At the end of your day, become quiet in a place where you can mentally review your day – all of the activities, the people you interacted with, etc.  Then ask yourself when you felt most inspired, or grateful.  This would be the “high” point of your day.  Then – once you have that moment, ask yourself when you felt the opposite – the “low” point of your day.  It is optimal if you can record both moments in a journal, or notebook.

Ignatius felt that there was learning in both circumstances and therefore important to reflect on gratitude and on challenges.  Some have referred to this practice as sorting through the “roses” and the “thorns.”  After several weeks of this, you may be clearer about which aspects of your life are supporting your optimal health – emotional, mental, physical and spiritual; and which are causing you continued stress.  This stress may be coming from your own thoughts or beliefs about yourself and others – or it may be from a particular habit or interaction with a person.  Once you can see the patterns that help or hinder your growth, you can then make the necessary adjustments where possible.  For example, you may notice that whenever you exercise you feel good – and whenever you watch to my television you feel tired.  Insight doesn’t necessarily lead to change – but it may be the first step to discovering your greater potential and peace of mind.

Originally posted 2025-11-16 09:17:51.

The post The Daily Examen – a helpful tool to promote clarity first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.

Pride: A Time for Celebration and Advocacy

As many communities across Canada prepare to celebrate Pride month the feeling of hope and resilience is palpable. Pride is a time to lift up our voices and to experience the joy of being together and acknowledging the journey toward wholeness and authenticity. It can also be a time for advocacy and indeed protest as we continue to proclaim and protect the rights of 2SLGBTQ+ people worldwide.

Inclusion in Hospice Palliative Care

Hospice Palliative Care also seeks to include all people in the effort to support individuals and families at end of life, and through bereavement. Historically many organizations have not included 2SLGBTQ persons in the circle of care, either through a misunderstanding of our needs or simply by not recognizing how to offer a welcoming and inclusive environment.

Understanding Grief in 2SLGBTQ+ Lives

Grief is the natural response to love and loss that we will all experience, each in our own manner throughout the lifetime. For a gay or transgendered person, the journey to self acceptance is often a tumultuous one. Although we now might take for granted the protection offered through the human rights act in Canada for 2SLGBTQ+ people, as recently as the 1990’s gay civil servants could be terminated if their sexual orientation was discovered. In 2017 a historic apology from the federal government was offered to those individuals whose lives and careers were destroyed as a result of laws and policies that were discriminatory and unjust.

The Emotional Toll of Marginalization

Norman Cousins who wrote extensively about the challenges of living with a life-limiting diagnosis once said, “Death is not the greatest loss in life; the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

Many 2SLGBTQ+ persons have experienced the pain of being different from a young age. Bullying, violence and isolation may have led us to believe that we were somehow flawed. As Alan Downs explores in his book, “The Velvet Rage” the tendency to hide our true selves is very strong. We may have learned to mask our true feelings and self, developing a public persona that we thought was acceptable to the outside world.

Barriers to Grief Expression

Early life experiences of isolation, trauma and fear that are common in the lives of many 2SLGBTQ+ individuals may lead to later challenges in the expression of grief when a loved one dies.

Grief is a unique experience for everyone and there is no right or wrong way to express our loss. Our North American culture may treat grief like an illness to be cured, or a problem that needs to be solved, packed up, and put away.

For queer persons there may often be a lack of support or an estrangement from family who are not accepting or understanding of their son, daughter or sibling. There might also be an inability to acknowledge the painful aspects of the loss due to the “masking” tendency developed as a survival strategy throughout life.

Creating Inclusive Grief Support

Healing through grief includes acceptance of ourselves as we are, and our unique expressions of emotions and struggle. While this may be more difficult for 2SLGBTQ+ persons, I believe that it is possible to find a way through. Educating and empowering organizations to support us in our experience of loss is a path forward. Too often well-meaning hospice and other community-based agencies have not fostered a culture of inclusiveness and belonging.

Service organizations can take meaningful steps to relieve unintentional barriers to care by:

• Honouring pronouns and fostering belonging through inclusive language.
• Adapting intake forms to reflect chosen names and preferred address.
• Displaying Pride flags and 2SLGBTQ+ symbols in visible spaces.
• Embedding inclusion in mission statements and values along with a non-discrimination policy.
• Offering queer-friendly services such as individual support and 2SLGBTQ+ grief circles.
• Training staff in community-specific needs and cultural competency.

A Path Forward

By prioritizing inclusivity, everyone – regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity – will know that they are welcomed and accepted and have found a place to honour their unique expression of grief. And, to receive support that may be an essential part of the healing journey.

Self acceptance, safety, and the positive regard of others in our life are essential ingredients for resilience and healing.

Originally posted 2025-06-27 13:22:59.

The post Grief and bereavement in the 2SLGBTQ+ community: exploring challenges and resilience first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.

Common misperceptions:

• You should move away from grief, not toward it
• The goal is to get over your grief
• Nobody can help you with your grief
• It takes about a year to get over a significant loss
• It’s better not to think or talk about the pain
• Grief has an end point

Truisms about Grief:

• Grief has no timetable
• The goal is to grieve well, not right
• Grief is not a linear process
• Others can help you, support is crucial
• Grief changes over time

As Lao Tzu said many centuries ago, “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”

Originally posted 2023-03-13 12:20:34.

The post Growing through Grief first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.

The authors write, “…practicing gratitude on top of receiving psychological counselling carries greater benefits than counselling alone, even when that gratitude practice is brief.”  The researchers also studied the brains of the students and found that this brief practice of gratitude positively influenced brain functioning.

So what are the implications of this study, and many others like it?  Finding a way to be grateful may be a powerful way to shift your mood and overall health.  Incorporating a gratitude practice into your daily life does not need to take a lot of time or effort and the payoff may be astounding.

Some ideas:

• Write letters to friends , family or even people you haven’t met expressing something about them that you are grateful for
• Make a list of things in your life that you are thankful for – these can be big things or small things
• Visualize the positive aspects or experiences in your day that make you feel good
• Express verbally your gratitude to others, or to yourself even
• And then…. observe what begins to change in your life 🙂

Originally posted 2023-02-19 12:20:10.

The post Being grateful promotes health and well-being first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.

This approach emphasizes making room for quiet in our daily life – something that most of us find difficult to do.  How can we truly “listen” enough to ourselves, our feelings, our passions, our disappointments and our joys?  There can be much wisdom and insight to be realized if we can nurture this part of ourselves.  We are used to looking for answers outside of ourselves.  Some ideas are as follows:

Find a time during your day when you won’t be disturbed and can sit comfortably on your own

Turn off all phones, screens, media

Gently bring your awareness to your breathing, simply following the rise and fall of each breath

When a distracting thought comes, simply return your focus to the breath

Sit quietly, without an agenda and notice what you feel in your body

Even five minutes a day is a good start, then return your focus to the room and carry on with your day

If you feel drawn to writing, you can record your experience – whatever it may be

Originally posted 2023-02-05 12:20:57.

The post Listening to the inner silence first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.

“Acknowledge the feeling, give it your full, compassionate, even welcoming attention, and even if it’s only for a few seconds, drop the story line about the feeling.  This allows you to have a direct experience of it, free of interpretation.  Don’t fuel it with concepts or opinions about whether it’s good or bad.  Just be present with the sensation.  Where is it located in your body? Does it remain the same for very long?  Does it shift and change?”
-P. Chodron, “Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change.”

Originally posted 2022-05-16 12:13:38.

The post Living is a form of not being sure first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.

Psychological flexibility also includes a willingness to be open to all emotions and reactions, even ones that are difficult or painful.  Life does sometimes involve painful loss and grief and trying to avoid these states may be more harmful than helpful.  Mindfulness and openness can be a vehicle to move through all states with acceptance and letting go.

Finally, psychological flexibility also involves the skill of valued engagement which means finding your purpose in life and actively living that purpose.  It may involve finding out what is really important to you – for example family, meaningful work, and working toward a goal that is uniquely yours.  In other words, having a reason to get up each morning and live your day.  It can be challenge to know what exactly that is in your life, finding a skilled therapist can assist you in uncovering

*S. Hayes, 2023

Originally posted 2025-11-16 09:13:20.

The post What are the ingredients for successful therapy? first appeared on Geoff Straw - Counselling.