A Message of Hope

Good Morning. My apologies I have been somewhat quiet here as of late. I must admit I have been distracted. My original intention was to write a post outlining the psychological benefits of fasting, and I may do that later on. For now, I feel I must, no I need to, talk about hope. How to find the light when the tunnel just keeps getting longer and longer. How to focus on the qualities within existence that give our hearts peace and calm, amidst a world that has caught fire, and is burning, burning, burning.

Some of you may already know about my Lebanese heritage, some of you may not. Some of you may already know my fondness for Iran, as there are people whom I love dearly from that country, some of you may not. Whether you know anything about either nation or not is irrelevant, but know this. So long as you and I have been alive, both nations have suffered in ways we, born in the west, could never conceive of living through.

By sheer random, stupid luck was I born in Australia and not Lebanon, because my parents decided to emigrate in the 90’s. Or as westerners like to call it, ‘expatriate’. I still don’t know why one is called immigration and the other expatriation, I suppose semantics of not wanting to be associated with the riff raff of those people? Who knows?

Though I was born here, I learned to love Lebanon and my heritage as a child growing up in the diaspora. Arabic was my first spoken language, my dancing style was belly dancing, my first sip of coffee was Turkish in those cute little cups we use, my food was all Mediterranean, all the time. I love my culture, my heritage, my language and my people. I always felt that keen sense of longing and yearning for a homeland I never knew, and I was never unaware of what my people were suffering through overseas, because you cannot know Lebanon without knowing its struggles.

In Masjid Nasir Al Mulk - Shiraz, Iran (est. 1888)

Then, I was lucky enough to fall in love with a beautiful Iranian man. And he invited me into the world of Persian cuisine, music, culture, poetry and art, which I had never encountered before, and a special place opened in my heart for Iran and its people.

Just because in our lifetimes, our people and homelands have struggled, does not mean there have not been moments of complete beauty, joy and fulfilment for the people living there, or even for myself while visiting. I recall eating fresh kaak bi knafeh in the urban streets of Tripoli, Lebanon, early in the warm, summer mornings. Running around the pools with our family friend’s kids, all of us wonderfully tan, in the beautiful chalets of Beirut. Watching that burning Mediterranean sunset over the horizon, surrounded by all of my kinsfolk.

I recall listening to live Persian music in a hundreds year old Vakil Bazaar in the winding streets of Shiraz, while eating the most delicious faloodeh ice cream. Having my breath taken away again and again by every new palace we visited in Isfahan, wondering how they could have such incredible craftsmanship and mastery of art all those long years ago. Having tea with my Mamani and speaking broken farsi to her, in her ever warm, ever inviting home.

Life and beauty exists even in occupation, oppression or economic and political upheaval. I have been blessed to experience both sides, the beauty of our ancestral homelands, and feeling the privilege of being raised in the safety of a Western nation like beautiful Australia.

My focus on sharing these experiences is to challenge the phenomenon of ‘context inflation’ in psychology, which may be otherwise known as the experience of events being made to feel more psychologically intense, due to their contextual information, such as the emotional state you were in at the time, cultural perceptions, personal memory biases, worldview, social narratives and the overall group interpretation of an event. When you begin to challenge the contextual information, what you experience is a new perspective, one that may offer you some peace, relief and even, dare I say, hope.

Chehel Sotoun Palace - Isfahan, Iran (est. 1647)

We cannot deny that the news and media agencies require a profit to operate. It has been found through very unfortunate (but important) research in media psychology that more inflammatory, negative and sensationalist headlines get more clicks, which boosts profit. It was also found that viewers were more likely to remember the content of the stories they viewed when they were more negative and generated more fear, likely because the nervous system enters fight-flight survival mode and is mapping the information as necessary information relevant for survival.

They also disproportionately cover the most extreme, rare and devastating events, creating an altered perception in the worldview of the every day person, that the world is constantly a tragic, horrible and painful place. They prey on our pre-existing negativity biases, which pull us toward threatening or negative information, as again, it may be useful for our survival, in the context of life-threatening events.

Hold these pieces of information in mind when you consciously engage with news stories, and what you begin to realise is that if we rely on a profit-driven company to determine our perceptions of world events and observing history unfolding before our very eyes, then we are unwittingly agreeing to be misled down a nihilistic, depressed and learned helplessness path where we feel stuck, perpetually triggered and fearful, every minute of every day.

However, if we start to expand our contexts - as in we challenge our own negativity biases, cultural perceptions, time-based settings and pull away from the way the stories are being framed by the news - we start to experience an expansion of our contexts, rather than an inflation. This naturally reduces the psychological intensity of our experiences.

Iran Mehr Hotel - Shiraz, Iran (est. late 1700’s)

For example, did you know that Lebanon has recorded 14-15 major conquests and wars in the last 4000 years of its recorded history?

Egyptian domination of Canaan/Phoenicia (c. 1500–1200 BCE)

Neo-Assyrian Empire conquest (c. 9th–7th century BCE)

Neo-Babylonian Empire rule (c. 605–539 BCE)

Achaemenid Persian Empire rule (539–333 BCE)

Alexander the Great / Macedonian conquest (333 BCE)

Seleucid Empire control (c. 301–64 BCE)

Roman Empire annexation (64 BCE)

Byzantine Empire rule (395–636 CE)

Early Islamic conquests (Rashidun → Umayyad → Abbasid rule) (636–1099)

Crusades / Crusader states occupation (1099–1291)

Mamluk Sultanate rule (1291–1516)

Ottoman Empire rule (1516–1918)

France Mandate of Lebanon (1920–1943)

Syrian occupation of Lebanon (1976–2005)

Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon (1982–2000)

Iran has experienced about 10 major invasions in that approximate same recorded period of time.

Assyrian domination of parts of western Iran (c. 9th–7th century BCE)

Macedonian conquest by Alexander the Great (330 BCE) – fall of the Achaemenid Empire

Seleucid Greek rule (312–247 BCE)

Arab Muslim conquest of Persia (633–651 CE) – fall of the Sasanian Empire

Turkic dynasties and steppe invasions (Ghaznavids, Seljuks, 10th–12th centuries)

Mongol invasion and Ilkhanate rule (1219–1335)

Timurid conquest by Timur (late 1300s)

Afghan invasion ending the Safavid Empire (1722)

Anglo‑Soviet occupation of Iran during World War II (1941–1946)

Islamic dictatorship (1979–present)

Our countries are older than we are, older than we can even comprehend. They have suffered, been oppressed, even been destroyed and then rebuilt. They have created art, food, music, poetry, architecture, dance and an enduring way of life through culture, that has survived these thousands of years of oppression. Why, my sweet reader, do you believe now will be any different? Just because it is in your time? Are people not still holding loved ones and singing lullabies to children? Are people not still falling in love? Are musicians not still making music? Are poets not still writing their souls to the page, in their beautiful native tongue? Are artists not still creating art, born out of the pain and suffering?

I think to this quote I recently read from Andrei Tarkovsky:

“An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn’t exist, for the artist doesn’t live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.”

These are dark times indeed, but when you reflect on the fact that life endures, no matter what oppressive force it is being challenged with, whether it is a destructive tsunami, or an invading regime, then suddenly you realise that perhaps life is not about moving in a simple, linear line of peace. Perhaps we are here to experience the depth of tragedy, to make art in the face of death and destruction, to love unapologetically when the world tries to make us cry. Hope, in this way, is a choice. I hope you choose it today.

Poetic Reflections

"It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo.

The ones that really mattered.

Full of darkness, and danger, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end…

because how could the end be happy?

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.

Even darkness must pass.

A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.

So you keep going.

There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for."

‍ ‍

- Samwise Gamgee, The Two Towers

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

I usually guided my clients to do more natural based breathing, following their rhythms and focusing on extending the exhale, but there is a simple charm to the skill of box breathing (also called square breathing). I think adding the imagery of the four, clean lines of a square can be very stabilising to the mind. This evidence-based breathing technique can help you reduce stress, calm the nervous system, and improve focus.

You breathe in a 4-step pattern, like drawing the sides of a square or box. Each step is usually 4 seconds, but you can adjust if needed.

1. Inhale – Breathe in slowly through your nose for 4 seconds.

2. Hold – Keep your breath for 4 seconds.

3. Exhale – Breathe out slowly through your mouth for 4 seconds.

4. Hold – Pause with an empty lung for 4 seconds.

Repeat this cycle for 4–6 rounds or until you feel calm.

Mountains in the north of Iran

Thank you for reading this far, if you have. I believe it is unfortunate that in our time, we are to witness such hardships, but my final comfort is that I am almost 100% certain that our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents and so on and so forth, have all said the exact same sentence in their time as well. Rather than dwell on the circumstances out of our control, why don’t we focus on the things we can do, right now. Like:

Focus on making eye contact with that little child in the stroller and making a funny face, just to see them smile.

Help the old woman with her shopping bags.

When you eat dinner, think kindly to those who cannot afford or find a warm meal, and consider donating to charity organisations.

Pick up that piece of rubbish, to save someone from slipping on it later on.

Pay for the coffee of the stranger behind you in the line, just because.

Be the goodness you wish to see in the world, rather than wait for the world to be good enough for you to show up in.

Hold on to hope, it is your light at the end of the tunnel.

All my very best, with love and hope,

Tala

Shinrin Yoku

Good Afternoon. Would you not agree with me that there is nothing better than seeing golden sun rays breaking through a canopy of the most lush, vibrant and green leaves you have ever seen? What can soften a heart like a leaf quivering in fresh spring winds? What can inspire awe more than seeing the sky reflected in the spherical perfection of a single drop of dew on the powder pink petal of a fragrant flower?

Nature has an inherent magic to it, that is something none of us can deny. And you know what, even if we wanted to deny it, we couldn’t! There is actually a growing body of scientific literature that tells us that just spending some mindful time in nature actually heals us, whether we like it or not. This body of research emerged from the early 2000’s in none other than beautiful Japan, after their government started an initiative in the early 80’s to encourage their population to visit natural spaces to improve health and wellbeing, following the rapid increase of rural populations migrating into cramped, urban spaces.

This practice was named Shinrin Yoku, or Forest Bathing in English (Li, 2000). This initiative was boosted to combat ‘technostress’, which is the cumulative stress that we all build up over the many minutes, hours and days spent tethered to our technological devices, which play off of our cortisol and dopamine levels to keep us addicted, always coming back for more. I won’t waste too much time talking about stress, even though the literature has easily established the connection between our dependence to technology and our poor mental and physical health outcomes.

Today, I am focusing solely on the research supporting the beautiful practice of Shinrin Yoku. Ah, even just saying it slowly out loud is a mindful exercise. Shin-Rin-Yo-Ku. Feel the words flow from the back of the mouth, to the tip of the tongue. Feel the shape of your mouth change as you mouth out each word. Hear the sounds each word makes as it leaves your lips. Feel the vibration in your throat and chest as you generate enough energy to say the words. This kind of deep, mindful attunement sits at the heart of Shinrin Yoku. It is not putting your head down, earphones in and speed-climbing a mountain, to take a quick pic at the peak, post it on social media and jet down for an Iced Matcha and sauna at the bottom. No, no, my good friends. That is the antithesis of Shinrin Yoku.

Immersed in a bamboo cluster.

Just exposing your body to a natural space and doing nothing else significantly reduces your cortisol levels, and the effects sustain over time (Antonelli, Barbieri, & Donelli, 2019).

First thing’s first, no phones. No way to be reached or accessible to anyone or anything external to yourself, if you can find a spot with no telecommunication reception, even better.

That little SOS in the top right-hand corner of my phone are the three sweetest little letters I can see. When the brain is anticipating an alert, such as the ones we receive from our phone, it enters into a chronically alert or ‘readiness’ state, which produces a low-level form of stress, which can drain our brains over time (Ward, Duke, Gneezy, & Bos, 2017).

Second, the whole point of Shinrin Yoku is the exposure and quality of awareness, not the destination or even necessarily the breath-taking beauty of the location. You use your 5 senses to enhance your experience of the natural landscape you are in;

1) The various colours, shapes, sizes and locations of the natural objects in relation to your body

2) The smell of the natural world around you and all its various quality, depth and richness

3) The texture and feel of the natural environment, sensing the minute differences in sensory input

4) The lush sounds of all of nature, living, breathing and ever moving around you

5) The tastes of the natural plants, waters and even the air, enhancing senses you rarely consider while outside your house

It is not a rushed experience, where the more you see, the better. It is about slowing down, walking with intention, mindfully absorbing as much detail as you are able to, moment to moment.

A true practice of mindfulness. I feel calm now just describing the process.

Third comes the self reflection. Invite your mind to reflect deeply within your body, allowing all the systems of survival and activation to wind-down, switch off and become present.

This invites your mind to enter into a state called soft fascination, wherein you observe stimuli that the brain does not have to work hard to process, such as the gentle swaying of a branch in the wind, a sight that our nervous systems have evolved to observe for thousands of years.

This leaves the direct attentional processes of the brain offline, allowing our brains to rest, recover and even reflect down creative pathways that we normally cannot access while we are “on”, which is what happens when the Default Mode Network operates (Basu, Duvall, & Kaplan, 2019).

Now to the juicy health benefits, take a gander at this long list of positive mental and physical health benefits of doing Shinrin Yoku, extracted from the paper by Li, 2000 and supported by multiple other meta-analytic studies (all referenced below):

• Shinrin-yoku increases human natural killer (NK) activity, the number of NK cells, and the intracellular levels of anti-cancer proteins, suggesting a preventive effect on cancers.

• Reduces blood pressure and heart rate, showing preventive effect on hypertension and heart diseases.
  

• Reduces stress hormones, such as urinary adrenaline and noradrenaline and salivary/serum cortisol contributing to stress management.

• Increases the activity of parasympathetic nerves and reduces the activity of sympathetic nerves to stabilise the balance of autonomic nervous system.

• Improves sleep quality.

• Increases the levels of serum adiponectin and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (helpful for insulin resistance and inflammation).

• In the Profile of Mood States (POMS) test, Shinrin-yoku reduces the scores for anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion, and increases the score for vigour, showing preventive effects on depression.

• Reductions in negative repetitive thinking regarding oneself (rumination)

• Enhances self-compassion, well-being, introspection, and mindfulness.

What is even more incredible, is that these health effects can last anywhere from 7 days to a whole month after your Shinrin Yoku trip! Wow!

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

I will make this super duper easy for you guys. Go sit outside in nature. For just 20-30 minutes. Leave your phone inside, and follow the prompts above where you are mindfully attuning to the natural space that you are in.

That’s it, easy peasy.

Thank you for reading this far, if you have! I truly appreciate the time and support you show to these little budding newsletters.

All my very best, with love and hope,

Tala

Poetic Reflections

“Supple chords, plucked by wind

Ever moving, ever bending

The song of divinity, unending”

- TM

References

Antonelli, M., Barbieri, G., & Donelli, D. (2019). Effects of forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) on levels of cortisol as a stress biomarker: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International journal of biometeorology, 63(8), 1117-1134.

Basu, A., Duvall, J., & Kaplan, R. (2019). Attention restoration theory: Exploring the role of soft fascination and mental bandwidth. Environment and Behavior, 51(9-10), 1055-1081.

He, M., Hu, Y., Wen, Y., Wang, X., Wei, Y., Sheng, G., & Wang, G. (2024). The impacts of forest therapy on the physical and mental health of college students: a review. Forests, 15(4), 682.

Ideno, Y., Hayashi, K., Abe, Y., Ueda, K., Iso, H., Noda, M., ... & Suzuki, S. (2017). Blood pressure-lowering effect of Shinrin-yoku (Forest bathing): A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC complementary and alternative medicine, 17(1), 409.

Li, Q. (2022). Effects of forest environment (Shinrin-yoku/Forest bathing) on health promotion and disease prevention—the Establishment of “Forest Medicine”—. Environmental health and preventive medicine, 27, 43-43.

Siah, C. J. R., Goh, Y. S., Lee, J., Poon, S. N., Ow Yong, J. Q. Y., & Tam, W. S. W. (2023). The effects of forest bathing on psychological well‐being: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. International journal of mental health nursing, 32(4), 1038-1054.

Stier-Jarmer, M., Throner, V., Kirschneck, M., Immich, G., Frisch, D., & Schuh, A. (2021). The psychological and physical effects of forests on human health: A systematic review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(4), 1770.

Szitás, D., Halamová, J., Ottingerová, L., & Schroevers, M. (2024). The effects of forest bathing on self-criticism, self-compassion, and self-protection: A systematic review. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 97, 102372.

Vermeesch, A. L., Ellsworth-Kopkowski, A., Prather, J. G., Passel, C., Rogers, H. H., & Hansen, M. M. (2024). Shinrin-Yoku 森林浴 (Forest Bathing): A Scoping Review of the Global Research on the Effects of Spending Time in Nature. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, 13, 27536130241231258.

Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the association for consumer research, 2(2), 140-154.

I Finally Experienced Integration

Hello again, whomever this is reaching. I write this entry from a place of deep reflection. I am fascinated by this concept of integration. It has long eluded my comprehension, though I’ve come across it many times in theoretical readings, particularly Jungian psychotherapy. The goal is integration. If you could somehow integrate aspects of your shadow self into your consciousness, then the work is done.

But what on earth is integration? What does it even mean? Various definitions explore the process of unifying parts into a whole. Experientially, what does this look like? Over your many years of development, you will undoubtedly learn many things about yourself, yet that awareness is not enough to make whole the disparate parts. You can know what is wrong, yet awareness is not enough to overcome the seemingly endless personal challenges, patterns of self sabotage and confusion around thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Why was conscious awareness not enough?

Compassionate responses to those parts don’t seem to work either. Often times, you notice a wounded part activate, and you soothe, comfort and coddle those aspects of yourself - the wounded parts that seek respite through withdrawal, disconnection or avoidant behaviours. That too, seems to be a temporary solution. So what is missing, that conscious awareness and compassionate response was not enough? Emotional processing does not seem to work either. Pain can be grieved, cried and processed through, and still the wounds can linger. It is not yet integrated. The parts remain just that, disconnected parts. There was no ‘whole’ yet.

Hmmm. Confusing. As time progresses and life humbles you with deep, painful experiences, something remarkable can happen. Trauma can be such a perspective-expanding and life altering experience, where unhelpful, restrictive and even sometimes judgemental thoughts and entrenched beliefs about self, the world and others can be let go of and replaced.

Within my own experience of integration, I learned to turn towards my experiences with a genuine, humble honesty. I surrendered to the truth of myself, that I too, have darkness within me, as all people do. And I did not soothe it, I did not mask it or explain it away. I simply allowed it to be, receiving the information as it is, without changing it, beautifying or diluting it. It was just the truth. Just reality. And I received it with acceptance. For the first time, I simply accepted that those parts existed, as I accepted that the sky was blue and the clouds were white. It was neither relieving, nor shame inducing. It was simply reality.

And then it happened. Integration. I finally experienced this magical concept, that I had so often read about and so little understood. I believe that integration can only occur when you accept a part of yourself, often an unseemly, shameful or ‘bad’ part, with openness, honesty and acceptance. No changing, no minimisation, no explaining it away. It just is, and it is allowed to be, just as it is. It is now whole with everything else, and it fits, because it has always fit. You just never allowed yourself to acknowledge its existence. Somehow, through surrender, I found peace. through acceptance, I found love. Through confrontation of truth in reality, I experienced integration.

And man, is it something else. You are calm, at peace, and have complete clarity over your inner world. Your experiences cease to scare you, and you feel ready to explore these new aspects of yourself with confident strength and deep understanding. They are no longer your puppeteers from the shadows, leading you into old, unhelpful patterns. They are now exposed to the light and visible, and you see just how small and un-scary they are. You reclaim control and walk alongside those parts, now part of a whole, and now under your control. This, I believe, is integration.

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

This week, we are going to discuss deep, diaphragmatic breathing. I am sure you are all sick of the internet and therapists telling you to breathe deeply, but we won’t stop recommending it because it seriously works wonders!

Half the time, your nervous system is distressed because you are not getting enough oxygen, which places your body into a stressed-state. We breathe shallow or even hold our breath when we feel anxious or overwhelmed, so focusing on deep, mindful and diaphragmatic breaths can help short-circuit your stress system, returning slowly but surely to the blessed shores of ventral vagal. Let us begin:

1) Sitting comfortably in a chair or lying on your back, place one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach.

2) Turn your attention to your stomach, slowly deepening your breath and feeling your stomach rise with the inhale, falling with the exhale. Do your best, naturally we breathe through our chest, so give yourself some time to find your rhythm.

3) As you get comfortable with the rhythm of breath, start to lengthen the exhale, breathing out slow and long, longer than the inhale if possible. This will help the body settle deeper into a relaxed state.

4) Breathe in this way for a few minutes, checking in regularly on your body and noticing when your mind wanders away, gently bringing it back to the breath, back to the stomach and the rhythm of your breath.

All my very best, with love and hope,

Tala

Poetic Reflections

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way.

Instead, let life live through you.

And do not worry that your life is turning upside down.

How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”

- Rumi

The Psychological Benefits of Food

Food is more than just nourishment for the body

It is a way to find comfort after a long day of work

It offers emotional soothing when the world feels too cruel

It is a reliable friend, always there for you when other relationships let you down

It boosts dopamine, offering a brief moment of happiness in an otherwise heavy life

It takes you back to your childhood, calling back nostalgic memories of warm dishes made with love

It is a distraction, taking you away from stressful thoughts or feelings

It brings energy to a depleted body

It can inspire and excite, heal and rejuvenate, sicken and destroy

Join me in a curious exploration of the psychological role that food plays in our lives, and how we can use specific interventions to harness the power of food, rather than feel we are at the mercy of our appetites and compulsions

Happy Friday, dearest readers. I wonder what you have eaten for breakfast or lunch, and how that food is currently sitting with you. How does your body feel? What purpose did your meal fulfil for today? Nourishment, comfort, energy, joy, nostalgia, healing, or distraction? Take a moment with me to reflect.

I enjoyed a delicious charcoal chicken meal for lunch (very thankful for my Lebanese heritage here when it comes to food - so blessed) and I tried as best as I could to eat the meal mindfully. I focused on the purpose of nourishment, as I had an intense workout at the gym this morning. I avoided the hot chips, eating the protein and making sure to really chew the food, remembering that digestion begins in the mouth, with important enzymes in our saliva breaking down the food as we eat (Patricia & Dhamoon, 2019). This is a very important consideration to hold in mind, that mindful eating plays a significant role in nutrient absorption, as well as in regulating the nervous system. Our guts are deeply implicated within our central nervous system and this has a direct impact on our emotional stability and regulation. If our gut is agitated, inflamed, dysfunctional or fatigued, this can have a direct impact on our mood. This is outlined below, in the bi-directional relationship between our gut health and microbiome, and the experienced emotional wellbeing of an individual. Research has also well established the relationship between sugar and caffeine intake on anxiety, with further research exploring the role of nutrient deficiency (Vitamin D, B12, Iron) in depression (Anglin et al., 2013) and even psychosis (Payinda & Hansen, 2000).

Research shows that imbalances in gut bacteria are associated with conditions such as anxiety, depression, and stress, due to reduced metabolites, increased inflammation, and changes in stress-response systems.

Gut microbes can influence brain function by producing neurotransmitters, signalling through the vagus nerve, and affecting the body’s stress hormones. Eating probiotics, switching to a Mediterranean diet, and other microbiome-based approaches, show promise for improving mental health.

(Kanchanbala et al., 2025)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12007925/

Fascinating stuff, huh?

Think back to a time where you were on the verge of exploding in anger, and you had no clue what the trigger was. Then suddenly, someone suggests you eat something and one little snickers bar later, the demon possessing your body has left and you are now a happy, bubbly human again.

Or perhaps you were crying uncontrollably, finding every little thing overwhelming and distressing, and then you eat a sandwich and realise that your body was just trying to tell you that you were hungry. But why would our body use emotional cues like anger and sadness to prompt eating, rather than the tell-tale sign of hunger? What an interesting phenomenon! Without going into too much biological science and research, my intuition as a trauma-focused therapist says that somewhere early on in our lives, we learned to associate threat with situations where food was involved.

Either that, or we learned to dissociate from our inner bodily experiences entirely, whether due to intolerable traumatic pain, where escaping the physical experience was our only respite, or due to repeated experiences of neglect. The child adapts quickly. When we learn that the people in our environment do not care to attune to our physical experiences and help us to explore them safely, we quickly learn to suppress these useless cues of hunger, sadness, fear, tiredness, thirst and so much more. We do not discriminate between emotional cues or physiological cues. All internal experiences must be muted. And thus, we result in having a dissociated experience from our inner world. If you were raised in an environment where meal times were stressful, whether there was not enough food to eat and so you learned to swallow first, taste later, or perhaps meals at the dinner table were a guaranteed arena of conflict and tension, our nervous systems adapt to view mealtime and food as a stressful chore, rather than an enjoyable, nourishing practice of self care.

However, we are now (hopefully) fully grown, autonomous adults in safe environments. We can learn to re-attune to the inner sensations of our bodies, using mindful awareness, to establish a safe connection with our body cues. By practising mindful eating - chewing our food slowly, tasting all the flavours, smelling our food before we eat it, looking at our food intently, staying grounded in our body as we chew and swallow - we can learn to enjoy every part of the eating experience, while also differentiating between the sensations of hunger, digestion, satiation, enjoyment, disgust, excitement, anticipation and satisfaction. You can also learn to associate the seemingly unrelated somatic symptoms, such as a headache with a cue for thirst, or the feeling of uncontrollable sadness with a likely cue that it’s time for our next meal. Eat your food with every part of your body, your hands, eyes, nose, ears, while staying mindfully connected to your emotional experience, bodily experience and integrate all these sensations as one holistic practice.

“Dopaminergic activation is triggered by the auditory and visual as well as the tactile, olfactory, and gustatory stimuli of foods. While dopamine plays a central role in the feeding and food-seeking of normal animals, some food rewarded learning can be seen in genetically engineered dopamine-deficient mice.” (Wise, 2006)

Healing from food-related wounds takes time.

Be gentle with yourself in this process.

I say all of this with enthusiastic optimism, however I know the complexity that can exist with food. It is not just about threat, it can also induce deep and enduring feelings of shame. Or it can be an avenue to exert control over your otherwise unstable and out of control life, resulting in an eating disorder. These more complex presentations of food and eating disorders must be explored with a qualified psychologist and dietitian, taking a multi-disciplinary approach to healing these deep wounds around food and meal times. Reach out for support if this is something you struggle with. You are not alone and you do not have to figure it all out by yourself.

Thank you for joining me in this reflective exploration of the role that food plays in our psychological wellbeing. I sincerely hope you learned something new. Read below for an in-depth exploration of mindfulness skills we can use to reconnect safely to eating food and tuning in to our bodily sensations while we do so. You did great for reading this far!

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

This week, we are going to focus on mindful eating as a way to self soothe and regulate the nervous system, while healing your relationship with food and eating practices.

To eat mindfully, our full attention and conscious awareness must be focused on the food in front of us.

1) Look at the colours, shapes, textures of your meal. Enjoy the vibrant differences in shades, explore how the various colour palette of your meal makes you feel.

2) Stop and smell your food before you eat. Try to tune in to the various flavour profiles; can you smell citrus, chocolate, fruity tones, spicy tones, salty, oceanic smells.

3) Taste the food slowly and mindfully. Feel the different textures (crunchy, smooth) and temperatures (cool, hot). Taste the flavour profiles of your food; salty, sweet, umami, sour, bitter. Move the food to different parts of your tongue to explore different dimensions of flavour.

4) Listen to the sounds that the food makes as you chew and swallow, moving the food on your plate, using your utensils to pick up the food and put them in your mouth.

At every stage of eating, from before you taste the first bite, to when your plate is clean, stay grounded in the experience of your body. Regularly check in with your stomach, take deep breaths throughout and focus on how your body is feeling throughout. Label the emotions that come up for you as you eat, if it brings back any fond memories. How does the food make you feel?

Give it your best go and practice mindful eating every day to improve and enhance this skill over time.

All my very best, with love and hope,

Tala

Poetic Reflections

“A dry loaf eaten in peace
is better than a feast eaten in fear.”

- Saadi Shirazi, Golestan

References

Anglin, R. E., Samaan, Z., Walter, S. D., & McDonald, S. D. (2013). Vitamin D deficiency and depression in adults: systematic review and meta-analysis. The British journal of psychiatry, 202(2), 100-107.

Barma, M. D., Purohit, B. M., Priya, H., Malhotra, S., Bhadauria, U. S., & Duggal, R. (2026). Sweet Misery: Association of Sugar Consumption With Anxiety and Depression - A Systematic Review. Obesity Reviews, 27(1), 1-19.

Kanchanbala, R., Neha, S., Sunil, N., Kumar, S., Kiran, D., Dhrubajyoti, B., & Mohammad, I. H. Q. (2025). The bidirectional relationship between the gut microbiome and mental health: a comprehensive review. Cureus, 17(3).

Patricia, J. J., & Dhamoon, A. S. (2019). Physiology, digestion.

Payinda, G., & Hansen, T. (2000). Vitamin B12 deficiency manifested as psychosis without anemia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(4), 660-661.

Wise, R. A. (2006). Role of brain dopamine in food reward and reinforcement. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 361(1471), 1149-1158.

Learning To Trust

Good Morning. I hope you had a pleasant night’s rest filled with beautiful dreams about beautiful things.

I was inspired to write about trust, after receiving an email from a longstanding client of mine, expressing distress around her enduring inability to trust both herself and her partner in their relationship. Such a common experience, I think that fear and love go hand in hand. Do they feel about me the same way I feel about them? Can I trust what they say, that they will never leave me? How can I trust my own self, that I won’t ruin this beautiful thing with my carelessness or with my fears?

Love, true love, cannot be forced or compelled. It must be chosen freely, actively and with your full self. If you carry within you the seed of self doubt and worthlessness, it can feel impossible that someone would choose you, over all the other seemingly better options out there. Why you? What is so special about you, that they would choose to give all this love to you, and keep choosing you day after day? Therein lies the inner conflict.

“I want to trust that this is real, but a part of me whispers that it isn’t. That it is only a matter of time before they get bored, or lose interest, or figure out that I have been hiding just how horrible I am, and once they realise all of this, that they can do so much better, they will leave me.” This fear of abandonment may sit at the heart of every human being, it depends how well you choose to know yourself, to discover just how loud those voices can get. We were designed to seek connection and closeness, our nervous systems feel the most safe when we have a secure attachment to another individual. This unification with the other is the only antidote to the fear of the world, to the fear of death and the unbearable, ego-destroying fear of loneliness.

Within a spiritual framework, this aligns with the reality that we were once at one with all of creation, and in becoming human, we became separate and singular. Our psyche has a deep memory of what it feels like to be united and safe, and so we seek it throughout our lifespan, first through relationships, and then, if we have enough awareness and discipline, through a relationship with the divine. This is the safest and most secure attachment to form in your lifetime, for God is eternal and does not die, and He has promised that He is with you, wherever you are, so you can never be abandoned.

In the womb of our mother or in the womb of Mercy.

Safe in suspension, our nervous systems ever seek this feeling of complete and whole safety.

Within a psychological framework, this is mirrored through the unification with our mothers in the womb - the only time our nervous systems felt completely and utterly safe. All was well, all my needs were met, I knew no fear, nor pain, nor suffering. My only reality was the music of my mother’s heartbeat and the warmth of the water around me, suspended me in weightlessness. Equally, our nervous systems retain a memory of that experience and so seek to emulate that through our current relationships. However, humans, unlike the Divine, are flawed and equally needy. And so to feel absolutely satisfied and sustained in a relationship is, I think it’s safe to say, impossible.

However, I digress. Back to trust. Knowing that we are designed to seek the safety of unifying our bodies and souls with another individual, someone who sees us and loves us for who we are, how can we accept this love once it finally knocks on our door? How can we welcome it in with open arms and know that we won’t cast it away or reject it from fear of losing it? The answer is trust. To believe with full conviction that they won’t leave you, knowing that they might. It is the rejection of the awful reality and giving your full awareness, energy and focus to the reality where they don’t let you down. It is in believing that you are someone who is worth loving, that you are a worthy, loveable individual and maybe this person just happens to like what you have to offer. It is choosing to believe that love has finally found you, and you are safe to accept it and welcome it in.

The analogy that I provided my client was this:
To learn to trust someone is like realising that you are swimming in the ocean and have been caught in wild waves that both excite you and threaten to drown you. From fear, you begin to swim madly, fighting against each wave, trying to predict the patterns of what will come next and struggling against the current, becoming exhausted and frustrated with all the effort you exert, realising that you are getting nowhere. Then you try, just for a moment, to surrender to the water, lay back and let all your expectations, predictions and need to control the situation go, and just float atop the waves. You choose to trust that the water will not swallow you whole, though you still feel the terror that it will. That fear exists because there is a very real chance that a wave may come crashing down on you as you float and drown you, and there is also a chance it won't. That is the risk. That is the scary part of being in a relationship, for it is guaranteed that it will end, either through death or choice, for all things in life are temporary. And yes, it will devastate you when it happens, but how lovely to have floated on the waves and enjoyed the beauty of the sky, smelled the tangy saltiness of the ocean and listened to the melody of the waves, while you waited for the end. Trust affords you the joy of being present in the love while it is yours, enjoying every moment of it and accepting that the end will come, and you have made the most of the love while you had it. No regrets. Only love.

I fear that none of us will ever have that moment of "Ah, I am perfectly safe and content and happy here", because we will never be 100% certain that the ones who love us will not leave. And that is okay. Do not despair nor lose hope, and do not allow your mind to spiral and catastrophise that your feelings are indicative of never being able to find happiness. The more you practice trust, the easier it will become and the more you will find out just how beautiful the ocean can be.

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

This section will introduce one new skill each week that we have highlighted as a great practice to enrich your week with mental health benefits. This week, I would like to focus on singing and humming as a tool to regulate your nervous system.

Honestly, there is no end to how long I can talk about psychology, for it excites me so, but I promise to be brief and only give the necessary information about singing and humming (though there is SO much I want to say about it!).

It is incredibly regulating to sing or hum, as the vibrations stimulate the vagus nerve that sits adjacent to your vocal chords. That stimulation helps the nervous system shift from sympathetic arousal (fight/flight) to parasympathetic activation (rest/digest). We have culturally been using singing and melodies for healing for centuries. The first mental health hospital in recorded history was the Bimarestan of Baghdad (c. 705–715 CE) and it was recorded to use holistic approaches to healing psychological conditions, including music therapy. All cultures have collective songs, in church we sing hymns together, countries have a national anthem that you start the day with at school, in the pub everyone sings at the top of their lungs “COUNTRY ROOOAAADDDD, TAKE ME HOOOOOOMMEEE, TO THE PLAAAAACEEEE, I BELOOOOONNNGGGG.” It’s safe to say, whether we like it or not, singing works and that is why it has stuck around so long.

So I am challenging you to sing a new kind of song every day this week. Choose a happy song one day, a sad song the next, a fast song, a slow song, an emotional song, an uplifting song. Explore how the different melodies and words mingle with the feelings in your heart, and use it to process your emotions. For me, the song that always gets me is Mad World by Gary Jules. Oh my heart. And do I sing it? Heck yeah! That and Hallelujah, the Jeff Buckley version. I’d love for you to leave me a comment of your favourite songs to sing. I do hope the comment function is working, if not, then vibe the song over to me. I’ll do my best to receive it.

All my very best, with love and hope,

Tala

The Beginning - Between Sessions

Welcome to the start of “Between Sessions”, a weekly newsletter where I invite you to join me in these quiet moments of reflection, where we will take stock of our week, make meaningful associations and try to integrate all the wisdoms and teachings that we have gained throughout the week.

Here are my commitments to you.

1) I shall never use AI to write these posts. It will be straight from my soul to yours, and as such, you may expect to see just a Few grammatical, errors or speling mistakes. Please be patient with me if you do see these, as I am prioritising integrity and authenticity over perfection, as I hope and pray you are doing as well.

2) I will share all the inspirational and emotional enlightening things that I encounter each week with you, in order to uplift and enliven your souls. Soulful enrichment is a necessary part of our daily lives, and so I will endeavour to enrich your beautiful souls with poetry, reflections, art, music, creative pursuits and meaningful activities to engage with in your daily lives.

3) As much as the chaos of life permits me, I will try to upload these newsletters once weekly, on Friday mornings.

4) We are going to have fun with it! I’m going to be my goofy, playful self to make sure that this is not just another useless, drivelling newsletter devoid of feeling, soul or life. Nay, I shall be as a living companion to you, beckoning your feeling forth through the screen, inviting you into the joyful weirdness, vulnerability and curiosity that makes life so much fun. I cannot wait for this journey to begin, and for you all to join me on this path.

Let us begin.

You will find me endlessly journalling, even while on holiday. It is my fondest companion and has witnessed so many events in my life. I have been journalling religiously since I was 18 years old, after I was gifted my first journal by my sister. I took this photo in New Zealand, writing my reflections of our trip, as I watched the sun set gently over the mountain ranges. The serenity I experienced in this moment was indescribable. I hope you find a reflective practice that is as soothing for your soul, as I have found journaling to be for mine.

I shall end this post with one of my favourite excerpts from a poem, which I think perfectly encapsulates the heart of what therapy hopes to achieve in present-minded awareness and gratitude.

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life”

- Omar Khayyam