Farnham based child & family therapy.
If you are wanting to explore your inner landscape I’ll help you connect with compassion, warmth and gentleness.
You may be carrying so many burdens, and over our time together we will discover how to create more space inside so that you can live with more freedom, choice and ease.
I work with adults (both online and in my treatment room in Farnham) and I work with children (in-person only). I also run groups and workshops for parents, those wanting to heal voice wounds, explore singing, mindfulness and spirituality. I have a meditation podcast called Centring Down with Compassion which has over a hundred talks and meditations to support your journey.
I warmly welcome you to get in touch.
Call or text today: 07946 153054
Carolyn Baynes. Compassionate, solution-focused support for you and your family.
Maybe you or your child is struggling with overwhelming feelings, or maybe there is physical illness that you experience as just desperate. Perhaps you find yourself engaged in behaviours that you don’t understand and find self sabotaging. Whatever is alive in you is welcome. Using the wisdom of your system we will get to know and befriend all the different ways your system is trying to protect you and keep you safe, even if the ways a part tries to do this triggering.
Through my work as a primary school teacher, my therapeutic qualifications and over 30 years of personal mindfulness practice, I create a space of compassion and calm to heal the toughest of situations.
So, whether you’re a parent nearing breaking point, a child who’s fallen out of the school system,
or anyone in between, we will work together to make progress from our very first session.
Parenting in today’s world is one of the toughest jobs any of us can do. I am here to offer a way through.
To offer hope.
About Carolyn
I am a Level one Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist and Mindfulness Meditation teacher.
Having worked in primary education for 30 years as a music teacher I also have a lot of experience of working with children and families. I use Internal Family Systems which holds the perspective that we all have different “parts” of us that sometimes get burdened with anxiety, anger, compulsions, and these are the parts’ ways of trying to keep you safe. If you are finding parts of you keep tripping you up please get in touch. As the incomparable Brené Brown says “sometimes the bravest thing you can do is just show up”.
When we are struggling with a situation where our child is struggling with life we can feel isolated and highly anxious. When we learn that other families are experiencing very similar things two things can change:
We stop blaming ourselves
We start having self-compassion
Blame is one of the things that the brain does when we are pushed into our triggered “Fight Flight Freeze” zones. This is the Red Zone where our normal thinking compassionate problem-solving part is off-line.
In the groups we will learn some therapeutic mindfulness skills to help move us out of the Red Zone and back into the Green Zone where we can respond with curiosity, compassion and confidence to the challenges that we are facing.
Once out of the Red Zone we start to cultivate more self-compassion. This is vital for supporting our nervous system to stay in the Green Zone where we can be creative and curious about the problems that life has thrown up. When we are in the Green Zone we aren’t blaming ourselves or others. We aren’t ruminating about the past or terrified about the future. We are able to take care of ourselves and those around us from a calm connected place that supports everyone to come into their Green Zones too.
When parents are encountering the stress of a child who is experiencing additional needs often their relationship will become under pressure too. For example; one parent might experience the Fight/Flight/Freeze/Appease sympathetic nervous system in a way that leads to shouting (fight) while another might appease. Both are responding from the need to handle the fear and worry of the situation. When parents start to attend to this in themselves and each other they can help each other notice when they are starting to get dysregulated and give each other support in coming back to the Green Zone.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness
Mindfulness courses are the best way to support our nervous systems to come back to the Green Zone. You will learn wonderful tools such as mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the breath and mindfulness of the thoughts that ricochet around the mind sometimes. Being present and aware can support our skilful interactions with our partners and families and coming to a mindfulness course is the best way to learn these simple practises.
What my clients say
5/5
Having suffered with anxiety for a while I finally decided to seek help and I truly found that with Carolyn! She immediately made me feel safe and secure and it was easy to open up to her. The advise and techniques she gave me I will carry forward and continue to use in many areas of my life both now and in the future!
Therapy
5/5
Wonderful! I benefitted hugely from this course and it’s had a positive impact on my life in a short amount of time. The session format of sharing > introducing the topic > practise > sharing our experiences of the practice, worked really well and facilitated communication and sharing in the group.
Course
5/5
I was quite uncertain what to expect with the hypnosis sessions with Carolyn, but she put me quickly at ease. Her voice is so calming. She explored carefully with me what I wanted help with and checked that she had really understood before we went into hypnosis. I do feel like something has shifted, I am more willing to explore situations I would have avoided before, with curiosity.
Therapy
5/5
I found Carolyn to be a supportive and experienced tutor. I found all of the sessions interesting and helpful. Carolyn has a soothing manner and came across as an authentic person, not afraid to share her life experiences. The course has made me want to find out more. The what’s app group is very useful and the recordings.
Course
5/5
Carolyn really stands out for her insight and ability to build trust and create a completely safe and non-judgemental space. Because she is so expressive, gentle and compassionate, I found that I was able to open up and trust far more quickly than I have done with previous therapists and thus go deeper into issues that I have been able to address only more superficially in the past. Moreover, the sessions have helped me build more trust in myself and my own ability to deal with life’s challenges, as well as transform my harsh inner dialogue into something gradually kinder and gentler.
Therapy
5/5
I would just say to anyone with a problem or issue that they need to find help with: Just go to see Carolyn! My words can not do Carolyn justice.
Therapy
5/5
Carolyn has a gentle and insightful way of communicating, and, in every session, she was able to meet me exactly where I was at that day and communicate with me in order to fully understand where I needed to be. She has always been fully attuned to my needs and totally adaptable in terms of the content of the sessions and techniques used and has helped me truly listen to myself so I could gain insight into how we should proceed.
Therapy
5/5
Carolyn communicates in a clear and direct way and, at the end of each session, encouraged me to gain further insights to reflect on in the week between sessions, helping me work towards my therapy goals in an attainable way. She is extremely reassuring and compassionate.