New beginnings | Leanne French Relationship Expert & Counsellor

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2023. Resolutions Are Out. Replenishing Self Care Is In.

If you’re scanning the horizon looking for the latest emotional wellbeing trends, the predictions will come as a welcome surprise for the exhausted amongst us.

It seems that constantly trying to make sense of what’s been happening in a world filled with uncertainty, unrest and upheaval has meant we’ve spent way too much time doom scrolling and over thinking. We’ve been like meerkats on high alert, constantly bracing our brains and bodies against the storm, causing resilience fatigue.

Emotional stress depletes us and calm revives us. We need timeout to lower our heart rate and blood pressure, to calm our tummies and relax our muscles. We need to find stillness to settle everything down, to breathe easier and to soften. It’s time to surrender, to find places to vanish into, to swan about in, and if that means spending more time in our bathtub dressed as a merperson, eating plant based ice cream listening to music, so be it. It seems we are all so over having to be strong that we’re more than ready to welcome in these stress banishing S words for 2023.

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Tags: clearhead, covid19, EAP, EAP Counsellor, emotional wellbeing trends, Joy, Leanne French Counsellor, liftmode, mental health trends 2023, mermaids, neurolift, New Year 2023, NZ Relationship Expert, ocp, resilience fatigue, stress relief, telehealth counsellor, therapist, trends for 2023

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Categories Compassion, Counselling, Covid-19, Health, Holiday celebrations, Hope, Kindness, Mindfulness, New beginnings, Resilience, Self-care, Self-love, Wellbeing

Going Damp? Mindfulness, Moderation & Mocktails.

8 Dec

Is the “damp” lifestyle trend on Tik Tok a fresh new thing in the world of drinking or is it just a rebrand of controlled drinking; a reliable, reputable method of moderation with far reaching benefits?

Whatever it is, if you look beyond the delivery system you’ll see that TikToker @hana.elson has 2 million likes and 37,300 followers who are being influenced by her “it’s cool to be moderate” message. They’re a new, mostly youthful audience who are ready to hear “that drinking culture and your relationship with alcohol does not have to be black or white, all or nothing.” Hana says it’s an “action plan” to “drink with the mindset of the next day” which I think slots nicely into the current wellness movement.

Someone was bound to coin a new phrase. I’d thought of “moistly moderate” (cue the laughter) but that was never going to catch on was it!

It’s really about deciding to drink alcohol less often and less excessively.

It’s an option I use with clients who want to get more curious and explore the who, what, when, how and why behind their drinking to help inform and drive their decisions and behaviours.

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Tags: Damp drinking, damp lifestyle, hana.elson, Leanne French Counsellor, low and no alcohol substitutes, mindful drinking, moderate drinking, nz drinking culture, responsible drinking, telehealth counsellor, tik toker hana elson, wellbeing behavioural change

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Categories Addiction, Health, Mindfulness, New beginnings, Self-care, Wellbeing

Wellbeing is Trending for 2022

30 Dec

“Wellness is the complete integration of body, mind and spirit. The realisation that everything we do, think, feel and believe has an effect on our wellbeing” Greg Anderson.

Covid-19 wins the prize for being the most uncontrollable source of sustained stress in 2021. Just as double vaxxes offered up glimpses of hope for relaxed freedoms, a new variant slid in just in time for NZ’s summer holiday season.

At least there’s always a positive spin off from a global crisis. It’s motivated a desire to increase overall wellbeing in 2022, for ourselves, each other and the planet.

Research tells us that a prolonged pandemic elevates mental health needs, even if we don’t catch the virus. As a team of 5 million, we’ve done pretty well at following health directives, attempting to reduce emotional strain and focusing on what we can control, over what we can’t.

How we live, work, use technology, shop, connect and socialise and how we receive care have all been jiggled around and thought about deeply, unless one has been living under a rock or tin foil hat.

Even though some of us prefer a less overloaded society, not being able to see special people is hard, and sludging through restrictions, super strong opinions, dangerous viewpoints and crazy behaviours can get tiresome. Resilient people are better able to cope with trying circumstances, so increasing wellbeing expands happiness, optimism and meaning in life.

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Tags: all birds, apple watch, Covid-19, covid19, drink almighty, ecosa pillows, emotional health, gender neutral, improve wellbeing, Leanne French Counsellor, lockdown, micropod nz, mindful drinking, Northland relationship counsellor, NZ Relationship Expert, pandemic emotional wellbeing, pandemics, plant body solution, sober curious, state of grace, strengthen immune system, telehealth counsellor, trends for 2022, turbo tonics

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Categories Addiction, Covid-19, Gratitude, Health, Mindfulness, New beginnings, Save the World, Self-care, Wellbeing

World Smokefree Day. Let’s Stop Kids From Starting.

31 May

World Smokefree Day, that falls every year on May 31 is a chance to celebrate and work towards Smokefree/auahi kore lives for New Zealanders.

It happens to coincide with the release of a Government proposal in which the Ministry of Health have proposed a ‘grandfather’ policy, to progressively prohibit the sale of smoked tobacco products to a new age group each year. It would gradually increase the age of purchase restrictions by one year every year, so eventually it would be illegal to purchase if you’re under 25. Hooray.

The same proposal wants to limit the level of nicotine in cigarettes and put more investment into smoking cessation services. This is great for our future generation. Ask most smokers when they started, and they’ll say, ‘When I was a kid.’ And none of those kids realised they could get addicted to nicotine within days of first using it. Why? Because when they smoke, the nicotine goes to their brain. In 10 seconds. Straight to the part that controls feelings of pleasure and releases dopamine, a chemical that tricks them into thinking a cigarette equals pleasure. Then within a few minutes, the pleasure is gone, and the craving for a cigarette begins a new cycle.

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Tags: Government Smokefree Proposal, Grandfather tobacco proposal, Leanne French Counsellor, Mangawhai Counsellor, Nicotine addiction, Northland relationship counsellor, Quit smoking, Reduce nicotine proposal NZ, Restrict tobacco sales proposal NZ, Smokefree 2025, telehealth counsellor, Vape to Quit, World Smokefree Day

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Categories Addiction, Counselling, Health, New beginnings, Raising children, Save the World, Vape to Quit

13 Simple Ways to Relieve Overwhelm.

12 May

You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying, What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass. Timber Hawkeye.

Overwhelm can arrive when something triggers a powerful emotion in us; especially fear, which can then flood our mind with paralysing negative thoughts and emotions, and change our posture, breath and ability to cope.

It’s really important to be curious about our thought patterns, and to claw back some control because once negative thoughts overly take hold in our mind, they’re likely to distort the severity of our situation and have us focusing on dramatic consequences.

Emotional overwhelm occurs when the intensity of our feelings outmatches our ability to manage them. It can come from a single big stressor, like a pandemic. Or financial issues. Trying to make ends meet is probably number one in the list for tipping many people over the edge. Others find that overwhelm sweeps in like a tidal wave, brought on from a bunch of challenges like life transitions and losses that come at us one after the other.

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Tags: grief, Leanne French Counsellor, loss, Mangawhai Counsellor, money struggles, Northland relationship counsellor, overwhelm, pandemic, self soothe, stress, telehealth counsellor, transition

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Categories Counselling, Covid-19, Health, Mindfulness, New beginnings, Self-care

Tend and Cherish.

27 Apr

As the sorrow of sickness and silence spread, the stop sign rose and asked us to sit, together but apart, to be guests of nature and lend our ears to the birdsong, chirping crickets and intuition, instead of the usual roar of engines and economic hum.

We were asked to sit until remorse replaced restlessness so we could thrust aside mountainous obsessions of waste, and refuse to be swallowed up by inexhaustible convenience, coveted commodities and take aways that take away deeper nourishment, and to wait for the rise of bread, instead.

Sit they said, with blinders off as industry cools and hearts and homes are warmed. Wait until expectation is traded for appreciation so it becomes easier to undertake a scaled back, survival stock take, where love and local livelihood is supported and we embrace the significant and sustainable.

Sit and replace swelling fears of toils and troubles with soap and bubbles. Then with lion heart courage, forge forward, with fragility, onto the path of goodwill, into a morally determined destiny and consciously cultivate kindness for all of us endangered ones, here upon our enchanted earth.

Poem Tend & Cherish by Leanne French as I contemplate the last day of Level 4 Lockdown in New Zealand and somewhat lament the loss of the quietest earth day experienced in my lifetime.

Thanks so much to my beloved husband Wolfie for the fabulous daily graphics he’s made for me.

Tags: climate emergency, contemplating the end of level 4 lockdown, corona virus, covid19, Leanne French Counsellor, Mangawhai Counsellor, Northland relationship counsellor, NZ Relationship Expert, poem, poetry, save the earth, telehealth counsellor, tend and cherish

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Categories Compassion, Covid-19, Gratitude, Kindness, Mindfulness, New beginnings, Save the World

Let’s All Be Better Humans.

26 Apr

Beyond thinking about how to stop microbe movement and economic downfalls, will we also think more about respect and empathy? Can we create a new vision of a better world, for ourselves, our community, our environment and for our beautiful earth? My hope is that we will mindfully pay more attention to the wee glimpses we have of a future where we know what we want and need, and then work towards making many tiny incremental changes so all creatures can flourish. Let’s make our future ancestors proud.

Tags: Leanne French Counsellor, let's all be better humans, Mangawhai Counsellor, NZ Relationship Expert, Save the World, telehealth counsellor

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Categories Compassion, Counselling, Covid-19, Health, Kindness, Mindfulness, New beginnings, Save the World

Same Storm. Different Boat.

22 Apr

While Mahatma Gandhi once said Dignity of human nature requires that we must face the storms of life, this present storm, the way we face it and the impact it will have on each and every one of us, will be incredibly diverse.

In the midst of disruption, there are commonalities. Heightened reactions, moments of confusion and clarity, and concern for safety and security. Human nature dictates we do what we can to save ourselves and then look around to offer a (socially distanced) helping hand.

We react in a thousand different ways because how we think, feel, act, need, want, hate, love and believe, stem from a huge variety of factors from our past experience, our resilience, the extent of support we have available, the size of our bank account, to where we’re positioned physically, socially, economically and emotionally.

While some may have anchored calmly, and others adjusted their sails towards rainbows and pots of gold, we cannot underestimate the emotional gale and financial swirl that this storm has brought upon many. Continue reading →

Tags: acts of kindness, Compassion, corona virus emotional wellbeing, covid19, Hope, Kindness, Leanne French Counsellor, making judgements, Mangawhai Counsellor, Northland relationship counsellor, Same storm different boats, storms, telehealth counsellor, Therapy, tolerance

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Categories Compassion, Conflict resolution, Covid-19, Health, Kindness, New beginnings, Resilience, Save the World, Self-care, Self-love

Believe In Magic.

17 Apr

Wisdom whispers calmly. It sometimes appears as emotional or physical sensations in our body. When we purposefully look and ask the universe for guidance, answers can show up as synchronicity and co-incidence. Whispers speak from our unconscious and they surface in our nightly dreams. Whispers contain solutions to our questions and they allow our daydreams to bubble to the surface.

Throw all of those meaningful messages into a cauldron. Mix in a dash of intuition, add a dose of practicality, and stir well until clarity appears. Boil down until decisive choices that stem from a deeper knowing emerge, and you will Continue reading →

Tags: angel guidance, believe in magic, caring for yourself in lockdown, corona virus emotional wellbeing, covid19, dream therapy, finding direction, guardian angels, higher power, how to emotionally manage isolation, intuition, magic, spirit messages, universal guidance, whispers of wisdom

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Categories Angels, New beginnings, Self-care, Spiritual Journey

Hang in There.

7 Apr

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Most of us have had a time or two or three in our lives where a situation bought us crashing to our knees, and everything changed in an instant.

When we couldn’t calm the storm, it passed. When we thought the fear and the flow of tears would never stop, they actually did. When our castles crumbled, they got rebuilt. When our scars healed, they were stronger than skin.

Events may differ, but those that hold the potential to disrupt life as we know it, need acceptance and require us to control the parts we can and let go of what we can’t.

Hanging in requires time to pass. For patience and co-operation. For feelings to be Continue reading →

Tags: corona virus emotional wellbeing, covid19, Facing feelings, goodness influencer, how to emotionally manage isolation, Resilience, therapist