For this month’s post, I wanted to bring together the five most read posts on my website in the past year in case someone hasn’t seen them yet. I started blogging about three years ago. My aim was to be able to give through my writing hope for healing and tips for living wholeheartedly for people who may be experiencing relationship difficulties, anxiety, depression and have experienced either childhood emotional neglect and/or trauma in the past.

Looking at the topics of the most read childhood neglect, mother wound, fear of rejection, feelings & emotions and childhood trauma & recovery, perhaps these topics summarise my work and passion. I feel so privileged to be able to support and walk along with people who are working towards healing and living wholeheartedly.

1 Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) – How does it impact on adult well-being?

This post is based on Dr Jonice Webb’s book on Running on empty, which talks about childhood emotional neglect, what kind of parenting leads to CEN, the symptoms of CEN and how to heal from CEN. The post focuses on the symptoms of CEN. It is by far the most read post on my website. This book has helped so many people to understand their experiences and given a name to a collection of symptoms that have otherwise been unexplained. Emotional neglect means when something vital has not happened, i.e. a child is not given an opportunity to learn about their emotional experiences in a loving and supportive environment.

  1. Healing the mother wound – Part 1: Understanding the mother wound, good enough mothering and the impact of the mother wound as an adult

Perhaps the greatest pain of all – the mother wound – talks about the role of a mother, often the primary caregiver, and what happens when she is not able to emotionally engage with her child and growing up thinking that there is something wrong with me. This post is focused on the female experience of having an emotionally absent mother. The post is based on “Will I ever be good enough” book by Karyl McBride. My plan is to write about the experiences from a male perspective too.

  1. 6 signs that fear of rejection is killing your relationship

The biggest fear we have in our relationships that our partner is not there for us and rejects us. This can prevent us from getting involved with people to start with. You may distance yourself in a relationship or behave in other ways that may be self-sabotaging your relationship. This post is about understanding some signs of fear of rejection.

  1. Why is understanding our emotions and feelings so important?

Childhood Emotional Neglect makes it difficult for you to understand your emotional responses. This post talks about Dr Antonio Damasio’s work on emotions and how he describes the differences between feelings and emotions. It also describes how emotional awareness links with well-being, being in relationships and even with parenting.

  1. Childhood trauma & recovery I: Impact of childhood trauma on adult well-being

This post is the first part of a 3-part series on childhood trauma and talks about the symptoms related to childhood trauma and the symptoms of PTSD. It also briefly talks about complex PTSD. The following parts talk about how the body and the brain are impacted by childhood trauma and how compassion focused therapy can be helpful in healing the inner child following a childhood trauma.

Finally,

Thank you for reading my posts. I do this work to hopefully bring some hope for healing for anyone who is healing following childhood trauma and/or experiencing relationship difficulties. If you are looking to address difficulties relating to the above topics, please take a look at my services page.