Volunteers’ Week takes place 1 – 7 June every year. It’s a chance to celebrate and say thank you to all volunteers out there.  However, you might be forgiven for asking, ‘why do [...]

If you are reading this, you may have a counselling assessment coming up, or are thinking about reaching out to a counselling service and wondering what will come next. Either way, reaching out [...]

I’ve heard a lot about the ‘new normal’. It seems to be a bit of a catch all to encompass everything that is going on for us at the moment. All the uncertainty, anxiety, stress, worry and [...]

Rather aptly it seems, April is Stress Awareness month. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us are facing an incredible stressful and uncertain time. In this blog, we’ll take a look at [...]

Sharing my personal experience, knowledge and enthusiasm about how we can do more for people with this serious mental illness. I know how it feels to be extremely slim. Until my thirties I was [...]

Random Acts of Kindness day is on February 17th and here at Westmeria we are privileged to witness how acts of kindness can impact someone and their everyday life. Random Acts of Kindness began [...]

With the highs of Christmas activity starting earlier and earlier each year, and the fun of the festive season feeling like an ongoing period of celebrations, it is no wonder that January pales [...]

With Christmas approaching it is often met with very mixed emotions. Everyone ‘should’ be excited and ‘should’ be looking forward to the Christmas break. With that comes Great Expectations – from [...]

When we are faced with actual or perceived dangerous or threatening situations, our fight, flight or freeze stress response is activated. This unconscious defence mechanism enables us to [...]

Generally anxiety is a normal reaction and we need this to survive.  It only becomes a problem when it gets out of our control.  Learning to understand our body and our own normal range of [...]