a therapists journey ...

My own therapy journey began in my 30's when I hit a crisis in my life only to discover I'd been in crisis for quite some time without realising it.  In fact, most of my life. Thinking it was quite 'normal' to face each day without much enthusiasm for living, I went about my daily life and soldiered on, hiding a lot of what was going on for me by humour and putting on an act - as we do. Until one day, that didn't work anymore.... 'I' didn't work anymore.

By the time I got to therapy, I could not answer the dreaded question 'how are you feeling?' because one, I didn't 'think' I knew and two, I could only name some basic feelings like sad, angry, and I thought 'anxious' 'bad' or 'horrid' were feelings. I would feel quite angry at my therapist for asking about my feelings as I 'thought' I was telling them how I was feeling. To cut a long therapy story short, I was 'thinking' too much and making myself 'feel' very little even though I had strong feelings which felt overwhelming and frightening.  Confused? So was I! Put it this way, I would do anything consiously or unconsiously to not feel the pain of these feelings. They say thoughts control our feelings but sometimes our feelings control our thoughts unconsiously and block us from having thoughts and feelings of love and acceptance about ourselves and others.

So having experienced the ups and downs of some serious therapy, worrying about the judgments of others (for actually even being 'in therapy'), and how long was it going to take, wondering if I could even go on in therapy at times, I gradually found myself ‘leveling’ out. Phew, what a relief that was! I began to learn what it was like to feel and subsequently really live, to accept things as they are including my feelings versus how I thought things should be.  So many lessons learned along the way. For one Jung said 'nothing changes until we accept it'.

I thought I knew myself before therapy, having counselling was like meeting myself for the first time. It gave me new eyes to see myself in a clearer light, my own responsibility becoming clearer for the life I found myself living.

It also gave me new eyes to see others, having thought I was an excellent judge of character previously! I began to realise we all have our own subjective experience, what things mean to each of us, we are different and my assumptions were just that, assumptions, not facts. What an eye opener! We don't all think the same at all. Just because I was thinking it didn't mean others were.

Now I try to live more authentically using the nine C's: Curiosity, Compassion, Choice, Courage, Clarity, Creativity, Connection, Calm, Confidence and the five P's: Presence, Perspective, Patience, Playfulness, Persistance and continue to work through the dreaded C 'Co-dependence'.

Being aware of our feelings and thoughts, being able to communicate these in healthy ways, is the essence of true connection with ourselves and others. I love helping others learn about themselves, seeing the steps they take on their own journey to self discovery and recovery. A wonderful place, one a lot of us seem to be fearful of for some reason until we meet the real us and then wonder what we were so afraid of! 

For the first time in my life, I actually feel like an adult instead of like 'I never really grew 'up'.  Though I am not perfect, and I don't have the 'perfect' life, I now realise who does? Having given up the fantasy of ever reaching perfection through a lot of on-going self development, life is more 'perfect' than ever before - what a paradox!

We are all on this journey, together. We are all healing and reeling in some way, all learning together. None of us are the finished product, and the great news is we don't have to be to live fulfilling lives now. We don't have to wait for things to be better, we can start today with ourselves.

Everyone's journey is different; it won't be the same as mine. If you would like to go on your journey or re-join it, and consider me as your possible therapeutic travelling companion, I would love to hear from you.

Sarah

Human Being

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