Amanda
McFarlane

Psychotherapist

Untangling the Mind

Understand your patterns.

Untangle your story.

Reconnect with yourself.

Therapy for people who are tired of surviving and ready to start understanding themselves.

Book your first session with me today.

Why am I like this?

Maybe you've asked yourself this question more times than you can count.

Why do I overthink everything?

Why do I always put everyone else first?

Why do I struggle to slow down without feeling guilty?

Why do I keep repeating the same patterns in my relationships?

Why does life feel so exhausting when, from the outside, it looks like I have everything together?

These aren't questions of weakness, they're questions of understanding.

Because beneath every pattern is a story.

And beneath every story is a person who learnt, often without realising it, how to adapt to the world around them.

At Untangling the Mind, I believe many of the behaviours we criticise in ourselves today were once intelligent ways of staying safe.

People-pleasing. Hyper-independence. Perfectionism. Overthinking.

Always being the strong one.

These aren't character flaws, they're adaptions; they helped you survive.

Therapy isn't about getting rid of these parts of yourself.

It's about understanding where they came from, gently untangling the patterns that no longer serve you, and reconnecting with the person you've always been beneath them.

Hi, I'm Amanda.
Shamelessly human first, therapist second.

I believe there is a story behind every behaviour.

My work isn't about diagnosing people or asking, "What's wrong with you?"

Instead, I believe healing begins with a far more compassionate question;

"What happened that made this make sense?"

Because every behaviour has a purpose, every survival strategy tells a story.

When we begin understanding ourselves through curiosity rather than judgement, something starts to shift. The parts of ourselves we've spent years fighting suddenly begin to make sense.

And when something makes sense, it no longer feels like something we need to be ashamed of.

My role isn't to 'fix you'. It's to walk beside you as we gently untangle the experiences, beliefs, and patterns that have shaped the way you move through the world -- so you can reconnect with yourself with greater clarity, self-compassion, and choice.

The Untangling Method™

The name Untangling the Mind came from a simple image.

Imagine a tangled ball of cotton.

At first glance, it feels impossible to unravel. You could pull harder, become frustrated, convince yourself it's beyond repair.

OR you could slow down, become curious, and patiently follow one thread at a time.

Our inner world often works the same way. Therapy isn't about pulling harder, it's about making sense of the threads.

Together, we'll gently untangle the experiences, beliefs, emotions and survival strategies that no longer fit the life you want to live.

Because understanding creates the possibility for lasting change.

You might feel at home here if...

You are the one everyone relies on, yet secretly feel exhausted from carrying so much.

You find it easier to care for others than to receive care yourself.
You replay conversations in your mind long after they've ended.

You struggle to rest without feeling guilty or unproductive.

You appear capable on the outside but feel overwhelmed on the inside.

You don't necessarily want more coping strategies.

You want to understand why you feel the way you do.

And perhaps, more than anything...

You want to feel like yourself again.

If you're quietly nodding as you read this, you're in the right place.

Things I believe

I believe curiosity changes more than criticism ever will.

I believe your behaviours make sense when we understand your story.

I believe healings isn't about becoming someone new - it's about reconnecting with who you've always been.

I believe we spend too much of our lives asking "What's wrong with me?" and not enough time asking, "what happened to me?"

I believe life is too precious to spend it disconnected from yourself.

Life is more than survival.

Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped living and started surviving.

We became who we needed to be to feel safe.

Helpful.

Capable.

Independent.

Easy to love.

Those parts deserve compassion, they protected you.

But life isn't meant to be lived from survival alone. It's meant to be experienced. To laugh until your stomach hurts, to hear music that gives you goosebumps, to notice the people you love, to stand by the ocean and feel completely present, to feel deeply connected to yourself and the life you're living.

Therapy isn't about becoming someone new. It's about gently uncovering the parts of yourself that survival asked you to hide.

Begin your untangling.

You don't have to wait until everything falls apart before reaching out. You don't have to 'earn' the right to be supported. You simply have to be willing to begin. If you're ready to understand yourself with greater compassion and reconnect with the life you want to live, I'd be honours to walk alongside you.

Book your first session today.

Sometimes the greatest change doesn't begin when we try to become someone new. It begins when we finally understand the person we've been all along.

Services

When you’re overwhelmed, your brain doesn’t necessarily need you to work harder. It needs you to make the problem smaller.

When we experience stress or perceived threat, our brain can become more focused on danger, urgency and everything that could go wrong. That can make a long to-do list feel like one enormous, impossible problem.

The tiny shift in language can move you from feeling consumed by the problem to engaging your brain’s problem-solving systems.

Your amygdala helps detect threat and emotional significance, while your prefrontal cortex plays an important role in planning, decision-making and regulating responses.

So instead of: “Why is this so overwhelming?”

Try: “What is the next thing I need to do?”

You’re shifting your attention from the entire mountain to the next foothold, and that matters. Because problem-solving, planning and decision-making are harder when we’re caught in an overwhelm loop.

Breaking something into smaller, manageable steps can reduce the sense of threat and give your brain something concrete to work with.

You don’t have to solve your whole life today - you don’t even have to know the whole plan. Find the next step and then take that one.

Your brain learns through repetition — and every time you practise responding to overwhelm with a manageable action rather than spiralling, you’re practising a different pattern.

Overwhelm says: “Everything needs to be solved.”
Regulation says: “What needs my attention right now?”

Save this for the next time your brain feels like it has 47 tabs open. 🧠

#anxietytools #anxietyrelief #nervoussystemregulation #mentalhealthtips #therapytips

Sometimes the things you’re trying hardest to change are the things that once helped you survive.

Hyper-independence may have protected you from disappointment.

People pleasing may have helped you avoid conflict.

Overworking may have given you a sense of control.

Staying busy may have kept you from feeling.

Your nervous system doesn’t develop these patterns for no reason. But something can be protective and limiting at the same time. Healing isn’t about hating the version of you who developed these strategies.

It’s about understanding you. And gently showing yourself that you don’t have to live that way anymore. You can thank the coping mechanism without letting it run your life.

Father’s Day can hold so many truths at once.
For some, it’s celebration and for others, it’s grief, longing, estrangement, heartbreak, hope, love that has nowhere to go.
Today can stir the nervous system in quiet ways- through memories, comparison, absence, pressure, or the ache of what never was/what was.
So if this day feels heavy, complicated, tender, or activating for you... you are not alone in that experience.
Be gentle with yourself today.
You do not need to force gratitude, joy, or perform okay-ness to make others comfortable.
Sometimes healing looks like allowing your experience to exist without minimising it.
Holding space today for:
- ��those grieving fathers or children
- ��those estranged from family
- ��those fathering while exhausted
- ��those becoming fathers
- ��and those learning to reparent themselves in the absence of what they needed
Whatever today brings up for you, may you meet yourself with softness instead of judgment #father #fathersday #grief
#sadness #anxiety

Hello wonderful people! I am currently out of office from Sunday August 23rd to Monday August 31st for a little holiday to recharge. I will respond to any inbox messages or emails upon my return ✨🫶🏻

Two siblings can grow up under the same roof and walk away with completely different survival strategies.

One becomes fixer, hyper-responsible, helpful, and constantly scanning for problems to solve.
One becomes the one who learns to disappear, staying quiet or withdrawing, becoming as low maintenance as possible.

Neither is necessarily “the stronger one.”

They simply adapted differently to what was happening around them. And these adaptations can follow us into adulthood.

The fixer may struggle to rest without feeling guilty.

The one who disappeared may struggle to ask for help.

The independent one may confuse needing someone with being a burden.

The peacemaker may feel responsible for keeping everyone happy.

Healing isn’t about judging the version of you who learned these things.

It’s about understanding why they made sense then — and deciding whether they still serve you now.

Same childhood doesn’t always create the same wound.
Neither child chose these roles. They were ways of trying to survive what they couldn’t control.

Growth rarely begins with comfort. More often, it begins with a truth we’d rather avoid.

Our brains are wired to seek familiarity, not fulfilment. Your nervous system’s primary job isn’t to help you live your biggest, boldest life—it’s to keep you alive. That means it will often choose what feels predictable over what helps you grow.

That’s why fear can feel so convincing. It whispers, “Stay where it’s safe.”

But sometimes “safe” simply means familiar.The familiar job that leaves you drained. The familiar relationship where you silence yourself. The familiar patterns of people-pleasing, perfectionism, overthinking, or hyper-independence.

Not because they’re good for you...But because your nervous system already knows how to survive them.

Healing often asks us to tolerate the discomfort of doing something different before it starts to feel natural.

To have the hard conversation. To set the boundary. To ask for help. To rest without earning it. To choose yourself, even when guilt shows up.

None of those things feel comfortable at first. But discomfort isn’t always a sign you’re making the wrong choice.

Sometimes it’s a sign you’re making a new one.

The goal isn’t to eliminate fear. The goal is to stop letting fear be the author of your life.

Because one day, you’ll realise the greatest risk wasn’t failing. It was waiting for confidence before you gave yourself permission to live.

✨ Which truth made you stop scrolling? Let me know in the comments.

There’s a strange thing about time: We’re always waiting for the right moment.

When work settles down, when we feel more confident, when we have more money, when we’ve healed enough, when life feels a little less complicated.

But while we’re waiting for the “right time,” time is still passing. The version of you who keeps saying “one day” is still living today.

Stop waiting for permission from a future version of yourself. You don’t need to have your whole life figured out before you start changing it.

You can make the appointment.
Set the boundary.
End the relationship.
Take the trip.
Leave what no longer fits.
Start the thing you keep putting off.
Choose yourself a little more intentionally.

Because one day, you’re going to look back and realise that the life you were waiting to start…was already happening.

You don’t need a perfect life to begin living it. You just need to begin.

Because one day is not a date on the calendar.
It’s a decision.🤍

#nervoussystemregulation #selfgrowth #selfdevelopment #healingjourney #healing

What a privilege it is waking up to another day waiting for you ✨ #grateful #gratitude #mindfulness

Your nervous system isn’t only shaped by the big moments.

It’s shaped by the hundreds of tiny moments that teach your body whether it is safe to soften or whether it needs to stay switched on.

When you constantly rush…
When you say “yes” instead of “no”…
When you carry emotions that don’t belong to you…
When rest feels uncomfortable…
When your worth depends on how much you achieve…

Your body receives the same message: “Stay alert, stay useful, stay prepared.”

Over time, this can become your baseline. You might describe yourself as “just stressed” or “just busy,” when in reality your nervous system has forgotten what genuine safety feels like.

Healing isn’t only about processing the past. It’s also about noticing the everyday habits that keep your body believing the danger is still here.

Small changes repeated consistently are often far more regulating than dramatic ones.

✨ Which nervous system drainer do you notice most in yourself?

We live in a world that celebrates independence.

We admire the person who never asks for help, handles everything alone, never leans on anyone, and seems to have it all together.

But in the therapy room, I’ve learnt something different.
Sometimes what looks like strength is actually protection.

Hyper-independence often develops when depending on others didn’t feel safe.

Maybe your needs were dismissed. Maybe asking for help led to criticism, disappointment, rejection, or inconsistency.

Maybe you learnt early that being “low maintenance” kept the peace, or that the only person you could truly rely on was yourself.

So your nervous system adapted.

“Don’t ask.”

“Don’t need.”

“Don’t rely on anyone.”

Those beliefs can become so familiar that they feel like your personality.

But there’s an important difference between healthy independence and survival independence.

Healthy independence says,
“I know I can do this on my own, and I also know it’s okay to lean on others.”

Survival independence says,
“I have to do this alone, because depending on people doesn’t feel safe.”

The goal of healing isn’t to become dependent on others. It’s to have choice. To know you are capable on your own, while also allowing yourself to receive support, trust safe people, and let someone sit beside you when life feels heavy.

Because real strength isn’t measured by how much you can carry alone. Sometimes it’s measured by whether your nervous system believes it’s safe to let someone help carry it with you.

We often assume we’re burnt out because we’re doing too much.

But sometimes we’re burnt out because we’re taking in too much.

Your brain is processing far more than your ancestors ever had to. Notifications, news, podcasts, emails, texts, social media, music, streaming, endless opinions. Even the content that’s meant to “help” you is still asking your nervous system to process something.

Our minds were never designed to be switched on every waking moment.

When your nervous system doesn’t have space to integrate what it’s already holding, it can begin to feel like:
• Mental fog
• Difficulty concentrating
• Emotional numbness
• Irritability
• Feeling overwhelmed by small things
• Trouble switching off at night

Rest isn’t always about sleep.

Sometimes it’s about reducing the amount of information you’re asking your brain to carry.

Take a walk without headphones.
Drive without a podcast.
Sit outside for five minutes without reaching for your phone.

Boredom isn’t a problem to solve.

It’s often the space where your nervous system finally gets a chance to exhale.

🤍 What’s one source of noise you could let go of today?

When people hear the word hypervigilance, they often imagine someone who is constantly anxious or on edge.But hypervigilance can be much quieter than that.

It can look like always planning three steps ahead. Overthinking every conversation. Finding it hard to relax, even when nothing is wrong. Feeling disconnected from your emotions. Or saying, “I just don’t feel much anymore.”

Here’s why. Your nervous system has limited capacity.

If most of your energy is being spent scanning for what could go wrong, there isn’t much left for fully experiencing what’s going right.

Hypervigilance doesn’t just dampen difficult emotions like sadness, anger, or fear. It often dampens joy, wonder, connection, excitement, contentment.

Not because you’re incapable of feeling them.
But because your brain has prioritised survival over experience.

This is why many people who have lived through chronic stress, trauma, or emotionally unpredictable environments describe feeling “flat.” It’s not that they’ve lost the ability to feel. It’s that their nervous system has become exceptionally skilled at staying alert.

The beautiful thing about healing is that you don’t have to force yourself to “feel more.”

As your nervous system begins to experience safety more consistently, emotions naturally become more accessible.

You don’t just reconnect with the difficult parts of yourself. You reconnect with the joyful ones too. Because healing isn’t only about reducing anxiety. It’s about expanding your capacity to fully experience your life.

People often praise hyper-independence.

“You’ve got it all together.”
“You’re so strong.”
“You never need anyone.”

But what if that independence wasn’t a personality trait?

What if it was a survival response?

Many people who grew up with inconsistent caregiving, emotional neglect or environments where their needs weren’t reliably met learned one powerful lesson: Don’t depend on anyone.

So they became the helper, the achiever, the one who never asked for anything, the one who carried everything alone.

From the outside, it looks like confidence. Inside, it can feel exhausting.

True healing isn’t becoming less capable.

It’s discovering that your worth isn’t measured by how much you can carry alone. It’s allowing yourself to receive support without feeling guilty, ask for help without feeling weak, and trust that connection doesn’t have to cost you your safety.

Because the opposite of trauma isn’t independence. It’s safe connection.

One of the biggest misconceptions about attachment is that secure adults were raised by parents who never got it wrong.

They weren’t.

Every parent misses cues, loses patience, misunderstands, or responds imperfectly at times. Ruptures are an inevitable part of every relationship.

The difference is what happened next.

Did someone come back to explain? To apologise? To comfort? To help make sense of what happened?

Repair is where a child learns that conflict doesn’t automatically mean abandonment. That emotions don’t have to threaten connection. That relationships can bend without breaking.

When repair is absent, a child doesn’t just remember the painful moment. Their nervous system begins to build beliefs about relationships:

“My needs are too much.”

“If someone is upset with me, I’ll lose them.”

“Love disappears when I make mistakes.”

“I have to keep everyone happy to stay connected.”

These beliefs don’t stay in childhood. They often become the invisible blueprint we carry into adulthood.

You might find yourself over-explaining after conflict, avoiding difficult conversations, becoming hyper-independent, shutting down emotionally, people-pleasing, chasing reassurance, or expecting rejection before it happens.

These aren’t character flaws. They’re adaptive strategies that once helped you preserve connection.

The good news is that attachment patterns are learnt, and what is learnt can also be healed.

Healing isn’t about finding someone who never hurts you.

It’s about experiencing relationships where repair is possible—where both people can acknowledge hurt, take responsibility, reconnect, and remind each other’s nervous systems that conflict doesn’t have to mean the end of connection.

Because secure relationships aren’t built on perfection. They’re built on repair.

Which of these beliefs did you unknowingly carry into adulthood?

#psychology #attachment #healing #anxiety #emotions

Survival mode isn’t a personality trait, it’s a nervous system adaptation.

When you’ve experienced chronic stress, trauma, or unpredictability, your brain becomes focused on one primary goal: keeping you safe. It learns to scan for danger, stay prepared for the worst, and minimise emotional risk.

The challenge is that your nervous system doesn’t always distinguish between unsafe and unfamiliar.

Receiving love without expecting it to disappear. Resting without feeling guilty. Feeling calm instead of constantly alert. Trusting that things can be okay.

These experiences can feel just as uncomfortable as the situations you’re trying to leave behind because they don’t match what your body has learned to expect.

Healing isn’t about forcing yourself to “think positively.” It’s about gently teaching your nervous system that safety is something you can experience—not just something you have to fight for.

Over time, you don’t just become better at surviving. You become more available for joy, connection, and a life that feels lived rather than endured.

🤍 What feels unfamiliar often isn’t dangerous—it’s simply new.

“Your nervous system will often choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.”

Not because it enjoys suffering, but because it prioritises what feels predictable.

If you grew up around criticism, chaos, emotional unavailability, or having to earn love and acceptance, those experiences may become what your nervous system recognises as “normal.”

As a result, healthy relationships can feel uncomfortable. Rest can feel lazy, peace can feel boring, being treated well can feel suspicious.

The nervous system is not always asking, “Is this good for me?”. More often, it’s asking, “does this feel familiar?”

Healing involves gently teaching your mind and body that safety doesn’t have to feel familiar to be real.

The life you want may initially feel uncomfortable—not because it’s wrong, but because it’s different.

Growth often begins when we learn to tolerate the discomfort of something healthier than what we’ve known before.

What feels unfamiliar but healthy in your life right now?

Many people learnt early in life that being useful was the safest way to belong.

They became the helper, the problem-solver, the reliable one. The person who carried more than their share, asked for little, and rarely caused trouble.

Over time, this can become more than a behaviour—it becomes a nervous system pattern.

When safety has been linked to performance, rest can feel uncomfortable. Receiving support can feel vulnerable. Letting others help can feel unfamiliar, or even unsafe.

What once protected you may now be the very thing keeping you exhausted.

Healing isn’t about becoming less capable. It’s about learning that your worth isn’t dependent on what you do for others.

You deserve care, support, and rest - not because you’ve earned it, but because you’re human.

Does this resonate with you?

Many highly sensitive people didn’t become attuned to others by accident.

For some, it began as an adaptation. As children, they learned to pay close attention to moods, facial expressions, tone of voice, and subtle shifts in the emotional environment. Reading the room wasn’t just a skill, it felt necessary.

Over time, this can create adults who are exceptionally empathetic, thoughtful, and perceptive. They can often sense what others need before a word is spoken.

The challenge is that when your attention has been trained outward for so long, turning it inward can feel unfamiliar.

You may know exactly what everyone else is feeling, yet struggle to answer a simple question: “What do I need right now?”

Healing isn’t about becoming less sensitive. It’s about bringing that same curiosity, compassion, and awareness back to yourself. Because your needs deserve the same attention you’ve spent a lifetime giving to everyone else.

A few things your therapist wants you to know… [Part 2] #anxiety #healing #therapy #psychology

A few things your therapist wants you to know… [Part 1]

Sometimes burnout doesn’t arrive with a warning siren.

Your body often asks for rest before your mind gives it “permission”. Rest is a necessity, not a luxury.

What if, every evening, the endless scroll locked its doors like an old corner store; shutters down, silence returned to the streets of our minds.

We’d be forced back into real life - into long dinners, messy conversations, shared laughter, sunsets that disappear before anyone thinks to film them.

Maybe we’d stop outsourcing connection through screens and start remembering the intimacy of presence.

Social media has made us everywhere at once, yet absent from the very moments asking for our presence.

The way a nervous system softens when someone is fully with you. The way love lives in eye contact, not algorithms. The way healing happens in ordinary moments we usually scroll past.

Somewhere along the way, we became more connected to everyone, yet further away from ourselves.

And maybe what we’re truly starving for isn’t more content - but more aliveness, more humanity, more touch, more real life. #growth #growthmindset #mindfulness #healing

There are versions of you that survived on maps too small for the wilderness you were walking through.

You judge her now with the wisdom she did not yet have, but wisdom is rarely inherited gently.
It is carved slowly by grief, by endings, by nervous systems learning the difference between danger and love. By nights that emptied you. By seasons that asked you to become someone entirely new.

The river does not shame itself for once believing the rock was the edge of the world.
It simply keeps moving… until time teaches it otherwise.

Some lessons could never have arrived earlier because you had not yet become the person capable of understanding them.

Growth is often the painful realisation that you were doing your best with the emotional vocabulary, awareness, and safety you had at the time.

So forgive yourself for the years you called survival “living.” Forgive yourself for the doors you knocked on searching for home in places that could not hold you. Forgive yourself for not knowing earlier what only time, loss, healing, and experience could teach.

Healing is not becoming someone new. It is finally meeting yourself with compassion instead of hindsight. #healing #anxiety #mindfulness

Mother’s Day can hold so many truths at once.

For some, it’s celebration and for others, it’s grief, longing, estrangement,heartbreak, hope, love that has nowhere to go.

Today can stir the nervous system in quiet ways- through memories, comparison, absence, pressure, or the ache of what never was/what was.

So if this day feels heavy, complicated, tender, or activating for you… you are not alone in that experience.

Be gentle with yourself today.
You do not need to force gratitude, joy, or perform okay-ness to make others comfortable.

Sometimes healing looks like allowing your experience to exist without minimising it.

Holding space today for:
– those grieving mothers or children
– those navigating infertility or pregnancy loss
– those estranged from family
– those mothering while exhausted
– those becoming mothers
– and those learning to reparent themselves in the absence of what they needed

Whatever today brings up for you, may you meet yourself with softness instead of judgment 🤍 #mother #mothersday #grief #sadness #anxiety

A lot of people think healing means always feeling calm, grounded, or “in control.” But true nervous system regulation isn’t emotional suppression dressed up as wellness.

Your body keeps score of the emotions that were never fully processed. The grief you had to minimise. The anger you weren’t allowed to express. The fear you pushed down to survive.

And sometimes healing looks less like calming down… and more like finally feeling safe enough to feel.

This is why emotional release can feel messy, uncomfortable, or even confusing. You may be crying more, feeling tender or sensitive, fatigued, increased irritability. Waves of emotion surfacing unexpectedly. It doesn’t mean you’re getting worse. Often, it means the body no longer has to work so hard to keep everything locked away.

Healing is not the absence of emotion. It’s building the capacity to stay connected to yourself while emotion moves through you. #emotion #emotions #healing #growth

You’re not “too sensitive.”

You just don’t have the words yet.

Most people can only name 6 emotions…
but according to Brené Brown, there are 87 emotions and experiences that shape what it means to be human.

No wonder you feel overwhelmed you’re trying to process a complex inner world with a limited emotional vocabulary.

But here’s the cost, if you can’t name the emotion, you can’t process it, so then your nervous system holds onto it.

Expand the language, and everything starts to make sense. #anxiety #healing #selfcompassion #emotions #emotion

High-functioning anxiety is one of the most reinforced patterns I see, because it works. It gets you results, it keeps you organise, it earns you validation.

So no one questions it, including you. But underneath it isn’t calm, it’s activation.

A nervous system that has learned: “If I slow down, something will feel off” / “If I’m not productive, I’m not safe.”

So you keep going. Not because you’re thriving,
but because stopping brings up guilt, restlessness, or a sense of unease you don’t quite have language for.

This is where people get stuck: they try to “rest more”, but their body doesn’t experience rest as safe.

So the goal isn’t just to stop. It’s to retrain the association your system has with stillness.

Because until your body feels safe to slow down,
you’ll keep calling survival “success”. #anxiety #nervoussystemregulation #healing #selfcompassion #mindfulness

Many people struggle with assertiveness because they were taught that having needs creates conflict.

So they stay quiet. Over-explain. Or say yes when they mean no.

But assertiveness isn’t aggression. It’s self-respect with compassion.

It sounds like:

“I feel…”
“I need…”
“I’m not comfortable with that.”

Healthy communication isn’t harsh. It’s clear.

And clarity is one of the most powerful forms of emotional safety in relationships.

“You can’t think your way out of feeling.”

One of the most common patterns I see in anxiety is the belief that if we just understand it enough, we’ll finally feel better.

So we analyse, we replay, we problem-solve.
We try to out-think the discomfort.

But thinking, in this context, is often a form of protection.

It’s your nervous system saying: “Let’s stay up here, where it feels safer… and not drop into what’s actually being felt.”

Because feeling means vulnerability.
Feeling means contact with something unresolved.
Feeling means we can’t control the outcome in the same way thinking tries to.

But here’s the shift: Healing doesn’t come from thinking instead of feeling. It comes from allowing both.

Insight helps you make meaning. Feeling helps you complete the experience.

When emotion is avoided, it stays active in the body. When it’s felt — even in small, tolerable doses — it begins to move, integrate, and soften.

This is the work: Not forcing yourself to feel everything all at once…but gently building the capacity to stay with what’s there, without needing to escape it.

You don’t heal by bypassing emotion.
You heal by safely coming into contact with it.

#anxiety #nervoussystemregulation #somatichealing #mentalhealth #traumahealing

Rumination is one of the most socially rewarded anxiety patterns.

It looks like reflection.
It sounds like problem-solving.
It even feels responsible.

But it’s not resolution. It’s repetition.

When your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, the mind steps in to try and create control.
It loops. Analyses. Replays. Predicts.

Not because you’re “overthinking”— but because your system is trying to protect you from uncertainty.

Here’s the part most people miss:
You can’t think your way out of a state your body is still in.

So the goal isn’t to find the perfect answer or solution.
It’s to notice the loop—and gently step out of it.

Awareness interrupts what force never will.

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}

Follow us on Instagram

@untangling_the_mind

Meet Amanda

Shamelessly human first. Therapist second.

I don't think any of us arrive in adulthood untouched by life.

We all carry stories, experiences, relationships, moments that quietly shape the way we see ourselves and move through the world.

Mine is no different.

When my parents divorced, I was nine years old. Like many children navigating family change, I learnt very early how to read a room, keep the peace, and become what I thought other people needed me to be. I became fiercely independent, deeply aware of other peoples emotions, and spent much of my childhood and adolescents protecting the people around me while quietly learning to ignore my own needs.

At the time, I didn't have the language to understand what was happening. I just knew I was adapting.

It wasn't until years later, through my own therapy and self-discovery, that everything began to make sense. The qualities I had spent years criticising weren't signs that something was wrong with me. They were intelligent ways my younger self had learnt to survive.

That understanding changed my life. It also shaped the therapist I would become. Today, I don't see people through a lens of "whats wrong with them", I see people through the lens of what happened to them.

Because behind every pattern is an adaption. And behind every adaption is a human being doing the very best they could with what they knew at the time.

That belief sits at the heart of everything I do.

My approach to therapy

I don't believe therapy should feel like sitting across from someone who has all the answers. I believe it should feel like sitting beside someone who is deeply curious about your story.

Together, we will gently untangle the patterns, beliefs, and survival strategies that have shaped your life -- not to judge them or get rid of them, but to understand them.

Because when something finally makes sense, shame begins to soften. And when shame softens, change becomes possible.

My role isn't to tell you who you are. It's to help you discover who you've been underneath the expectations, roles, and protective patterns you've carried for so long.

Beyond the therapy room

Outside of my work, you'll usually find me somewhere close to the ocean, watching the sunrise, walking my dog, reading a book with a coffee in hand, listening to vinyl, spending time with my loved ones, planning my next adventure, or laughing far too hard at the absurdity of being human.

I'm endlessly fascinated by people, by music that tells a story, by places that stretch our perspective, by the small moments we often rush past without noticing -- the smell of rain on warm pavement, the kindness of strangers, conversations that unexpectedly becoming meaningful.

I don't do small talk particularly well. I'd much rather know what makes you feel alive, what keeps you awake at night, the places you've always wanted to visit, or the song that has quietly narrated different seasons of your life.

Because I believe those conversations tell us far more about who we are.

Why I do this work

People often assume therapy is about helping someone become a different version of themselves.

I don't see it that way. I believe therapy is about helping people come home to themselves. To rediscover the parts that have been buried beneath years of survival. The curious part, the playful part, the courageous part, the part that has always been there waiting to be noticed.

If, after spending time here, you feel even a little more understood than you did before your arrived, then this work has already begun. I'd be honours to walk alongside you as we continue untangling your story together.

Contact

Contact Me

Getting started can be overwhelming, and I commend you on taking your first steps in your healing journey.

Don't know where to start? Send me an enquiry below and I will get back to you. Otherwise feel free to send me an email, a text, or give me a call.

Phone: 0451172625
Email: untanglingthemind@outlook.com

Untangling the mind does not provide a crisis service, in the case of an emergency you may like to contact:

Emergency Services 000

Lifeline 13 11 14 (24 hrs/ 7 days a week)

Beyond Blue 1300 224 636 (24hrs/7 days a week)

Blue Knot Foundation Helpline 1300 657 380 (Mon-Sun 9am-5pm EST)

Butterfly Foundation Helpline 1800 334 673 (8am-midnight/ 7 days a week)

Headspace 1800 650 890 (9am-1am/ 7 days a week)

MensLine Australia 1300 789 978 (24 hrs/ 7 days a week)

Griefline 1300 845 745

Domestic Violence Line 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Kids Helpline 1800 551 800 (24 hrs/ 7 days a week)

Qlife 1800 184 527 (3pm-12am/ 7 days week EST)

Amanda McFarlane