The Bigger Picture Clinic

The Bigger Picture Clinic “Helping people understand the deeper story beneath their symptoms”
🍃 In person & Online
📍Melbourne
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There’s something about healing that we don’t talk about enough.You can be doing all the things.Therapy.Journaling.Medit...
02/09/2026

There’s something about healing that we don’t talk about enough.

You can be doing all the things.

Therapy.
Journaling.
Meditating.
Reading.
Exercising.
Learning about yourself.
Trying to understand your patterns.

And yet, if you are continually returning to the environment, relationship or situation that keeps activating the very wounds you are trying to heal, it can feel like you’re taking one step forward and two steps back.

My supervisor said something yesterday that really stayed with me:

Sometimes the very place we are trying to heal from is also the place we keep getting triggered.

And that can create such a painful double bind.

Because the behaviours you’re trying to move away from may be the very behaviours you reach for when you’re repeatedly overwhelmed, hurt, rejected, unsafe or dysregulated.

This doesn’t mean healing is impossible while you’re still in a difficult situation.

And it doesn’t mean you can simply walk away from every person, relationship, family system, workplace or circumstance that causes pain.

But it does invite an important question:

What keeps reopening the wound I am working so hard to heal?

Sometimes healing involves changing the environment.

Sometimes it involves creating stronger boundaries.

Sometimes it means creating enough distance to allow your nervous system to experience something different.

And sometimes, when you can’t change the situation yet, healing begins with recognising what is happening — and finding ways to support and protect yourself within it.

You are not failing because healing feels difficult.

Your environment matters. Your relationships matter. What you repeatedly experience matters.

Healing isn’t only about what happens inside of us.
Sometimes we also have to look at what is happening around us.

There is a stage of trauma therapy that can be deeply confusing.You start the work because you want to feel better.Then ...
31/08/2026

There is a stage of trauma therapy that can be deeply confusing.

You start the work because you want to feel better.

Then the things you have spent years keeping contained suddenly feel much closer.

You feel more.

You notice more.

The old coping mechanisms don’t work in quite the same way.

And you can start thinking:

“I was actually better before I started all of this.”

I hear versions of this often.

I want the old me back.

I used to be able to just get on with things.

I never used to cry like this.

I could compartmentalise.

I didn’t think about any of this before.

I feel like I’m crumbling.

And I think this part of healing needs to be spoken about much more.

Because sometimes what we call “functioning” was actually an incredibly sophisticated protective system.

Numbing.

Overworking.

People-pleasing.

Perfectionism.

Substance use.

Staying endlessly busy.

Taking care of everyone else.

Never needing anything.

Disconnecting from the body.

Keeping painful memories locked away.

Those strategies may have helped someone survive for years.

So when trauma work begins to soften them, it can feel less like liberation and more like losing the very things that kept you standing.

There can be a difficult middle place where the old armour no longer fits, but you haven’t yet built enough trust, regulation or internal safety to live without it.

That can feel messy.

It can feel frightening.

It can feel like regression.

And sometimes people genuinely long for their protectors to come back and take over again.

But healing is rarely a clean progression from unwell → better.

It is often:

awareness.

amplification.

moving between activation and rest.

small moments of choice.

and eventually, greater capacity.

Not becoming unaffected.

Becoming more able to stay with yourself while you are affected.

And if you are in the loud, messy middle of that process, it doesn’t mean the work has failed.

Sometimes it means you are no longer surviving in quite the same way and your system is still learning what comes next.

24/08/2026

Sometimes the thought isn’t the whole story.

Underneath “I’m not enough,” “I’m going to get this wrong,” or “they might leave,” there can be a part of us carrying something much deeper - fear, loneliness, shame, pressure, or a need for safety and reassurance.

This short exercise is a way of slowing things down and getting curious about what may be sitting underneath the reaction.

You don’t need to be experienced in IFS or parts work. You don’t need to visualise anything. You’re simply following the thread:

And if that were true… then what?

And then noticing what feeling, belief, body sensation or protective response begins to emerge.

The aim isn’t to analyse yourself perfectly or force an answer.

It’s to shift from:

“What is wrong with me?”

to:

“What might this part of me be trying to protect?”

If you try it, go gently. Sometimes even a small moment of curiosity can change the way we relate to what we’re feeling.

Save this one for the next time you notice yourself getting activated. 🤍

23/08/2026

Becoming more fully yourself can sometimes mean disappointing the version of you that learned to survive by being accepted.

It might mean choosing alignment over validation - even when someone doesn’t understand your decision.

Choosing peace over familiar chaos - even when calm initially feels uncomfortable, boring, or unfamiliar.

Choosing being misunderstood over false acceptance - because belonging that requires you to abandon yourself isn’t really belonging.

And this is often much harder than it sounds.

Many of us develop ways of staying connected, safe or loved by adapting to the people around us. We people-please. We over-function. We stay quiet. We tolerate relationships or patterns that hurt us. We seek reassurance. We return to chaos because, somewhere along the way, chaos became familiar.

Therapy isn’t about becoming a completely different person.

Often, it’s about beginning to notice the parts of you that learned who you needed to be to feel safe, loved or accepted, and slowly creating enough internal safety to ask:

Who am I when I’m no longer organising my life around being chosen, approved of or understood by everyone else?

At The Bigger Picture Clinic, this is so much of the work we do.

Looking beyond the symptom or behaviour and becoming curious about the bigger picture - the experiences, relationships, protective patterns and unmet needs underneath it.

Because sometimes healing isn’t about fixing yourself.

It’s about learning how to stop abandoning yourself in order to belong. 🤍

If you’re ready to understand your patterns more deeply and begin building a relationship with yourself that feels more aligned, we’d love to support you.

Sometimes people come into therapy saying, “I don’t know what I feel,” or “I can’t hear any parts.”But our inner world d...
16/08/2026

Sometimes people come into therapy saying, “I don’t know what I feel,” or “I can’t hear any parts.”

But our inner world doesn’t always communicate in words.

A part might show up as:

a thought that keeps repeating
an image that appears in your mind
tightness in your chest
heaviness in your stomach
a sense that something is nearby
an urge to hide, withdraw, fix, please or protect
or simply a quiet knowing that something in you is here

In Internal Family Systems, we don’t need to force parts to appear in a particular way.

We become curious about what is already happening.

Instead of asking:

“Why am I like this?”

we might begin with:

“What am I noticing right now?”

And then, gently:

“Could this be a part of me trying to communicate something?”

There is no right way to experience your parts, and you don’t need to be highly visual, intuitive or “good at IFS” for this work to be meaningful.

Sometimes the beginning of a different relationship with yourself is simply noticing:

Something in me feels scared.
Something in me wants to pull away.
Something in me is working very hard right now.

And rather than immediately trying to get rid of it, asking:

“I wonder what it wants me to know.”

That shift from judgement to curiosity is often where the work begins.

At The Bigger Picture Clinic, we work with the many layers of a person’s experience, including the thoughts, emotions, protective patterns, relationships and body responses that can sit beneath what is happening on the surface.

You don’t have to understand your whole inner world before coming to therapy.

We can begin with whatever is showing up.

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a short exercise for anyone who wants to get a little more curious about their parts, particularly if you’ve never tried parts work before and aren’t quite sure where to begin.

13/08/2026

Sometimes the work isn’t about holding yourself together. It’s about discovering who you are when the old ways of surviving begin to fall apart.

Therapy can ask us to gently loosen our grip on the roles, defences, beliefs and patterns that once helped us feel safe. The people-pleasing. The perfectionism. The hyper-independence. The need to control. The shutting down. The overthinking. The versions of ourselves we built because, at one point, we needed them.

And when those old ways begin to soften, it can feel disorienting.

We can mistake unfamiliarity for something going wrong.

But healing isn’t always about becoming a “better” version of yourself. Sometimes it is about making enough space to meet the parts of you that have been buried beneath survival and allowing more of your authentic self to come forward.

At The Bigger Picture Clinic, much of the work we do is grounded in curiosity rather than judgement. Instead of asking “What’s wrong with me?”, we begin asking:

What happened here?
What has this part of me been protecting?
What no longer needs to be carried in the same way?
And who might I become if I no longer had to survive like this?

You may not be falling apart.

You may be outgrowing the ways you once had to hold yourself together.

22/07/2026

We often believe the goal is to understand the other person.

Why they said that.
Why they pulled away.
Why they reacted the way they did.

But the longer I do this work, the more I believe our closest relationships are inviting us to understand something even more important:

Ourselves.

The people we love have an extraordinary ability to introduce us to the parts of us that are still carrying old burdens.

The anxious part that fears abandonment.
The angry part that protects against feeling powerless.
The people-pleasing part that works tirelessly to keep connection.
The shutdown part that disappears when things feel overwhelming.

When we’re blended with these protectors, it genuinely feels like the other person is the problem.

But when we can pause and recognise, “A part of me has shown up,” everything begins to shift.

It doesn’t mean the other person is always right.
It doesn’t mean your feelings aren’t valid.
And it certainly doesn’t mean tolerating unhealthy behaviour.

It simply creates enough space to ask a different question:

“What has this relationship touched inside of me?”

Because beneath so many of our conflicts lives something much older than the dishes, the text message, or the tone of voice.

A longing to matter.
A fear of rejection.
A belief that we’re not enough.
A fear of being left.
A need to feel emotionally safe.

To me, this is the gift of intimate relationships.

Not because they don’t hurt.

But because they reveal the parts of us that are still waiting to be understood.

Healing isn’t just about finding the right partner.

It’s also about recognising who shows up inside of us when love feels uncertain.

What part of you tends to show up most in your relationships?

Hi, I’m Asha.I am a counsellor who is passionate about creating a safe, compassionate, and non-judgemental space where p...
15/07/2026

Hi, I’m Asha.
I am a counsellor who is passionate about creating a safe, compassionate, and non-judgemental space where people can explore their experiences, make sense of life’s challenges, and reconnect with their strengths. I believe that every person has a unique story, and I feel privileged to walk alongside clients as they navigate healing, growth, and change.
Whether you are feeling overwhelmed, stuck, disconnected, or simply looking for support through a difficult period, I aim to provide a therapeutic space where you feel heard, understood, and empowered to move towards the life you want to live.

Areas I specialise in
Trauma and complex trauma
Sexual assault and sexual violence recovery
Anxiety and stress
Grief and loss
Self-esteem and identity concerns
Relationship difficulties
Life transitions and adjustment challenges
Emotional overwhelm and burnout
Addiction and recovery

Who I work best with:
I welcome clients at all stages of life, from young children through to older adults. I enjoy working with people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences, particularly those who are seeking a collaborative and supportive therapeutic relationship.

My Clinical Philosophy:
I believe that therapy is most effective when it is grounded in safety, curiosity, collaboration, and genuine human connection.
While we cannot always change what has happened to us, we can learn new ways of relating to ourselves, our experiences, and our future. I believe people are inherently resilient and that meaningful change becomes possible when we are supported to better understand ourselves and reconnect with our values, strengths, and hopes.

Continued in comments ——->

15/07/2026

A strong relationship is one that can hold love and limits at the same time.


06/07/2026

Welcoming Sharona to The Bigger Picture Clinic.
 
I’m Sharona, an integrative counsellor with a lifelong curiosity about what people carry beneath the surface — the quiet worries, the unspoken conflicts, and the stories that shape how we see ourselves and each other. I’m drawn to the moments when someone finally feels safe enough to say the thing they haven’t been able to say, and I’ve spent more than two decades — as a researcher, teacher, mentor, and now counsellor — learning how to create that kind of space. My work is person-centred and judgment free. I believe you already hold more understanding of yourself than you think. My role is not to hand you answers, but to sit with you, and help you access what’s already there. 
 
Areas I specialise in 
Life transitions 
Anxiety & stress 
Emotional wellbeing 
Grief & loss 
Trauma 
Adolescents & young adults 
Aged care & older adults 
 
Who I work best with 
I work with adolescents, adults and older people seeking a safe, compassionate, and non-judgmental space where they can explore what’s shifting beneath the surface for them — perhaps the unsettled feeling of a life transition, the weight of anxiety, stress or grief, or the effects of trauma.  
 
My clinical philosophy 
 I believe people already have what they need to grow — they just need the right conditions to find it. That belief shapes how I work: I’m not here to direct your life or hand you a script to follow, but to walk alongside you while you draw on your own strengths and judgment. What we focus on, and how quickly we move, is led by you, not by a fixed plan. The constant is the space itself — one where you can bring anything without fear of being judged, and where curiosity and compassion come before conclusions. Within that, I draw on a range of evidence-based methods, chosen and adapted to fit you specifically, because a one-size-fits-all approach rarely fits anyone well.

Address

214 Glen Huntly Road Elsternwick
Melbourne, VIC
3185

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 9pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 5pm

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