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Parent or Predator? Untangling Love, Control, and the Path to Healing

28/9/2025

The relationship between parent and child is often idealised as one of unconditional love, safety, and care. But what happens when the person who was supposed to protect you becomes the one who hurts you?

When the hands that should have nurtured instead left scars, the confusion can run deep.

Abuse from a parent isn’t just painful it’s disorienting. The very person who shaped your sense of self also distorted it. You may be left asking: Was that really love? Or was it control, fear, and harm disguised as care?

One of the hardest truths to face is this: being a parent does not automatically mean being loving. Abuse doesn’t become less harmful just because it comes from someone who raised you. And love should never require the erasure of your boundaries, safety, or dignity.

They may have brought you into this world, shaped your earliest years, or even provided the basics of survival, but that does not mean they automatically earn the right to your love. Love is not a debt we owe, nor is it a duty bound to biology. True love is nurtured through care, safety, and respect. If a parent has caused harm, your choice to protect yourself, even if that means withholding your love is not cruelty; it is self-preservation. You get to decide who deserves a place in your heart, and no one, not even the people who made you, has the right to demand it.

Untangling love and abuse means recognising that both can’t coexist in the same breath. Love honours. Abuse diminishes. Love protects. Abuse exploits. If you grew up with a parent who blurred those lines, your healing may begin with naming the truth: what you experienced was not love.

From there, healing can look like reclaiming your boundaries, relearning what safe love feels like, and giving yourself permission to grieve what you didn’t receive. It might also mean cutting ties or creating distance not out of bitterness, but out of self-respect.

You are not obligated to love those who harmed you. You are not required to carry their choices as your burden. What you do deserve is love that uplifts, protects, and respects you. And that begins with the love you give yourself.

#ParentOrPredator #BreakingTheCycle #HealingFromAbuse #ChildhoodTrauma #ToxicParents #FamilyAbuseAwareness #YouAreNotAlone #CounsellingSupport #EmotionalHealing #SurvivorVoices #TraumaRecovery #BoundariesMatter #SelfCompassion #HealingJourney #ReclaimYourPower #MentalHealthAwareness #InnerStrength #ChoosingYourself #HealthyBoundaries #Listening2U #FamilyDynamics #HealingJourney #FindingYourVoice #HealthyBoundaries #SelfDiscovery #InnerHealing #YouAreEnough #BreakingPatterns #EmotionalWellbeing #ChoosingYourself #CounsellingSupport #PersonalGrowth #GentleHealing #SelfCompassion #ReclaimYourself #WellbeingJourney #Listening2U #LifeLessons #EmpoweredLiving #HealingTogether

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Chasing Rainbows: Finding Hope After the Storm

17/9/2025

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There’s something about a rainbow that stops us in our tracks.

It’s fleeting, fragile, and yet utterly captivating a splash of colour stretching across the sky, reminding us that even the heaviest of storms can give way to something beautiful.

In many ways, healing is like chasing rainbows.

The Storm
When life throws us into grief, trauma, or hardship, it can feel like the storm will never end. The clouds hang low, the rain pours down, and the weight of it all feels unrelenting. In these moments, hope can seem impossible. It’s easy to believe the light will never break through.

But storms are part of nature, just as struggles are part of being human. They don’t erase the possibility of brighter skies, they just make it harder to see them in the moment.

The Rainbow
Rainbows don’t happen without rain. The very thing that feels heavy and overwhelming is also what makes the rainbow possible. In the same way, our most difficult experiences often create space for growth, connection, and resilience.

Hope doesn’t mean denying pain or pretending everything is fine. It’s about trusting that something can come after. That the storm won’t last forever. That colours will return, even if they look different than before.

Chasing Hope
We may not be able to control when or how the rainbow appears, but we can choose to keep looking for it. Hope can be found in the smallest of places:

A kind word when you needed it most
A moment of laughter in the middle of tears
The courage to take one more step, even when it feels impossible

These small flashes of colour are reminders that light still exists.

After the Storm
When the rainbow finally comes into view, it doesn’t erase the storm that came before. The grief, pain, or struggle is still part of the story. But the rainbow reminds us that beauty and hardship can coexist—that life is never just one thing.

Healing doesn’t mean forgetting the storm. It means learning to carry its memory while still allowing ourselves to be open to colour, light, and new beginnings.

If you’re in the middle of a storm right now, hold on. Your rainbow may not be here yet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. And when it does, it will be all the more precious because of what you’ve endured.

#ChasingRainbows #FindingHope #HealingJourney #LifeAfterTheStorm #ResilienceBuilding #EmotionalHealing #TherapyReflections #CounsellingSupport #SelfCompassion #MentalHealthAwareness #GrowthAndHealing #HopeAfterHardship #WellbeingJourney #InnerStrength #Listening2U

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Fill Up Your Own Cup – and Let People Fall in Love with the Overflow

2/9/2025

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There’s a quiet kind of wisdom in this quote. So many of us spend our energy pouring into others - giving our time, care, support, attention - hoping to feel valued, connected, or simply enough. But over time, the cost of giving without replenishing becomes clear. We end up tired. Numb. Lost. Resentful. Empty.

And maybe, deep down, a little forgotten by ourselves.

But what if the starting point wasn’t others?

What if it was you?

Filling your own cup doesn’t mean being selfish or shutting the world out. It means tending to your needs before they become emergencies. It means listening to your body. Taking space when you need it. Saying no with kindness. Holding boundaries without apology. It means honouring yourself as a whole person - not just a source of help, care, or strength for someone else.

And here’s the beautiful part: when your cup is full, what flows out of you - your kindness, energy, love - is no longer draining. It’s generous and sustainable. It comes from a place of abundance, not depletion. You’re not giving from your survival—you’re sharing from your overflow.

This shift can change everything. In relationships. In work. In the way you speak to yourself. You stop needing people to validate your worth or meet every unmet need, because you’re showing up for yourself in a consistent, loving way.

And that overflow - the joy, the groundedness, the sense of peace you carry—becomes magnetic.

People aren’t drawn to the parts of you that hustle for belonging.

They fall in love with the part of you that already knows you belong.

Therapy can be a space where you reconnect with yourself, refill your cup, and begin to explore what it means to live from that overflow.

#SelfCareMatters #MindfulLiving #Boundaries #EmotionalWellbeing #HealingJourney #TherapyTools #PersonalGrowth #SelfLove #WellnessBlog #Listening2u

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From My Side of the Chair - Counselling Reflections by Listening 2 U

Welcome to From My Side of the Chair, a counselling and therapy blog written from the perspective of a counsellor and supervisor. I work integratively, with a strong foundation in the person-centred approach, and this space is where I share honest reflections on therapy, healing, and human connection.

Through these posts, I explore what I notice in the counselling room, what moves me, what challenges me, and what I continue to learn from the people I sit alongside. Each reflection offers insight into the therapeutic journey, seen through compassion, curiosity, and presence.

Whether you’re considering counselling, supporting someone who is, or simply seeking a moment of reflection, I hope these writings offer something that resonates. This is a space where being heard, seen, and understood matters because every ripple of healing begins with listening.

Thank you for visiting and for reading, from My Side Of The Chair.

Parent or Predator? Untangling Love, Control, and the Path to Healing

Chasing Rainbows: Finding Hope After the Storm

Fill Up Your Own Cup – and Let People Fall in Love with the Overflow

​From My Side of the Chair - Counselling Reflections by Listening 2 U

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From My Side of the Chair - Counselling Reflections by Listening 2 U