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Winter Turns into Spring - The Blog

Sexual Assault Awareness Month (but who really cares?}

By Sylvie Rouhani • 17 Apr, 2024

#SAAM - the Sexual Assault Awareness campaign is this month. I wish I could write such things as: "If you have experienced sexual assault or rape, please go to the Police, talk to someone, anyone who could help you though this." Sadly, I can't because the reality is the experiences of victims and survivors of SA are still being dismissed, minimised, if not used as opportunities to further hurt those who are seeking help.

Our Mental Health and Society

By Sylvie Rouhani • 08 Apr, 2024

Mental health services in the UK have always been hard to access. In the last past 5 years, they can no longer meet the needs of the increasing numbers of suffering individuals. The recuring question is "Why are more and more people diagnosed with depression/ADHD/ BPD? ETC" So, what is happening?

Living with "Chronic Loneliness"

By Sylvie Rouhani • 08 Mar, 2024

What I call " Chronic Loneliness", others calls it "Attachment trauma", is the heart breaking, gnawing feeling that I am all alone, and frightened - knowing fully well I am not wanted here. There is no love here. This is something I live with every single day of my life. Some days. it is barely noticeable, other days, it is overwhelming, but it is always there, within me. I've learned to accept it with tender loving care, I am not going to lie: it hurts.

Christmas Cheers and Christmas Tears

By Sylvie Rouhani • 18 Dec, 2023

The end of the year 2023 is near. While we are forced fed Christmas joy everywhere, some of us, victims and survivors of child abuse and ,estranged from their immediate family (parents and siblings), this time of the year can be very painful. The holidays can bring up so much Christmas tears, while everyone else is caught up in Christmas cheers.

Earlier, this week, I went to the park, as I normally do when the sun is out. I sat down, closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, anchored myself to Mother Earth's energy and gently breathed it up to my body, one chakra at the time. I felt a strong energy travelling up from my heart to my throat chakra. It got stuck there, I breathed in and out to release it but it stayed there. I was planning to chant later so I thought it will be good to free this trapped ball energy.

I felt that what as really stuck were all the unexpressed pain, terror, sadness and loneliness of my childhood. This particular day, I felt,as I so often do, something was missing in my life. "Something is missing: I am not loved." I heard my Small Inner Child say. "I don't want to be alone anymore or I will die." I will die, alone. I pour my heart out to the Universe. Later, I chanted. As I did, I remembered a documentary I had recently watched for a few minutes only as something triggered me. It showed young children being suffocated. Then I remembered other instances such as nightmares, feeling of panic during a healing session when a friend placed her hands on my throat... "I was suffocated." For what seemed a split second, I saw myself as a baby crying and screaming in my cot. My mother appeared, furious. "Shut up!" She looked so scary. She put a pillow on my face. Suddenly, I experienced the event as the baby I was. "I can't breath, I am going to die." I felt the terror, the rejection, the pain. I froze. I stopped crying. The pillow came off my face. I am still frozen. Quiet. In shocked. I kept chanting. I stayed present with the pain of it all.

I took gentle care of myself for the following days. I knew more pain will come up. I started to feel detached: being here but, not here. I visited a friend, while at her house, I wanted to be with her but I didn't want to. I felt "in between" places. I remembered this feeling from the last time something really traumatic came up, three years ago. I spend an entire summer not eating, having panic attacks, exeriencing breathlessness and stomachaches. I was so down and I felt guilty for it. I was having a "nervous breakdown". I was "losing it." I wasn't coping well and I didnt like it, which added to my emotional pain. I would also stare into space in complete silence. When friends ere around, I was with them but I wasn't. I wanted to be with them but, at the same time, I didn't want to.

This time though, I know I am not having a nervous breakdown: I am experiencing emotional flashbacks and the pain that comes up with them. When I feel a wave of sadness, of loneliness or of anxiety, I place my hands on my chest, on my heart and I sooth my Inner Girls (the small one and the teenager) They are suffering. I also pay more attention to my breathing. I meditate and chant daily. I recite my self compassion mantra: "I am in pain. I am suffering. This is a pain many victims of child abuse experience. I am going to love myself through this." To my Inner Girls, I say: "I am going to love you through this."

I am not losing it: I am going through a natural reaction to a traumatic event. The depression, the anxiety, the disturbed sleep, the nightmares, the C-PTSD, the hypervigilance, the BPD traits... all of these are natural effects of the physical, verbal, sexual abuse and the emotional neglect/ abandonment I endured,

What I am trying to say is if you are also suffering from depression, anxiety, C-PTSD, nightmares and BPD: you aren't mad. You are suffering. You aren't overreacting. You are suffering. You are not "losing it." You are suffering. If you are still waiting for someone to love you and it hurts like hell, you aren't silly, you are suffering.

We are suffering.

Sylvie

Feel free to share your own expereinces and your thougths.

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What is it Life Coaching? What isn't Life Coaching?

It is a partnership between a Life Coach and a client.

The coach facilitates a safe space and creates a positive rapport in order for the client to identify the inner blocks to their goals, hindering their happiness. Life Coaching helps the client to identify their own goals, to find their own solutions and achieve personal growth and transformation.

Life Coaching isn’t therapy. Although we acknowledge most inner blocks have their roots in the client’s past, we don’t dwell deep on it (this is best done in a therapeutic setting), but, with the client’s permission, we can explore how the "Then and There" affects the "Here and Now", and how the client can move forward, with Self-Compassion.

If I feel a client could benefit from ongoing therapy, I will advise they do so.

My approach is trauma informed. What is trauma? What does "Trauma Informed" means and how does it fit in with Life Coaching?

Trauma is the impact any significant event that has a lasting adverse effect on an individual’s happiness and well-being. The earlier and the longer lasting the stressful event in an individual’s life, the deeper the debilitating effect on a person’s happiness and well-being are.

“Trauma-informed coaching happens when the coach understands what trauma is, how it presents in the coaching room and how to respond. All this, within established coaching boundaries and contracts.” Julia Vaughan Smith – Coaching and Trauma

I have personal and professional experience of trauma and have a real understanding of its impact on mind, body and spirit.

What is Self-Compassion?

Self-compassion is extending compassion to oneself in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering. Dr Kristin Neff, PhD, has pioneered and defines self-compassion as being composed of three main components – mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness.

Self-compassion is facing our deepest fears, outdated self-beliefs and our perceived inadequacies with loving kindness towards oneself, by learning to take the time to acknowledge when we are hurting (Mindfulness) , by reminding ourselves how suffering is part of the our human experience and we all experience it (to some degree), we aren’t as alone as we think we are (common Humanity ) and, finally, by taking time to sooth and to love ourselves though our pain as we would with a dear friend of ours (Self-Kindness).

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How does Self-Compassion and Trauma Informed Coaching work?

Oftentimes, our deepest fears, outdated self-beliefs and perceived inadequacies, are the very things blocking us from creating a happy, fulfilled life, and building happy relationships, tailored to our needs and aspirations.

These blocks have roots in our past, whether we are aware of this or not, and will impact our thoughts, feeling and our behaviour as well as on how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. The more severe a past trauma, such as Child Sexual Abuse, the stronger the blocks, which are survival/ defence mechanisms created in childhood in order to survive extreme violence and neglect. They are also natural responses to abuse and neglect, when the child really has no one to turn to.

In Coaching, there is an opportunity for the client to explore how the past has an impact on the present and focus on what the client can achieve NOW by becoming their own best friend through anything life throws at them and by having compassion for what they have been through. I will provide the space, the support and some tools (such as reading materials, meditations practice etc...), when necessary, to support clients on their journey. The coaching process will be led by the client. It will be tailored to the client’s needs, with the client’s approval.

The coaching will be most effective if the client is willing and ready to commit 100% to their journey of self-discovery and healing. During Trauma Informed and Self- Compassion based Life Coaching sessions, the client will learn to approach their biggest blocks and find their inner resources of loving kindness and compassion towards themselves.

Contact Me

If you are interested and ready to transform your life, with self-compassion and tender loving care towards yourself, please, contact me for a FREE 30-minute Skype/ Zoom or phone assessment.

(See Notice Board below for more info)

I am looking forward to hearing from you,

Sylvie

Call Me

Contact Us

Notice Board

Zoom or Teams

For those who would prefer to have their Life Coaching sessions, remotely, I use Zoom and Microsoft Team.

Venues for face-to-face sessions

TBC

Life Coaching sessions available from January 2023

My Fees

- 30 Minutes Skype/ Zoom or phone assessment: FREE

- Full price - £80. (8 to 10 sessions in total.)

-Concession prices: £60 (8 to 10 sessions in total.)

If you are experiencing financial hardship, such as unemployment or long-term disability, I offer limited places on concession fees. Please, contact me to discuss.

All payments via bank transfer.

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