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One Word, Many Meanings
As humans, we are meaning-makers.
All day long, without even trying, we interpret the sounds, sights and sensations around us. A door closes. A text goes unanswered. Someone sighs in a meeting. We instinctively decide what it means.
And here’s the fascinating part: the meanings we create are often completely different from the meanings created by the person standing right next to us.
What one person hears as a door closing, another hears as someone leaving without saying goodbye.
Same sound. Different story.
The meanings we attach to events and objects shape our beliefs. They help to form them. They also reinforce them. We tend to look for evidence to support what we already believe — and we find it. Our brains are very good at that.
If I believe I’m not valued, I will notice every slight.
If I believe people can’t be trusted, I will collect proof.
If I believe I always get it wrong, I will find the mistakes.
But here’s where things get interesting.
When we pause and recognise that there may be another way to see something — when we allow ourselves to take a different perspective, to reframe a situation — something shifts. We move out of our problem-saturated space. Solutions become more visible. The grip of patterns like anxiety can loosen.
Not because we’re pretending everything is fine.
But because we’re widening the lens.
This week’s creative prompt is “tissue.”
When the word first came to me, I thought of coloured tissue paper — the kind you glue into bright collages. Then I thought about the tissues that make up our bodies — connective, protective, holding everything together. And then, of course, the humble box of tissues on my desk, ready for noses, faces and tears.
One word.
So many meanings.
The simple act of exploring how to depict tissue, use tissue, create something from tissue — it sparks possibility. It reminds me that meaning is flexible.
Now imagine applying that flexibility to your life.
Someone is rude to you. You could decide it means they don’t like you. That story might feel familiar. Maybe even convincing.
But what would someone else watching the encounter see?
Would they notice the person clutching their head with a headache?
Would they see the stress in their shoulders?
Could the sharpness in their tone be a sign of pain rather than dislike?
We rarely know the full story.
Reframing doesn’t mean excusing poor behaviour. It doesn’t mean abandoning boundaries. It simply means allowing for the possibility that our first interpretation isn’t the only one available.
And that small shift — from certainty to curiosity — can change everything.
Creativity isn’t only about art supplies and prompts. It’s also about how we interpret the world around us. When we loosen our grip on a single meaning, we create space. Space for compassion. Space for solutions. Space for calm.
So this week, play with “tissue” if you feel inclined. See what it evokes. Notice how many meanings it can hold.
And then gently ask yourself:
Where in my life might there be another meaning waiting to be discovered?
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
Finding Inner Peace: Calming the Busy Mind Through Awareness and Creativity
When I ask clients what they want to achieve, change, or seek, a common answer is peace. What’s interesting is that what peace looks like is different for each person—deeply personal, shaped by their own experiences and circumstances. The word peace gets bandied about in many contexts: the classic wish for world peace, the association with peace and quiet, the 1970s hippy expression “peace, man”… and so on.
For many clients, though, the peace they’re talking about is an inner quiet. It’s the ability to let go of busy thoughts, to soften the sense of overwhelm that comes from juggling too many perceived balls in the air, and from holding long mental lists of things they’re trying to remember. In this context, peace is really about being able to guide your thoughts—focusing on what genuinely needs your attention, while allowing the rest to gently slide away. Peace means calming the brain.
Over the past week or so, I’ve been sharing short clips on Instagram that invite the viewer to pause for a moment. Stopping to observe something in your everyday surroundings—stepping outside to notice the wind moving through the grass, a rabbit nibbling on a leaf, or ants busily scurrying about—can help clear the mind, create a sense of peace, and allow you to breathe out. I encourage you to test it out. Find something you can observe, even for just 20 seconds, and notice how becoming absorbed in a small detail can begin to clear the busyness of your mind. (I can also confirm that wandering outside to capture these moments on film is delightfully soothing!)
The prompt for this week’s creative practice, as part of the #navigatingcreativity series, is Peace. Whether you use it as inspiration to draw, paint, compose, write, dream, or photograph, I invite you to enjoy using your brain creatively—supporting neuroplasticity, taking time for yourself, and finding your own version of peace.
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
When You Feel Stuck: Rewiring Patterns Through Awareness and Creativity
Clients often come to see me when they feel stuck. That sense of being stuck shows up differently for everyone, but it tends to share some common threads: feeling unable to change, struggling to move out of patterns that are harmful—or at the very least, not helpful.
At the core of so many of these experiences is the belief that we can’t change. This belief often develops through a kind of mis-wiring along the way. When we start to believe that we can’t shift our perception, change our patterns, or even let go of certain thoughts, it usually comes from the mistaken idea that we have no control over our thoughts and feelings.
One of the most effective ways to reconnect with our capacity to change is to test it out—and create proof for ourselves that change is possible. A simple task I often suggest is choosing what you will notice each day.
If you feel stuck in a negative mindset, you might intentionally notice three positive things during the day. If anxiety feels like a constant companion, you might look for three moments when anxiety isn’t present. That could be a feeling of contentment, delight, or feeling valued—whatever fits. When you deliberately set out to notice something, you’re far more likely to see it than when you tell yourself it never happens.
So, what can you set out to see today?
Another way to support our ability to change is by engaging the brain creatively. This week, I’m adding the prompt ‘water’ to the #navigatingcreativity program. How might you explore this creatively? Will you write a poem, draw a picture, take a photo, create a water scene, or even sculpt using water?
The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Enjoy the process—and take a moment to admire whatever you create.
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
Coffee, Creativity and the Curious Brain
Last week, I floated the idea of using our brain in a creative way to support neuroplasticity — helping to maintain the adaptability of our brain, our mindset, and our perception. I shared the first prompt: green.
It sparked ideas, opened up conversations, and even led to some creative output. I picked up coloured pencils and played with drawing a potted plant, and felt that quiet joy that comes from mixing colours, noticing details, and exploring ideas without an agenda.
This week’s prompt is coffee — whether that’s the colour, the beverage, or even the plant. How might you use this prompt to be creative? A poem, a picture, a cake…?
If you feel inspired, please share and use #navigatingcreativity so we can enjoy the process of creating and using our brains together.
This idea of allowing time for creativity has sparked some interesting conversations. Some people see creative time as non-productive, while others see it as essential. Some experience it as hard because the outcome isn’t what they hoped for; others see it as an opportunity to learn, experiment, and grow.
Ultimately, it comes down to the meaning we attach to the time, the process, and the product. How might you reframe this and take a different perspective? And what could that shift mean for you?
Wonderful questions to sit with.
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
An Invitation to Adapt, Create and Change
Regular creative practice increases our brain’s ability to change and enhances our mental health.
Small Shifts, Big Change: Moving Towards a Calmer State of Mind
Part of creating change in your life begins with awareness — noticing what’s happening in your thoughts, feelings, and body, and then deciding whether that reaction is valid and useful. Sometimes our initial thoughts or responses don’t serve us very well. When that’s the case, the next step is to consider what would be more helpful instead.
Ask yourself: What state do I want to be in? What step do I want to be taking? What thought would I rather be having right now? Once you’ve identified where you’d like to be, the focus becomes how to gently move yourself in that direction.
There are many ways to shift your state, but one simple and effective approach is a self check-in. Take a moment to notice what’s happening for you physically and mentally. Then, start making small, deliberate adjustments that move you closer to how you’d like to feel.
For example, if you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed and want to move toward a sense of calm neutrality, start with your body. Notice your shoulders — are they tense or lifted? Try wriggling them and letting them drop. Notice your breathing — is it shallow? Take a few slow, deep breaths. Maybe your posture is slumped; sit up a little taller. Picture what “neutral calm” might look and feel like for you, and allow your body to settle into that position. Each of these small shifts is a step away from tension and a step towards balance.
Another helpful strategy is to write your thoughts down. You might note what you don’t like about your current state and what draws you toward the state you’d prefer. I remember once writing that I felt like a failure but wanted to feel empowered — and simply writing those words helped me create some distance from the feeling. It gave me the space to reflect and realise that I hadn’t failed at all — I was just stuck in an unhelpful frame of mind.
You might choose to do a full body scan, noticing how each part of you feels, or just a quick all-over check-in. However you approach it, the goal is the same: small changes that lead to a big difference. These simple acts help you shift gently towards the path you want to be on — the one that leads you forward.
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
How to Ease Stress and Anxiety by Noticing Life’s Little Delights
In our constant search for happiness – something social media often tells us we should be chasing – it’s easy to forget that a good life is made up of a full range of emotions. Happiness is beautiful, but it feels even richer when it follows sadness. Calm is nourishing, but we often appreciate it most after stress. Real life is a mix of highs, lows, in-betweens, and many pleasantly ordinary moments in between.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or worn down, that search for happiness can feel completely out of reach. Our minds tend to filter what we notice: when we tell ourselves we’re stressed, we find endless signs to confirm it. So how do we begin to turn this around?
One simple step is to start looking for microdoses of delight, wonder, or awe. It might be pausing to watch a bee collect nectar, noticing a dog stretching into the patch of sun on the carpet, or spotting the first buds appearing in the garden. Small, fleeting things — yet powerful reminders that joy is still threaded through the day.
If you set yourself a gentle goal to notice just one or two of these moments each day, you begin to balance out the negative messages of stress and overwhelm. You train your brain to see beyond the weight of what feels hard. Recording them – with a quick note, a photo, or even a mental bookmark – can give you a pause, a recharge, a moment of breathing space.
This doesn’t take away life’s difficulties, but it does loosen the grip of those heavy emotions. It reminds you that you’re not always stressed, and helps break the cycle of feeling stuck in those unhelpful patterns.
So, how will you look for your microdoses of delight today?
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence. If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
Lift Your Gaze: A Simple Strategy to Calm Anxiety and Interrupt Overwhelm
When anxiety strikes, it often feels like it takes over everything—your mind, your body, even your breath. It can be like falling into a well-rehearsed script that your body and brain know all too well. But what if you could interrupt that script with a simple, physical shift?
One surprisingly powerful way to do just that is this: lift your gaze above the horizon.
Yes, something as small as where you direct your eyes can help change how you feel in the moment. This simple movement is more than a mindfulness trick. It’s grounded in principles from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a therapeutic approach that explores how our thoughts, behaviours, and body language all interconnect.
Let me explain why it works—and how you can use it.
How Anxiety Becomes a Pattern
When we feel anxious or overwhelmed, it’s often because our mind has recognised a familiar trigger and set off a series of automatic responses. These might include shallow breathing, racing thoughts, tension in the chest or shoulders, and a visual focus that drops downward—towards the ground, our feet, or a blank stare inward.
Over time, this becomes a well-trodden neural pathway. Your brain learns that when X happens, we react with Y. You don’t have to think about it anymore—your system just goes there.
But here’s the empowering part: we can interrupt that pattern.
The Power of Physiology
NLP recognises that how we use our body shapes how we feel. The link between physiology and emotion isn’t one-way. It’s a feedback loop. That means if you change your posture, your breath, or even where your eyes are looking, you can send a different signal back to your brain—and that signal can help break the anxiety cycle.
Lifting your gaze is one of those “pattern interrupts.”
Think about the last time you were deep in anxious thought. Chances are your vision narrowed or dropped. Now imagine doing the opposite:
- Raise your eyes.
- Look up and out—ideally above the horizon.
- Take in a broader view of your surroundings.
This action cues your nervous system that you’re safe, aware, and not under immediate threat. It’s not just symbolic—it changes the actual feedback your brain receives.
What Happens When You Look Up?
In NLP, looking upwards is often associated with visual processing, which typically engages the part of the brain used for imagination and creativity. In contrast, looking down tends to lead us inward, often into the emotional (kinaesthetic) or critical (internal dialogue) states that feed overwhelm.
By changing your eye direction, you disrupt the emotional momentum. You step out of the trance of anxiety and into a more neutral—or even resourceful—state.
A Simple Practice to Try
You can use this technique anytime, anywhere. Here’s how:
- Pause – When you notice anxiety creeping in, or your thoughts racing, stop for a moment.
- Breathe – Take a slow breath in through your nose, and exhale fully.
- Lift Your Gaze – Gently raise your eyes above the horizon. Look at a tree, the sky, a point on the wall—something neutral or calming.
- Stay Present – Allow yourself to really see your surroundings. Let your awareness widen. Notice details without judgement.
- Notice the Shift – You may feel an immediate difference. The thoughts might slow. Your chest may feel less tight. There’s space again.
Why This Matters
Clients I work with often describe anxiety as something that “just happens” to them. But part of our work together is about recognising that we can shift our experience. Not by force or suppression, but by using tools like this one to interrupt old patterns.
Lifting your gaze is one small move in a bigger toolbox. It’s not about pretending everything is fine. It’s about giving your brain and body a new message—one that creates a circuit breaker for the spiral.
Ready to Change the Way You Relate to Anxiety?
This is just one of the many tools I share with clients who are learning to respond differently to anxiety and overwhelm. Hypnotherapy and strategic psychotherapy can help you not only manage symptoms, but unlearn the patterns that keep you stuck—so you can create new ones that support calm, confidence, and clarity.
If you’d like support interrupting your own anxious patterns and finding a better way forward, I offer a free 20-minute consultation. You can book online here.
Quick Body Scan: A Simple Path to Calm
The concept of ‘body scan’ is a simple but effective tool that can help you to connect with the present and calm your mind. When used effectively it can amount to a form of meditation, but it is so convenient and easy to do that we can use it in many situations where we might not normally think that meditation will work.
When your mind is in overdrive, overwhelm, or over-anything, having a simple technique to reconnect yourself with the present and move past your feeling of ‘stuckness’ is useful. This is often referred to as ‘grounding’, and can help to calm and clear your mind. The body scan technique may help you to do this.
The simple goal of scanning your body in this exercise is to focus on the physical sensations throughout the body, bringing awareness to the present moment. The purpose of body scanning is not to change or improve any feeling, but instead to simply notice the sensations. It is a technique that doesn’t require any additional tools as it uses your most accessible tool, your own body.
What is body scan?
You might think of a body scan as a mental X-ray slowly traveling up or down your body, observing each part of your body as you go. Some people include the concept of isometric exercises, which involves imagining tensing and releasing each muscle group as you scan it. This can add another dimension to the exercise and help to shift it into a truly meditative state.
I have included two different versions here – the first is the ‘quick, on-the-go’ version that you can use anywhere, anytime to bring yourself back to a grounded state. The second is the more detailed version for meditation and relaxing. Let me know if you use either or both and how you find them!
Quick on-the-go version
When to use:
– When you need to calm your mind, distract yourself from unhelpful thoughts, or break a thought pattern and create room for a new one.
Where to use:
– anywhere you can take a few moments to focus on yourself and your body safely
How to use:
- Be aware of your surroundings. Take note of where you are and what is in your surroundings. If you can move to a place to sit or stand safely out of the way, then this is ideal.
- Breathe. Take a deep cleansing breath, to centre yourself. If you can do a round or two of box breathing, do this. Whether you close your eyes or not is up to you.
- Choose where to start. I recommend beginning at the feet and moving up through your body, but you might like to start at your head and move down – it is your choice where you begin. Focus on the first spot as you continue breathing slowly and deeply.
- Be aware. Open your awareness to the sensations attached to that part of your body, and notice how it feels. You might imagine the sensation of tensing and releasing that part of your body and notice how that feels. You could spend 10 seconds or 60 seconds focused on that part of your body – it is up to you.
- Release. Release your awareness of that part of your body and move it to your next area of focus.
- Moving through the exercise. Continue the exercise along, up or down your body in a way that makes sense to you, whether you move from bottom to top, top to bottom or up one side and down the other.
- Breathe. When you reach the point that you are feeling calm and able to move to the next strategy, activity or part of your day, repeat a deep, cleansing breath (or another round of box breathing) to help continue to the calm.
Body scan as meditation.
When to use:
- When you want to create a calm state before you start the day, or when you are ending the day.
- When you need to calm your mind, distract yourself from unhelpful thoughts, break a thought pattern and create room for a new one.
- When you are looking to meditate and clear your mind.
Where to use:
– anywhere you can safely sit or lie calmly for 10 minutes or more, uninterrupted and comfortably, with your eyes closed.
How to use:
- Get comfortable. Lie down or sit in a position that allows you to stretch your limbs easily.
- Focus. Close your eyes and begin focusing on your breath. Notice the sensation of your breath filling and leaving your lungs as you inhale and exhale. You could do a few rounds of box breathing to start the process.
- Choose where to start. I recommend beginning at the feet and moving up through your body, but you might like to start at your head and move down – it is your choice where you begin. Focus on the first spot as you continue breathing slowly and deeply. In choosing the part of your body to focus on you might choose to be as detailed or as general as suits you. For example, you might choose to think of your toes as a whole, or to focus on each toe individually.
- Be aware. Open your awareness to the sensations attached to that part of your body, and notice how it feels. You might imagine the sensation of tensing and releasing that part of your body and notice how that feels. You might choose to actually tense and release that part of your body. You could spend 10 seconds or 60 seconds focused on that part of your body – it is up to you.
- Release. Slowly release your mental awareness of that specific part of your body and redirect it to your next area of focus. Some people find it helpful to imagine releasing one body part as they breathe out and moving on to the next as they breathe in.
- Move along. Continue the exercise along, up or down your body in a way that makes sense to you, whether you move from top to bottom or up one side and down the other.
- Note drifting thoughts. As you continue to scan your body, note when your thoughts drift. This will probably happen more than once, so don’t worry. You haven’t failed and can easily get your thoughts back on track. Just gently return your awareness to where you left off scanning.
- Return. When you have completed the scan of your body, allow yourself to slowly release your focus and bring your attention back to your surroundings.
Final Thoughts
Body scanning is a simple yet powerful technique that helps bring awareness to the present moment, offering a sense of calm and clarity. Whether you use it as a quick reset during the day or as part of a longer meditation practice, it can be a valuable tool for breaking unhelpful thought patterns and creating space for a more relaxed and focused mind. Try incorporating it into your routine and see how it helps you feel more grounded and at ease. If you want to watch a video explaining how it works, you will find one here.
How to Use Box Breathing to Calm Your Mind
How many times when you are feeling stressed do you hear someone say ‘just breathe’? If you are like me your automatic response might be ‘I AM breathing!!!’ However, different patterns of breathing can impact you in ways that aren’t always obvious at first! Box Breathing is a tool you can use anytime, anywhere, to lower your stress, connect with your calm, and break the patterns of overwhelm. It is portable, convenient and practical!
Why does breathing help us to calm our body and mind?
When we are stressed we tend to tense up, take shallow breaths, lift our shoulders, tense our muscles slightly, and start the unhelpful thought patterns that disconnect our logical brain from our emotional brain. This can activate the part of our brain that creates a fight or flight response. By slowing our breathing, focusing on deeper breaths, and counting at the same time, we can shift from that automatic pattern of tension and stress and connect with our parasympathetic nervous system. This means that we may reconnect with our logic, and give ourselves time to think of different strategies to help manage the situation. The very fact that we are counting creates a mini-meditation and a break from the whirling thoughts in our mind.
How does Box Breathing work?
Box Breathing is called that because a box shape has 4 sides. (This technique is also known as square breathing, 4-4-4 breathing and other names for that reason!)
The process is that you:
1. Slowly breathe out over 4 seconds
2. Wait for 4 seconds
3. Slowly take a deep breath over 4 seconds
4. Hold that breath for 4 seconds
5. Repeat the process 1 – 3 times
Additional tips
To build your practice of box breathing you might also do one, some or all of these steps:
- Look for a quiet space to sit uninterrupted
- Close your eyes
- Place a hand on your chest to feel the breath rise and fall
- Practice 5 minutes of box-breathing each morning before you start your day
Summary
Box breathing is a tool that can be used to calm yourself down when experiencing moments of stress, anger, frustration or anxiety. It is also a technique that you can practice to enhance moments of calm, building your ability to use it for the times when you might need it. And if you prefer to learn by watching – here is a video of me explaining the technique! Youtube
