Before That

Before That Exploring mental health in everyday life, helping people understand themselves.

“You shouldn’t have to focus on being alive.”It’s a phrase I came up with during one of our group conversations around a...
20/08/2026

“You shouldn’t have to focus on being alive.”

It’s a phrase I came up with during one of our group conversations around anxiety and panic attacks, and it has stuck with me ever since.

Anxiety is essentially your nervous system responding to a perceived threat. Your body prepares you for danger, changing things like your heart rate, breathing, digestion and muscle tension. The problem is that sometimes there is no immediate danger, but the physical response is still very real.

With panic attacks, those physical sensations can themselves become frightening. You notice your heart beating faster, your breathing changes, you feel dizzy or something feels strange in your chest or stomach. You focus on it, worry about what it means, and that fear can trigger your nervous system even further.

Your body does an incredible amount without conscious thought. You do not have to monitor every heartbeat, every breath or every strange sensation.

That’s what I mean when I say:

“You shouldn’t have to focus on being alive.”

Sometimes part of managing anxiety is learning to trust your body to do what it already knows how to do.

Coming soon! Read to the end for more information.Hard to believe it's been a year since Before That started running wee...
14/08/2026

Coming soon! Read to the end for more information.

Hard to believe it's been a year since Before That started running weekly groups across Inverclyde.

From the initial 6 week programme, Understanding Ourselves, we've had hundreds of conversations we've worked to find the right mix of self help, psychology and open discussion that people can actually relate to and use in everyday life.

Over that year, the groups have continued to evolve through feedback, experience and, most importantly, the conversations happening in the room.

Now we're taking that a little further.

Understanding Ourselves and Others builds on what we started, shifting some of the focus from understanding what happens within us to exploring what happens between us.

Boundaries. Shame. Resentment. Difficult conversations. Catastrophising. Defensiveness. Rejection. People pleasing. The need for approval.

Still not therapy. Not counselling.

Just a space to understand ourselves, each other and some of the patterns that can make life and relationships more difficult than they need to be.

Special thanks to Your Voice Inverclyde for the support and the audience participation.



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Recently during enhanced trauma training the concept of the Triune Brain came up. Whilst we know biologically the human ...
08/08/2026

Recently during enhanced trauma training the concept of the Triune Brain came up. Whilst we know biologically the human brain is far more complex, it remains a useful analogy for understanding trauma and how we might behave.

The model asks us to imagine three broad systems:

Survival brain: Automatic processes that keep us alive, such as breathing and heartbeat, alongside instinctive responses to threat such as fight, flight, freeze and shutdown.

Emotional brain: Our emotions, memories, attachment and learned associations. Previous experiences can influence what we recognise as safe or threatening.

Thinking brain: Reasoning, planning, decision making and impulse control. It allows us to slow down, consider what's happening and choose how to respond.

This is where the analogy becomes useful in trauma.

Someone raising their voice may simply be frustrating to one person. But for someone whose previous experiences have associated raised voices with danger, their heart may race, breathing may change and fight, flight or freeze may activate before they've consciously considered whether they're actually in danger.

Survive → Feel → Think

The Triune Brain isn't an accurate biological description of three separate brains, but it provides a simple way of understanding something important:

Sometimes our body responds to what it learned in the past before our thinking catches up with the present.

We've been discussing at group attachment styles and some people have been asking a good way to test their attachment st...
10/06/2026

We've been discussing at group attachment styles and some people have been asking a good way to test their attachment style, if you head over to https://quiz.attachmentproject.com/ you can begin the quiz immediately, whilst not an exact science it gives you a rough idea of your attachment style based on your relationship with your parents and your last long term relationship, looking forward to hearing everyone's results on Thursday.




11/05/2026

Understanding Ourselves – 6 Week Course 🌱

A 6 week course delivered by Before That, hosted by Your Voice, taking place on Thursdays from 1pm to 2pm.

Understanding Ourselves is a 6 week wellbeing group that offers practical tools and shared understanding to support mental health and prevent burnout, helping participants explore why we think, feel, and behave the way we do 💭

Across the 6 weeks, we look at early experiences, patterns, trauma, anxiety and depression, and coping behaviours. With greater awareness of these and what drives them internally, participants can begin to integrate healthier strategies into everyday life ✨

📍 51 Hamilton Way, Greenock, PA15 1RQ

Before That

People pleasing is when someone constantly puts other people’s feelings, comfort, or needs above their own. It can becom...
10/05/2026

People pleasing is when someone constantly puts other people’s feelings, comfort, or needs above their own. It can become a habit where keeping other people happy starts to feel more important than being honest about how you feel.

This can look like saying yes when you want to say no, apologising all the time, avoiding conflict, struggling to set boundaries, or staying in situations that are not good for you because you are worried about upsetting people.

Healing people pleasing often starts with small steps. Practice saying no sometimes, be honest about how you feel, ask for help when you need it, and remind yourself that your needs matter too.

That

Back with a new group Your Voice Inverclyde repeating the 6 week understanding ourselves program, some back again and s...
14/04/2026

Back with a new group Your Voice Inverclyde repeating the 6 week understanding ourselves program, some back again and some new faces, during summer time our new 6 week guide to building on understanding ourselves will be taking place, try and get yourself in to complete this initial 6 weeks to build on the next progression, it won't be essential but will help with understanding things as we look into family, interpersonal relationships, boundaries, toxic people and their behaviour, emotional maturity and lots more.




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