Are you even ready for Counselling?

Before you read this post, ask yourself a couple of questions. Are you truly honest with yourself? Do you understand what it means to work hard?

If you answered ‘no’ to either of those questions, if you hesitated, if you’re not sure, or if the answer is simply ‘sometimes, it depends’, then you might want to read on and go a little deeper. If you answered ‘yes’, you should definitely read on. You might be mistaken.

Now hang on. Don’t be disheartened. I’m not trying to trap you. It’s not a lose/lose situation. I’m not forcing you to focus your attention long enough to keep reading. I’m not trying to challenge you or sow doubt. I’m giving you an opportunity to engage. With these words, their meaning for you, and hopefully, your ability to do both. Right here. Right now. Be honest with yourself. Put in some effort towards finishing the post so you can say I did the work, I had a go. I invested some time in some self-reflection. For free!

Many people think they might need to talk to someone professionally about their wellbeing, but don’t ever take that step, and there are many reasons for that. Finding the time and energy would be up there as the biggest barrier. Who has the time to sit with a stranger for an hour and look closely at mental stability and emotional alignment, when there is so much more to do! I’m sure you’d rather take a nap, scroll on your phone, watch TV or go hang out with people who give you permission to avoid the hard stuff.

I get it. It feels self-indulgent and once you open that can of worms, who knows what will come out! Best leave it alone. It will sort itself out. I mean, who doesn’t have issues? Nobody is perfect. It could be so much worse! Do you know what’s happening in the world? Everything is fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

And it’s not free. Why pay someone to listen to your problems when you can just call a friend, scribble in your journal, dance it out in the kitchen, spend a few hours sitting in the sun or have a wine, eat a pizza followed by an entire bar of chocolate, walk the dog, pat the cat, soak in the tub, hook up, log on, run, clean the house, wash the car, read the book, paint your nails, watch the game, play the game, go to bed and do it all again tomorrow? That’s life. That’s living. It’s a hamster wheel and you just have to keep it moving. Right? RIGHT?

Did you get this far?

Does it sound familiar? The way we avoid, numb, distract and keep going, hoping that it’s normal and ok. And it is. Don’t get me wrong. All those things mentioned above are normal. I’m sure you have your own list of things that fill up your days.

The things we do day to day are necessary and some of them are choices. Some of them aren’t. But we do make conscious decisions about how we do everything. How we move through the world in a way that feels comfortable, bearable and even pleasurable. To keep us sane and well, or at least functional.

It’s as though focusing too deeply and directly might disrupt the momentum, spoil the flow and create a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s really dusty behind the fridge, but who looks behind the fridge? What, are we supposed to move the fridge every time it gets dusty? What a monumental waste of time and energy. Therapy feels like that for most people. But have you every cleaned behind the fridge? Ok, maybe not behind the fridge, bad example. That is absolutely correct. Unless I am moving house or getting a new fridge, those dust bunnies are settling in their behind-the-fridge home forever.

Let’s bring it down a notch. Washing the car maybe, or cleaning the windows. Reorgansing the wardrobe or cleaning out the spice cupboard. You don’t have to do them as often as other jobs around the house; they’re time consuming, not urgent and cumbersome. But sometimes you need to do it and it feels amazing when you do! I recently cleaned out a couple of cupboards in the kitchen that had been neglected and it felt so good that occasionally when I walk past, I open them just to peer in and admire my handy work.

Counselling is that chore sometimes. It’s cleaning out the cupboard; what is happening to your thought processes and decisions, and how you feel in your body, the way your emotions are showing up for you. For some, it is a necessary and regular process, needed to function. Like drinking water and eating, like taking a breath. For people in grief, who have experienced trauma, who are going through a huge change, who are suffering, Counselling is something they need to access regularly to keep them on track and provide the scaffolding while the rebuilding, repair, and renovations after the disaster take place.

For most people, it’s an occasional cleaning out of a dusty and sticky corner of their lives. Maintenance. A check in. And it feels amazing after. Like you have paid much needed attention to a forgotten corner, removed all the build up of debris and stagnation, rearranged the furniture and maybe even added a little bit of decoration. A recalibration and reset. Now you can look at it and feel good, rather than walking past and thinking, I need to clean that up, but later - which becomes never.

You did it. You made it to the end.

That’s all. Have a think about it. Is there a corner of your life that needs attention? Is it worth the effort? Perhaps not. Some things can definitely be ignored like the back of the fridge. You’ll get to it when the time comes and it’s one and done.

But those other areas deserve your focus and effort. You deserve to have clean cupboards, nice plants, lovely corners, tidiness, order and upkeep. And that doesn’t mean perfection. Not at all. The therapy room is your studio, your workshop. Where the tools don’t always get put away, because you are a work in progress and things can get messy. But there is such a thing as ordered chaos where things make sense only when there is a concerted effort, an action to make something of the ingredients with intentional activity that is disordered and intuitive rather than strategic - or both. You can make something of it, improving it each time and knowing that you care enough about it to look after it. I can support you with that.

I look forward to meeting you.

Book a FREE introductory session today.