My journey through counselling. A sort of write up!

Old 05-06-2005, 08:24 AM
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My journey through counselling. A sort of write up!

Ok, I had my last works counselling session today, I’ve taken her number for if I feel I need it in the future but right now we both felt it ad reached a healthy conclusion.

I thought it might help to write a little bit about how it’s helped me and what it felt like to go. It’s the sort of stuff I’d have liked to hear before I went, so maybe it’ll be worth it for someone out there…..

The first session I had was at a time when I was really upset. It was supposed to be an assessment to see whether I needed the counselling service through work. They must have thought I did because they queue jumped me!! That was the hardest session – I felt like I didn’t know where to begin, what bits of history mattered and what didn’t. Before I went I’d thought about what I wanted to get from the counselling – I wanted to keep my emotional feet more firmly on the ground, to be less swept away by events. After spilling my guts I only had seconds left at the end to say my little piece about what I wanted, but I did manage – just!

The second session we got down to work – separating other’s feeling from my own. But what about empathy? Aren’t we supposed to feel for others? I came away incensed with unanswered questions and it took a while to realise that’s the counsellors job, not so much telling the answer more a process of bringing the question to light. The session last 1 hour, the question gave me a weeks work!!

By the third session I was returning with some answers. Seperating others feelings from my own just meant being aware that each of us experiences life in our own unique way – I can’t feel for you because I only know how to feel for me. If someone shouts at you maybe you feel frightened, maybe angry, maybe ashamed – I can’t feel for you because I can only feel what I would feel. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn from my feelings, it doesn’t mean I can’t learn how to treat people better as I get older by learning from what I feel, it doesn’t mean I can’t listen to their experiences and learn from that too. It simply means we are separate, our feelings and experiences are separate. Empathy gets out of hand if I forget that! So now I’d managed to separate what was mine I had a new question – how did I feel? How did I feel about myself? How did I feel about the issues I’d raised? How did I feel about my actions and reasoning? Another weeks work!

I came back with my homework done, my sense of me came with me and I shared it. Then I got the dreaded question – when had I learned these things? CHILDHOOD. One moments choice to hide or to not hide, I chose not to hide. I would give this my honesty and my best. I went through my concepts of me and where they were learned. It was odd how I could place defining moments, I worried that those moments didn’t look pretty, I worried that they looked like harsh bleak concrete, or dirty fag ends, or unwashed clothes. I told honestly and waited to be told back that everything I was - was also bleak, wrong, ill. After all how can good come from that harshness?

I didn’t get what I expected instead what I’d learned was validated even treasured. The counsellor pointed out how I used it well to cope with life’s turmoil’s, how it still stood me in a good position, how it made me unique and valuable and also how some things I’d learned didn’t function any more. Even the stuff that didn’t function now had functioned once – after all I am here, I did survive. Saying goodbye to what doesn’t work wasn’t done with disrespect, it was more like a good bye to an old and valued friend whose life had run their course.

The homework this time was accidental, forgiving, even loving my own non-functioning (or should I say past functioning) qualities made me feel the same about those qualities in others. Not to dress them up as still functioning but to treat them with respect and to understand that once upon a time they may have saved a life, or a dignity, or a quality I now get the pleasure of in that person. It brought a real peace to me with regard to my own and other’s imperfections – it deepened my love of the human spirit (by that I mean our will).

My fourth session was more of the same, going over the things I always felt were wrong and placing them in a different perspective – inside and out, my morality, beliefs, self image, philosophies, and reasoning. It was like a filter, my filter, I chose what still worked and what didn’t but was grateful for all of it – fond farewells and deepened respect for who I am now. I think this is a good way – we should love ourselves, but for real and absolutely not just weak and empty words. Okay – that’s me done but what about me in relation to others? That was my next homework. To understand my own past, to validate myself but also to acknowledge the need for change, to try and tune what I used so that I could live around others in the way that I wanted to.

Session five was the fruits of session four – my changes, my happiness, my plans. It felt almost like we had finished as though we were done with any need for counselling and yet something still lay at the back of my mind, a sadness. I kept it silent, I didn’t have the words for it, I didn’t know myself what it was – that was my homework. We agreed to meet one more time but leave a longer gap, I wanted a session after a few weeks without one to see if what I’d learned stuck, to check these good feelings were solid, to have some time standing just on my own feet AND to figure out what this sadness was.

First I had to label this feeling and I did, it was a grief for the expectations other people take for granted, a handful of hope feels like a poor trade for that. Maybe there was some answer to this? I searched my heart first, I asked, I read and thought about it and eventually smiled at it. Some of life is good, some of life is amazing but some of it is just plain hard. I don’t think we can make the hard disappear but I do think we can leave it alone so we’re free to enjoy the good. Like getting a spot – it’s best not to pick at it!!

My last session was today. I told her about feeling a grief for certain expectations, I told her I thought hope was a rotten, pi$$ poor trade off – BUT that I wasn’t going to pick at it, I wasn’t going to let it stamp all over what is good, real and amazing about life. Somehow that seemed to encapsulate what I’d first wanted from counselling – to keep my emotional feet more firmly on the ground. YAY!!!!

I’ve taken her number and will use it like a shot – but I need to live this for a while first. Time to turn the page…..
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Old 05-06-2005, 08:50 AM
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Nice work! Keep it up as the page turns!
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Old 05-06-2005, 09:15 AM
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Very well done indeed

*hugs*
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Old 05-06-2005, 10:41 AM
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Ooooooo... I feel all chuffed now!!! Thanks you guys....
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Old 05-06-2005, 10:59 AM
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Oh Equus,

I'm so happy for you. You've taken major steps in your life and found yourself. What a magnificent gift you've given yourself.

Thanks for the eye-opening post.
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Old 05-06-2005, 11:14 AM
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The path of self examination and self realization are one of the most rewarding paths to take. Hugs, Magic
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Old 05-06-2005, 11:29 AM
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I think I got lucky with the counsellor too. I won't forget in a hurry - it felt good to write this down.

Thanks to all for wading through it.
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Old 05-06-2005, 11:32 AM
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Equus - It's a very brave thing to honestly look at yourself the way you have done in counselling.

Whilst I love al-anon and continue my meetings, I have found that they reinforced the work I was doing in counselling rather than the other way round. That work was soooo powerful and so lifechanging - I guess it was real Step 4 work on a weekly basis (and I'm not really working the Steps yet). It is a shame that I have moved away because I found a counsellor that worked really well for me and I could do with verbalising some of the stuff that has happened in the past few months. So I called him yesterday and we are having a telephone session when I get back from sailing. A top-up, if you like.

You're a star.

Love

Minnie
xxx
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