t. Straighten the life out of your hair with 500C hair straighteners! Actually wear your hair curly. Die it bright red to be like Rhianna then Black to be like Kim Kardashian. Don’t wear too much make-up be more natural, wear lots of make up its more dramatic!
The pressure to look good today is all around us, from bus stops, to buses to magazines to newspapers to social media. We are surrounded by images that are of human beings that have been modified to fit within a uniform of social acceptance. This is creating a nation of insecure people who are going to extreme lengths to fit this uniform of social acceptance, in the shape of fad diets, eating disorders, intense exercise regimes, quick fix tablets or even surgery or intrusive injections.
Photo shopped images used to be restricted to the media but now many platforms that you can upload photos to come with an easy to use photo shopping tool. Facebook is filled with pictures that are not true life photos and have been uploaded to the uploader’s bias image of perfection. This is creating an ideology in people that people look a certain way, when they just don’t. Snapchat has filters that take 10 years of you in an instant!
It is impossible to compete with this level of photo shopping however I realise it is not as simple to say ‘don’t compete with it’. We all have that friend on the other hand that says ‘This is me, deal with it!’ I would strive for us all to be a bit more like this but with less attitude but instead graciousness. It would seem that many of us give up competing in our 30’s and a great deal of comfort goes with this letting go. However I have encountered people much older still competing with the fact they are getting older.
I have worked with people who have insecurities and don’t accept their differences and this ultimately fuels low self-esteem. Often a message given at a young age fuels this insecurity, ‘you’re getting a bit chubby’ ‘you’ve got hair just like your father’ ‘you have pasty coloured skin’ these are just a couple of examples of the types of things that can be said that fuels low self-esteem as we get older.
I would like to say it is as simple of just pointing out a few positive things about a person before they realise that they don’t have to compete with the world’s photo shopped images or beautiful people of the world. I believe it needs to go a little bit further back than that. An exploration of some of the things that were said to us as a child by our parents, grandparents or playground bully’s. Because there are plenty of photography companies out there that will happily take you’re hard earned money in exchange for photos of a photo shopped version of yourself that you are happy with but I believe that happiness won’t last long.
I am equally as guilty as the next person, but all too often we look to external factors to make ourselves happy. Looking like a certain person, wearing certain designer clothes, buying a piece of jewellery, going for a drink, going on a shopping trip. So many of us are convinced that something external can make us happy. I believe this is an illusion put in place to trick us into attempting to buy our way to happiness because that suits a capitalist society.
Here are a couple of things I believe can help you work towards a happier you.
Don’t compete with the way other people look, you are not them they are not you.
Remember many of the pictures you see today, even of your Facebook friends are photo shopped.
There is only ever going to be one you, be you gracefully.
One person’s opinion is not a fact.
Confidence is a powerful and attractive trait, confidence can be faked remember that 😉
Smile like you mean it and feel the changes within.

Happiness needs to be found within
I do believe that counselling can be a place to explore your insecurities and using techniques to suit you we can move closer to accepting yourself and discovering happiness within. Gently unravelling some of the messages given to us as a youngster and softly releasing these demons can be the first steps towards self-acceptance and a happier you. If you are ready to find a happier you I would be honored to help you explore the beauty in you and aid you along your discovery that life is not photo shopped. If you are ready contact brighter-pathways.co.uk to start your journey today.

Silence…………….. think about that word for a moment. What does that word mean to you? Often it can be associated with positivity. How many times have you heard your parents say I just want some peace and quiet? There are many songs out there about silence, a popular example is Ronan Keating’s ‘Say Nothing at all’. The silence I want to address is not the void left in a stadium after everybody has gone home or the peace and quiet a parent might try to obtain at the end of a busy day full of demands from their children.
The silence I want to discuss is the one where we say I will keep my mouth shut. Or when we say its fine! Fine is an example of how we use language today and say what we don’t actually mean. Fine is used all the time and rarely means what it suggests. An example of this might be when someone has agreed to do a big favour for somebody but has had to cancel their own plans to do it. The question will be asked ‘are you sure?’ and the response will often be ‘yes its fine.’ Or how about that time when somebody accidently breaks something valuable to you, it was an accident, you don’t want to make the person feel any worse. When they say ‘I’m so sorry’ often the response is ‘its fine, don’t worry.’
A place that often holds examples of silence is in the early stages of a relationship. Relationships are founded in a juvenile place, for example. ‘I love you’ ‘I love you too, we will be together forever’ ‘yes we will live happily ever after.’ ‘lets live in a big house with 2.4 children’ this is just a few examples of what I mean by juvenile place. So relationships are great to begin with, they are all born out of the things Walt Disney taught us, living happily ever after with a prince or princess in the presence of small furry animals and light blue coloured birds.
To stay in this place of adventure and excitement it is possible that a blind eye is turned to some of the things that are not so Walt Disney. An example of this could be after a couple of dates the woman has a bit too much to drink and becomes a lot more flirty than normal even with the waiter. The man in this partnership may think about their conversation a couple of hours before ie ‘so what would we call our first child?’ ‘where might be a nice place to go on family holidays?’
The man chooses not to challenge her flirty behaviour towards the waiter because it taints the Walt Disney image and there might be a disagreement. Another example could be the man speaks to her in a way that is disrespectful in public but rather than stand her ground and challenge the disrespect, she wants to continue with her Walt Disney version and chooses not to say anything.
Picture this, so the man starts going out a bit more frequently with his mates, he says to his partner ‘I am meeting my mate at the pub after work tonight.’ Inside she is thinking this is the third time this week but of course because she does not say how she truly feels, she will say ‘yeah that’s FINE!’ even though it is not. Then I imagine she will think about the time he disrespected her in public, along with the way he never clears up after himself, along with the fact he hasn’t introduced her to his family yet and the list goes on.
The way this is likely to present itself now is she will now bank all the things he has done wrong in her eyes and when she can’t take it no more she will present them all at the same time. The man on the other hand is likely not to say anything at all about the flirting with the waiter because men often choose to say nothing for a peaceful life as men quite stereo typically don’t talk about their feelings.
The negative side of this is the couple either eventually split up because they didn’t communicate their unhappiness for fear of tainting the Walt Disney image. Or they stay together and become passive aggressive, she may become more deliberately flirty in front of him to get his attention and to take him back to the place of conflict. Or she continues to bank the things he does and big rows may be out of context because enough is enough boils over at a time not fitting with the next committed offence in her eyes. For example, she is angry he was rude to her mum, but she banked it, she was angry that he didn’t interact with her friend when she came over, she is annoyed he doesn’t clean up the bathroom when he is finished but it’s when he walks in the house with muddy feet that she finally loses it.
He might choose not to say anything about what bothers him but stores up the things she does wrong inside and could then begin to resent her or doing anything for her. Or he could avoid her altogether and become passive aggressive by choosing to meet his friends more often after work instead of going home to his girlfriend.
So how does this cost us? What can happen as a result of keeping silent? There are ideologies out there to suggest illnesses can happen in the stomach for holding on to things. In the throat, disease and coughs can develop for not saying what we need to. Helplessness can set in as a result of not dealing with conflicts.
These are just a few scenarios of how keeping quiet about the things that we don’t agree with can present themselves. Of course the male and female role could operate vice versa but I have chose to use stereotypical behaviour. Stereo typing is of course not an exact science but in my experience the way I have written this blog is using likely behaviour from either sex.
If anything mentioned here has had an effect on you and you would like a private confidential plac
Visit brighter-pathways.co.uk
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What is it to be vulnerable and male………

This is a topic that feels worth-while as we live in a society where we are all taught to have a stiff upper lip but even more so as a male.

Growing up my role models were always strong and muscly He Man, Lion-o from Thundercats and  Batman, an era where only babies and girls cry! Paul Gascoigne was another idol of mine and he did show his emotions at the 1990 World Cup semi-final. This is considered a very big moment in English football history and often made reference to. One man’s hurt and pain captured a nation however it still felt a bit of a taboo amongst some that he was crying in the first place.

I can only speak for my era but I am confident in saying this ideology of what a man should be is driven from our ancestors with phrases like ‘mummies little soldier’ widely used. In present day phrases like ‘Man up!’ are used when someone is showing signs of an emotion or not being able to do something.

This way of thinking has created a nation of men that bottle up their emotions, they don’t talk about their problems they bottle them up. At least 90% of my client base is female, this stands out to me as an indicator that men are less likely to discuss their emotions. This is concerning as we are designed to process our emotions, they are there for a reason. An example of this is when we cry, not have a little sniffle, I mean cry! The type of cry that you feel in your belly, the crying where you cry in and out of your belly to the point it feels like your shaking. Well this shaking breaks up the glucose released by your liver in times of stress. When energy rich glucose is sat lying around near your organs, it is this that they mean by stress is harmful for you. This is why going for a run or doing some brisk exercise can make you feel better, or indeed having a good cry.

Despite working in predominantly female environments and having my fair share of female siblings it wasn’t until I studied my counselling degree that I learned the importance of feeling and exploring my emotions. The first real place of exploring my emotions in depth was when I realised that I was mourning for my teddy bears that I had to leave behind as a teenager when I had a house fire. Of course there were a lot more significant things around that time I was mourning but, I kid you not those teddy bears are very much part of the pain. I long for them to turn up somewhere one day.

The Samaritan’s report just over 6000 suicides in the UK a year and whilst the amount of females who commit suicide is rising the proportion of this number that is male is huge. The pressures of being a male in society today are huge. A full time worker in the UK works the third most hours in all of Europe according to the guardian. Cuts across the country in recent times has seen job responsibility rise meaning many working men have seen their responsibility rise in the work place at no extra salary increase. The cost of living has soared meaning fathers whom have to provide for their families are struggling to meet the financial demands of them.  Also the ever increasing pressure for mums to go to work must have an impact on men also. An article I have read recently suggested working mums were extremely pressed also mentally and physically due to all the tasks associated with being a mum and working as well.

I don’t speak for every one when I say this but the expectation of men is to be strong and just get on with it. This expectation could make men more reluctant to talk about things that may be bothering them. Men need to find an out let to discuss the things that are bothering them instead of self-medicating. A trend amongst the western world seems to be that if you have had a hard day you go to the pub and have a couple of drinks to wind down. It is out of this ideology that problematic drinking can be born.

The question is then how can we change this? What can be done to invite men to talk about how they really feel? I think we all have a responsibility to talk to the men around our lives and encourage genuineness about their feelings and encouragement to talk about them more.

As parents we have a responsibility to encourage our sons to be forthright about talking feelings. Partners should remember that the stereotypical attributes of what it is to be male are just that stereotypes, not truths. Men will continue to act as their stereotype suggests if we don’t try to break that mould. Statistics around suicide suggest that this phenomenon around men not talking about how they actually feel is detrimental to men in society today.

If you are affected by the topics discussed then get in touch with brighter-pathways.co.uk counselling services. Maybe you are a male and don’t have anyone to speak to or feel uncomfortable talking to someone you know? Maybe you are on the other side of a man who refuses to talk about his feelings perhaps brighter pathways can help…….

Todays blog is going to talk about something that some of you may not even know exists….. Some that have heard about it may even consider its existence as a bit fairy like and question whether it is real or not. My blog topic is Burn Out. I believe that burn out is something that needs to be less voodoo and more talked about with full acceptance.

If people were more open to the idea of burn out then I think it would happen less. In today’s society we have seen mass redundancies and a constant strive towards getting more bang for your buck that peoples job roles have increased ten fold. This combined with being able to electronically receive communications from our work place by email means we are attuned to work for longer periods of time.

I think if we talked about burn out more it would take the burden out of it and make it more possible to return to work after a period of absence due to burn out. Studies suggest that burn out often leads to unemployment so we need to be considering people’s lively hoods as it could happen to any one of us and is as much an illness as a common cold.

The first time I come across Burn out, I too questioned whether it was something that was true or whether it was something that was fabricated or exaggerated. I wonder though if this was born out of that stiff British upper lip ideology that everyone must ‘keep calm and carry on!’

A few years ago my manager went down with burn out, I didn’t understand it and for the best part I could only recognise the inconvenience it had on me! As an outsider to it I witnessed people comment on how ‘it was alright for some!’ Not to be in work. I probably agreed, however about half of the duration through the time my manager experienced their burnout. I myself felt somewhat vulnerable to it. When I look back now however I see my manager as someone that was victim to the above, an ever growing job description in an establishment where people pleasing was a necessity. When their job role changed the adapted job description was described as ‘A stroke on paper!’ by the Union.

What I question is, what makes people respond so negatively to it. Is there something that we can relate to, to the point that we want to hide away from it, for if we admit it is true we might fall victim to it ourselves? Do we think it is contagious like some sort of stomach bug? Why is it the empathy for it is almost non-existent?

After wondering the answer to this question I have now come to realise that the people that do have empathy for it are those that hold inside the inner scars of it. Those that have experienced what it is, to have spent every internal drop of a care for anything. To have reached rock bottom, where that last ounce of consideration for anything has left you. The realisation that this has happened feels like one final body slam down a well onto a hard rocky surface.

Questions about your own existence enter your thoughts but thinking about this means spending emotional energy that is just not there. So instead you just exist, you get by just being, until the energy to care comes back again. There comes a time when you question if your ability to care will ever come back, because you could easily believe it might not.

Those of you that have been there will recognise that by the way I have described what burn out feels like, will know that I have felt the murky depths of its grasp. I believe that I let my inner imposter rule me, which fried me from the inside out.

I couldn’t believe I had landed such a good job. So inside I felt like a phoney which meant I had to work ten times harder than everyone else. Smiling at people offering to take on more than I could manage, just to prove that I was not an imposter, I was the real deal………… Do they think I am the real deal now? Well part of my healing process is that I don’t care! Not out of arrogance but out of a promise to myself to show compassion for myself in that situation, because if I self-loathed then I would never mend. Burn out is a dark lonely place, but it needs to be in some ways, only you can rebuild you but I did access counselling.

My own individual counselling is where I did my own rebuilding talking about myself and what mattered to me. I rebuilt myself through creative mediums such as drawing and learning the guitar (which I haven’t learnt I might add!). Its where I learned to be more compassionate for myself, its where I learned you can’t keep everyone happy and also you can’t keep one person happy all of the time, particularly if its at a cost to yourself.

The whole experience helped me recognise what its like to be on both sides of burn out. Neither side is a good place to be but I would sooner be on the side where I had not burned every last drop of give a damn! I now believe I can be of great support to people who have experienced burn out and I can be a working aid to somebody who has worked with somebody who has burned out.

How do I think we can stop it from happening? I think being able to openly talk about it in the work place, by not holding shame for not being able to cope with everything thrown at you. We are only human after all. By holding boundaries, by not agreeing to take extra stuff on to please others. Burn out comes at a detrimental cost to ourselves. I think a question we need to ask ourselves when we are taking things on is, What will be the cost to myself? And I am not talking financials here. Accessing counselling early on can help, sometimes we get so lost in our day to day lives that we mismanage ourselves. Having a professional to talk to can really make the difference.

I think one of the most important things are being able to say this one word. It is not a difficult one to remember but it is one that I think some people think saying it will cause offence. The definition for this word in the dictionary is (a negative used to express dissent, denial, or refusal, as in response to a question or request) this word is No! It is this word that if used in moderation that will keep us from building resentments. It is the word No that allows us to be autonomous if we are using it correctly in a way that is best for us. It is the word No! That might just save us from burning out, it might just help keep our mental health intact, it might just allow us to be self-governing and in control of our own well-being.

If you have been affected by this topic and you think brighter-pathways.co.uk can help visit the website and contact today.