Category: self expression
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Unlocking the Healing Power of Embracing Human Complexity: A Therapeutic Journey to Growth and Wellness
Subtle Shifts Toward Inner Harmony and Resilience
If you subscribe to Medium please read it there John Walter 📣 Published in Age of Empathy
Image created digitally by the author. The medical establishment tries to reduce us to simple diagnosable packages. This may work to a degree when applied to medical issues, but it is an absolute disaster when applied to mental health issues.
You are given a mental health diagnosis, and along with it comes a whole load of baggage. You are no longer seen as a unique individual. You have become part of a group, and that whole group of millions of people has a whole raft of prejudices and expectations associated with it. There is a catalogue of therapeutic and medication approaches that are seen as possibly making a bit of a difference.
You become a guinea pig to the medical side of the mental health care establishment.
“I tried this once, and it worked a bit. Let’s see if it works for you.”
You are no longer being treated as a unique individual. You are part of an ongoing research project. A therapy is tried with not much hope of success, and if it fails, you are moved on to another one.The last century has seen many advances in mental health treatments and therapies, but at the same time, thousands have received misguided treatments that have caused major harm.
Forced lobotomies have caused serious brain damage. ECT without consent has caused memory loss and cognitive impairment. Conversion therapy for sexuality or gender identity issues has caused significant harm including psychological distress and trauma. (The UK government are still refusing to ban this practice despite all the evidence of significant harm). There has been institutional misuse of psychiatric medications, forced sterilization, human rights violations, stigmatization and discrimination.
All of these things have been allowed to happen because there is a diagnosis. Without a diagnosis, you could not justify cutting a bit of someone’s brain out or electrocuting someone to within an inch of their life. All of these invasive approaches to mental health treatment would be seen as criminal acts against the person. The diagnosis turns something akin to criminal assault into a legal or justifiable act.
I haven’t even touched on the government-sanctioned abuse towards autistic people, and I’ll leave you to do your own research in that area.
Embracing Human Complexity
I work as a Psychotherapeutic Counsellor in the UK, where no regulation exists around these terms. I am qualified as an Integrative Counsellor but have a background in Psychodynamic therapy and working around attachment issues. I am so much more than any of these official descriptors.
I have been on a therapeutic journey for close to 40 years. Sometimes, this has been primarily cognitive, other times largely somatic (of the body). Often, it has been focused on emotional or spiritual work with a creative focus.
If someone had convinced me at any stage of my journey that I could get all I needed from a singular approach, then I would not be in the position I am in today.
There are dangers inherent in all of the singular approaches. If you major in cognitive or behavioural approaches, you can neglect your somatic, spiritual or emotional self. This creates an imbalance in itself, which can destabilise your sense of well-being.
Those who focus on their spiritual life can create a spiritual bypass where they avoid facing emotional issues, psychological wounds or other essential parts of their self-development.
The holistic approach to therapy recognises this need for balance and a consideration of the unique complexity of every individual human being. Only by considering the whole person can any sense be made of the beautiful interactions between all the many parts of yourself.
My Journey
Image created digitally by the author. My life since my mid-20s has been a 40-year-long therapeutic journey. It has been a meandering path and I am realising now that there is no direct route. I have often sought or been drawn in by someone offering some magic formula to enlightenment, only to realise that seeking a preconceived goal means I have taken my attention away from all the gloriousness of the journey.
Self-help books offer instant transformation, you can sign up for cult-like training courses, gurus offer life-changing results, and practitioners offer to solve all your problems in 6 sessions, but the reality is that lasting change requires patience, self-reflection and a willingness to embrace life itself in all its random and unpredictable glory.
In my personal therapy now I can be taken back to moments of change and discovery at any point along the 40-year timeline.
Ancestral Trauma
Considering the impact of ancestral trauma recently, I was transported back to a sweat lodge in the 80s on a Welsh hillside. I could feel the heat and the tingling sensations in my body, the difficulty catching my breath and the smells of hot stones, sage and cedar smoke. Part of the sweat lodge ceremony is to call on your ancestors to accompany you and give guidance, in a way connecting you with the spiritual realm.
The lodge itself, a small dome of animal skins with a pile of hot stones in the centre, symbolises the womb of Mother Earth. Leaving the lodge can be seen as a rebirth, healing the trauma we all experience when we are born, of leaving the safe protective, nurturing containment of the womb and having to undergo the metamorphosis from foetus to newborn child.
At the time of being involved in this shamanic ritual, I did not have any real understanding of the effect it was having on my personal growth process. It was powerful, and I felt a connection to the other participants and the land where it took place. I was however unaware that the seeds of transformation had been planted and would remain in my unconscious, influencing my thoughts and behaviours for years to come.
Forty years later I am considering on a cognitive level how my relationship with my father was affected by the fact he was sent to fight in WW2 at the age of 18. How his father led men on horseback involved in the fall of Jerusalem in 1917. I relive the sensations of that sweatlodge, a powerful memory held in my body and it feels like a cycle has been completed and I can move on. It feels as if I have been carrying anger and pain for my father and his father before him and I no longer have to do that.
Powerful metaphors
Image created digitally by the author At the end of my work at a psychodynamic therapeutic community around 1990 I was asked to write a reflection on my time there. The expectation was some short, maybe rational, academic essay on my own process in relation to the work of the community.
I wrote a short children’s story about a beast living trapped in a stone hut. The beast was befriended by a small child, who fed him and eventually helped him escape by enlarging the doorway.
Being part of the psychoanalytic community, interpretations about id and ego and god knows what were flying around everywhere. I wasn’t too interested in these. For me, the important part was the creative process. I focused my thoughts on my time in the community, and a metaphor emerged. I remember that metaphor now, over 30 years later.
Metaphors are useful because you remember the powerful imagery. Interpretations and meanings change over time. Extra layers can be noticed many years later.
The use of metaphor is all about embracing human complexity. I could not begin to write about my time in the community in literal, concrete terms within a psychoanalytic framework. The language was simply not there to express my experience clearly. The language itself creates a narrow view of human experience.
Human Complexity
How would you draw yourself as a human being reflecting all parts of yourself? Would you be perfectly balanced or would your brain be larger than your body reflecting overthinking? Would your heart be so big you could hardly move or perhaps your body has taken control away from your heart and mind? Maybe spiritual parts have taken hold and you are forgetting to eat and keep yourself healthy.
How has your image of yourself changed over time? Have you become more reflective, or more self-obsessed? Have you been journeying in a straight line or going around in circles or stuck in a rut? Notice how your social or cultural condition affects your relationship to that phrase. Is being still and calm necessarily a bad thing? Is travelling forward in a straight line necessarily a good thing?
Do you judge yourself as you create these complex images or can you accept yourself exactly as you are? Are you like the monster in the drawing above who has grown so big they can no longer escape from the shelter which was once their protection but has become their prison?
Accepting all parts of yourself is a way to develop harmony and resilience. Self-awareness is just that, an awareness of self. Personal growth is just that, growth around all parts of yourself, not the growth of one part of you to the exclusion of all others.
And Finally:
Healing comes from accepting all parts of yourself, and your history and developing self-awareness without judgment. Resilience is knowing there is nothing wrong. You are who you are today as a result of multiple influences from your ancestors, immediate family, society and culture.
Trying to work out what is wrong with you so that you can fix it is a massive distraction. Life is complex and you are here to live it.
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Unlocking Healing: The Power of Long-Term Talk Therapy in Complex Trauma Recovery
Looking beyond quick fixes and instant remedies.
Image created digitally by the Author If you are a subscriber to Medium please read this on My Medium Page as I get thrown a few peanuts that way. John Walter 📣 First Published in Invisible Illness 06/11/2023
Complex trauma is a condition many of us suffer from. By definition, it is not the result of a single event. It often begins subtly in childhood as the result of some form of abuse, neglect, stress or simply the lack of sufficient care. As children, we are programmed to find a way of surviving in less-than-ideal circumstances.
This may be compounded later in life through traumatic issues arising in relationships or a singular traumatic event.
We develop coping strategies, and our human resilience finds a way of adapting to the environment within which we find ourselves. Our authentic self gives us the power and drive to move towards an uncertain future. At the same time, we adapt to our emotional and social environment on a mental, physical, emotional and spiritual level.
I asked ChatGPT for some help getting clarity in writing this section, and I quoted the answer in full because I couldn’t put it better.
This intricate dance between our inner self and the world around us allows us to survive and thrive in the face of life’s challenges. We learn to harness the power of our emotions, channelling them into motivation and creativity. Our mental faculties enable us to analyze, learn, and grow from our experiences, while our physical strength and endurance help us overcome physical obstacles. Emotionally, we build connections, empathy, and resilience, forming deep bonds with others. Spiritually, we seek meaning and purpose, connecting with something greater than ourselves. As we continue this journey of self-discovery and adaptation, we find that our authentic self is not a fixed point but a constantly evolving entity, capable of embracing change and uncertainty with courage and grace.
[Note Chat GPT combines multiple online sources to construct an answer to a specific question]
Complex trauma can affect us emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually. Usually, it is a combination of some or all of these.
Shutting down parts of ourselves
I very quickly learnt that physical affection or comfort from cuddles and hugs was not something I would get an abundance of. In a large family of mainly boys, I was more likely to gain physical contact through play-fighting or being “boxed around the ears” by a parent. My mother would sit me in her lap to squeeze spots, clean out ears, or lance boils. Job done. I would be off the lap, making way for the next person in line.
My father was a handshake-only sort of person. I remember initiating my first hug with him when I was 46.
At age 68, I have come to terms with the impact of this deprivation of close physical contact as a child. My maladaptive self has made it a lifelong struggle. My sexual relationships have been impacted. Gaining physical comfort from another human being was a fight, a struggle or part of a competition. Some comments from my family even led me to believe my need for physical comfort was something shameful and disgusting.
I can only empathise with my first wife, who left after four years of dealing with my constant neediness and confusion in this area.
This is one of many parts of myself that I shut down or created a maladaptive strategy around.
Which parts of yourself have you shut down?
Here is a possible list of maladaptive behaviours which can result from childhood trauma.
- Avoidance: You avoid specific stressors or situations rather than facing them head-on.
- Substance Abuse: Using drugs or alcohol to desensitise yourself or escape from complicated feelings. (eating disorders can be included here)
- Self-Harm: Inflicting pain on yourself seemingly gives temporary relief from unresolved, overwhelming feelings.
- Dissociation: You disconnect from your thoughts and feelings when in stressful situations. You become an observer of yourself.
- Rumination: Overthinking or excessive worrying, which can get in the way of taking appropriate action to solve a problematic situation.
- Passive Aggression: When you feel anger or frustration but feel you have to hide it. Later, the feelings may burst out inappropriately.
- Excessive Social Withdrawal: Isolating yourself even when you need support and connection with others.
- Projection: Blaming others for the difficulties you are having rather than taking responsibility for them yourself.
- Perfectionism: You set unrealistic standards for yourself and experience disappointment in not achieving them.
- Escapism: Getting lost in computer games, binge-watching TV or Sex addiction as a way of avoiding facing the challenges of life.
The Maladaptive Self and the Authentic Self
The maladaptive self is like a series of layers you have created as protection to survive the rigours of life. The trouble is it was constructed in an environment which was not representative of the whole world. You constructed it to survive the particular circumstances of your family life.
As you move into independent adult living, those survival strategies may no longer be relevant or workable.
Many people find themselves unconsciously drawn to environments similar to their family environment. Their maladaptive self is in control. The most obvious example of this is people with abusive or controlling parents finding themselves with abusive and controlling partners.
The maladaptive self is very comfortable in this environment, no matter how uncomfortable the adult or authentic self may find it.
Recognising and becoming aware of your maladaptive strategies is the way of creating a life which you choose rather than a life rooted in past circumstances.
Quick fix strategies, the purpose and the dangers.
You could look at the list of maladaptive behaviours above, choose one and then find a therapist who deals specifically with that behaviour. You could work through the list with a different therapist for each.
The purpose of some quick-fix therapies is simply that. Identify an issue and create new coping strategies that are more appropriate to an adult life.
In some ways, this is more of the same. Rather than looking at the root cause, you are dealing with a symptom, and the danger is that you are simply layering new behaviours on top of the maladaptive behaviours.
Some clients become overwhelmed. Rather than living an authentic, harmonious life, they are constantly spinning plates. In every situation they encounter, they have to recognise and put on hold their previous maladaptive behaviour and initiate this new behaviour, which they are not yet entirely comfortable with.
The piecemeal approach to personal growth and self-awareness is deeply ingrained. It comes from the medical model of mental health.
I can’t sleep — take a sleeping pill.
I am anxious — learn breathing techniques.
I am depressed — take antidepressants.
We are so used to working with the symptoms of our distress that no one even thinks to help us work with the cause. Sticking plasters layered on top of band-aids.This approach is exhausting and unsustainable. In some cases, I see it as further embedding the trauma rather than relieving or releasing it in any way.
The Holistic Long-term therapy approach.
Many clients come to me, and their first words are
“I tried — — — — therapy for six weeks, and it was a waste of time.”After six or so sessions of working with their issues holistically, considering cognitive, emotional, somatic and spiritual aspects affecting them, they almost always feel it is a good use of time and commit to the long haul.
The work is more than single-goal focused. There are often steps backwards as well as forwards and quite a lot of going around in circles. Part of the healing is accepting that the process can be non-linear. It is more about developing an overview than following a path.
One client, a military gentleman not often resorting to metaphor, explained:
When I arrived, I was like a spider, only aware of one tiny part of the web I was on. I felt the web vibrate and shake, and I was terrified of what was happening. I could not see what was happening. I felt all of it, and it was all unknown.
Image created by the author [20 sessions later] Now it’s like I have a bird’s eye view of the web. I feel a vibration, and I can see it is just a leaf brushing past with the wind. Everything I feel now has some context, and it no longer terrifies me.
Self-awareness is a state of being not a project to take on.
Some clients take on self-awareness like they would a work-based project. There are goals and to-do lists, deadlines missed, and spreadsheets created.
I have no judgment about this, but I do expect that, over time, this will get forgotten. Life is not a project. Life is to be lived.
Having experienced trauma as a child, overthinking becomes a habit.
“I will be safer if I behave like this”
Every part of one’s day becomes a strategic event. The ability to be, to simply exist freely as a child should, is lost. Every step must be calculated tested and measured.Long-term therapy can turn back the clock. A place can be experienced where it is safe to simply be. Where you can experience the moment without fear of reprisals. Where your imagination can run riot. Where any feeling can be expressed without judgment criticism or shame.
When you experience the freedom to simply be yourself in therapy you have made a connection with your inner child and the uncovering of the authentic self has begun.
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Don’t Wait For A Crisis to Come To Counselling
Come when you feel off-colour or out of balance, not yourself or overwhelmed.
Counselling is not just a science. It is part of a social process. The dominance of a scientific, data-driven approach to everything from education through medicine to mental health, could lead you to believe that you need to know everything about your condition before even approaching a Counsellor. You can feel you need to know what is broken before anyone can mend you.
You are not a bicycle.
You are the only person who knows what it feels like to be on your journey. No one can give you a test drive and diagnose a flat tyre or a loose chain. You are the only person that can experience what it is like to be you.
Our medical and mental health services can appear to be crisis-driven.
“I don’t want to bother overstretched services. I am not as bad as others.”You know that if you ride a bicycle with a flat tyre, you will end up with a buckled wheel, yet you carry on feeling a little bit depressed or anxious until it starts to impact your day-to-day functioning. You may feel out of sorts, a bit unbalanced. You react to situations surprisingly and feel like you are losing control.
You don’t need an expert.
Many therapists have specialisms, and the effect is to give the message that you, as a client, need to know what is wrong with you before you approach anyone to get it fixed. So we carry on coping and designing strategies and survival mechanisms until none works. You have reached a crisis.
You then go to a doctor or Emergency services and, in desperation, hand over the management of your being to an expert.
Here’s a secret. Doctors have no idea how you feel and no time to find out. They have a pack of cards in their head, and if your symptoms match what’s written on one of those cards, they turn it over and Voila! There is a solution. Medication or therapy is prescribed, and they move on to the next patient.
You are an expert on you.
With the help of a counsellor, you can begin to see beyond any diagnosis. You are giving yourself the time and the space to get to know who you are and what drives you.
A Psychiatrist can diagnose you with DXYZ but all that does is put you into a category with another million people. Each one of those million represents the diagnosis differently so you have to ask what point is there in the diagnosis?
You could argue a diagnosis helps you look in the right direction but maybe with that specific focus you are missing out on all the things going on elsewhere.
There are multiple examples in the history of mental health treatment where a longstanding diagnosis is seen to be incorrect and the treatment dished up for it has been useless or even damaging. I’ll leave you to Google those examples for yourself.
One example is conversion therapy for the LGBT community. In the UK despite all the evidence of the extensive damage it has caused it has only been banned for LGB and not for Trans people. The government is saying it is ok for a therapist to work with Trans clients and be paid to convince them that what they feel deeply about themselves is wrong. This discussion deserves an article of it’s own.
A counsellor should guide you to look at every aspect of your being
It is not a counsellor’s job to tell you what is wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. Life has thrown a whole load of circumstances at you and with extraordinary resilience you have survived.
If you are more anxious than normal, shedding tears in situations that have surprised you, lost your sense of purpose, feel you are stuck in a hamster wheel, these are all signs a crisis could be on its way.
Don’t wait till you can’t get out of bed, your relationship breaks down, or you fly off the handle at the slightest misstep by another. You are then in crisis and you will need crisis management.
Counsellors can deal with crisis management but it can take several weeks of therapy just to get you to a point where you are receptive to exploring your inner world.
It is far more cost effective to come before the crisis hits. You can explore the uncomfortable feelings and make changes in your life at a time when you are still able to think clearly.
When you are in crisis you have switched into permanent fight or flight mode. All your resources are directed towards surviving the pain you are in. Your rational mind has been taken offline and your emotions are overwhelming.
You don’t have to know what is wrong with you
Counsellors are trained to work with whatever you bring. You don’t need to Google your symptoms and diagnose yourself, that is unlikely to be helpful. You don’t have to know what you need. You only need to be able to talk about everything that is bothering you and allow your counsellor to listen and reflect with you.
You may never discover what is causing your pain.
A commonly expressed desire at the beginning of counselling is to find out why you are going through this agony. Often on the completion of therapy clients reflect that they are still none the wiser.
One client expressed it well after 20 sessions.
“I still don’t know why I was struggling so much when I came, but I do know that I am not struggling anymore. All the things that were annoying or worrying me just don’t seem to matter anymore.”
We are in a society that likes to rationalise. Everything has to be measured and assessed, and every action is directed towards a clear goal. Productivity is raised above creativity, success is prized, and physical and mental wellbeing is neglected.
I invite you to notice when your well-being is slightly off-kilter. Don’t wait for things to spin out of control. Connect up with a counsellor you feel you can relate to and take back the reigns. You already know everything you need to know. You don’t need answers, simply being aware of your thoughts and feelings can be enough to begin directing them towards a purpose you create for yourself.
Thank you for reading to the end. Please subscribe if you would like to read more.
John Walter BEd Dip.Couns. MBACP
I work Europe-wide over a video link and face-to-face in Cornwall. www.johnwaltercounsellor.com
These directories are a good starting point for Uk residents.
https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/
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Two Ways of Looking at The Art of Counselling
Holistic on the left. Psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology on the right
The picture above shows how AI art interprets two very different words. They both mean the same thing. The long psycho word is just the medical term for how all the various human systems work together, as explained here.
Psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology, which was first described in 1936, is the study of the interactions between the psyche, neural and endocrine functions and immune responses.
Whereas Holistic therapy means something like this
‘Holistic’ originates from the Greek root ‘holos’, which translates as ‘whole’. Therefore, ‘holistic therapy’ is an umbrella term for any healthcare therapies and practices that treat the entire body and the whole person, rather than curing ailments in isolation as modern medicine does.
The first perspective comes from the medical world, whilst the second originates from the world of Humanistic Therapy.
Humanistic therapy is a mental health approach that emphasizes the importance of being your true self in order to lead the most fulfilling life. It’s based on the principle that everyone has their own unique way of looking at the world. This view can impact your choices and actions.
The Art of Counselling as of 2022
As a recently trained counsellor but someone very experienced in the world of mental health, I have studied the science of Counselling in depth. And the conclusion I have come to after 35 years is that it is not a science. It is an art.
Making it science is the medical and academic world’s way of corralling and branding it, like gathering and taming wild horses ready for market. Once corralled, the horses are weighed and tested and compared with each other. In the process, however, you have restricted their freedom and taken away their autonomy. The horses that have survived unaided on the plains for 55 million years are now domesticated and dependent on humans for survival.
These images for psychology paint a grim picture.
Image created by the author on Midjourney Creative Counselling can give you back your freedom.
Art is ever-changing. Techniques and materials come and go and fall in and out of fashion. With the coming of AI art, I can summon up the pictures in this article with a few words as a prompt. I do not have to restrict myself to one particular school of art or material. I can be creative in the moment and follow any threads that interest me.
The same is true of Counselling. I clarify to my clients that I do not restrict myself to any particular branch of psychotherapy. My focus is firmly on providing each client with exactly what they need. If I counsel you, then your inner world is the focus of my attention. You can take it in any direction you wish. I will follow along, noticing patterns and nuance, cheering for your success and listening and encouraging you while you untangle your confused thoughts and feelings.
By painting a picture with your words to your counsellor, you may or may not understand yourself better rationally, but you cannot take away the fact that you have painted the picture. You have chosen the materials, the tools and the pallet. You have allowed yourself to be creative and maybe surprised yourself with some of the images that have arisen.
Image created by the author in Midjourney The creative process makes a difference.
Many clients arrive on my doorstep like those corralled horses I described above. They have learnt to survive in captivity, which is all they know. They seem unaware that the gate is wide open and freedom awaits. If they are aware of the open gate, they are afraid to step away from the safety of the corral. The regular meals, rules and routines have embedded themselves as an illusion of safety.
For some, their childhood was not safe physically or emotionally, but even so, they cling to it like a punctured liferaft, afraid of stepping out into the unknown.
There is no doubt that the gate is open and all they have to do is step through. The creative process is all about exploring the unknown. In the picture on the right below, my conscious mind was aiming for three horses in a corral. By some magical, mystical process between me and the AI server, a human face appeared in place of one of the horses. The image expressed what I wanted to say so much better than the one I had intended to create. I had allowed chance and randomness to lead me into the unknown, and the result was far more potent than I had planned.
Image created by the author on Midjourney Identifying Counsellors who work creatively
I think all I can suggest here is to avoid narrow specialisms. I will not name specific therapies to avoid, but you are more likely to find a creative therapist if they call themselves Integrative, Pluralistic or Eclectic. I don’t use any of those labels for myself. I prefer to call myself a Counsellor and leave it at that.
If you ask for a description of my way of working, I will tell you I follow your lead and work with any approach I feel you need. I could list all the therapeutic approaches I know well, but often, that can be confusing. There are broad misconceptions about many of the therapies that hold specific labels.
Maybe I should show you the two pictures below and say I will help you look beyond the window that marks the confines of your present world. I will help you imagine the freedom and colour of that alternative future, to get used to its smell and weight. When you eventually leave your present constraints behind, it will be like walking into something new with a trusted friend. You will realise that your trusted friend has always been there. You will realise that all I have done is help you to find something you already had.
Image created by Author on Midjourney. Thank you for reading to the end. Please subscribe if you want to read more like this.
Go to my website if you are interested in Counselling over the phone, via video or face to face.
Find my Facebook page @jwcounsellor
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Setting Sail Into Unknown Waters
Do you grasp the opportunity or yearn for the safety of the familiar?
First published in Medium 05/10/2022
Image created by author using Midjourney I have had good chunks of my life where I lived a life I love. They always happened when I stopped thinking about my security and prioritised adventure. I left the arid land of secure jobs and pensions and sailed out on my own. I discarded detailed plans, goals and targets. I pointed myself at the horizon with no destination in mind. I trusted that the power of my passion and excitement would fill my sails and carry me into some unknown world that would feed my soul.
One real sailing adventure in my teens has provided me with a metaphor that I can apply to any point in my life where I have changed direction, set myself free, and embraced freedom and excitement.
The same metaphor has helped me identify times when the opposite is true. I have been following someone else’s rules; I have been stuck in a place where I am afraid to give voice to my ideas for fear of rocking the boat. I have had the wind knocked out of my sails. Daily, I am rowing back and forth and exhausting myself, like the ferryman in The Giant with Three Golden Hairs. I am unable to discover the simple solution to my cursed life. A delusion drives me to say this is the only way to keep myself afloat financially.
Breaking the rules, escaping the moorings.
In my late teens, I felt very lost. I had been trying to live a double life.
One version of me dressed smartly and went to school, only to sit bored all day dreaming of what I could do if society did not force me to go.
The other version was constantly creative. Drawing, painting, writing poems, songs and stories, singing in choirs, acting in plays, teaching myself to play the guitar and piano, and inviting friends over to listen to the latest album by Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd or King Crimson.
On this day, I had failed two of my three A-Level exams, and my latest girlfriend was off to Paris. I had no plan of what to do next. I could not get into University or College, but it was clear that academic life was not for me. I was adrift with no clue of what was calling me, apart from a vague notion of being a rockstar.
I drove with a brother down to our Grandparents, who lived in a tiny cottage nestled into the cliffs in South Cornwall. There was a good wind, and I wanted to get in our sailing boat Sonia and feel freedom away from all pressures and expectations.
My grandad nodded when I voiced my intention and then removed his pipe from his mouth and said.
“Stay in the harbour; there’s a wind out there.”I nodded and went to the boatshed to collect sails, life jacket and rudder. Leaving them at the top of the landing stage, I slipped through the dark alleyway between boatshed and rocks to the little rocky cove where the rowing boat was moored up. I rowed out to Sonia, switched moorings, returned her to the landing stage and rigged up sails.
All set, I let the sails grab the wind and soon I was out in the large harbour feeling that wonderful heady mix of freedom and control. However, it wasn’t enough. The safety of the harbour felt like a prison. I could see the ocean beyond the two blockhouses which, for centuries have marked and protected the entrance to the harbour.
I had been obeying the rules for too long, staring at the ocean out of the classroom window, not wanting to be there but having no possibility of being anywhere else.
It was not a conscious process to continue my tacking journey past the ferries, the two harbour tugs and all the moored yachts and leisure craft. I didn’t even consider my Grandad’s warning. I sailed past them all and into the swell of the ocean. It felt good, and I felt free.
In a matter of minutes, I realised that the storm I was sailing into was too much for the tiny wooden sailing dinghy of which I was master. With each tack, the swell increased, and each wave began to deposit increasing amounts of water into the front of the boat. I was exhilarated, but I had not considered the difficulties of turning back.
This challenge occupied me now. I needed to choose my moment as I crested a wave. Was the distance from the next enough for me to swing 180 degrees without being caught and tipped sideways into the angry sea? After I had crashed through a few more waves, I saw my chance. I jammed the tiller away from me, ducked under the boom and held my breath for a second until I felt the reassuring thud as the wind took control of the sail.
Now I was surfing into the harbour with the wind behind me. There were no feelings other than contentment. I had risked stepping into the unknown and had the skills and knowledge to face the challenge and survive.
The unseen safety net.
I was unaware of the unseen safety net until I was lying in my bunk below my brother that night.
I returned late that afternoon, moored both boats and stored the sails. The cottage did not boast “new-fangled” things like showers or constant hot water, so I warmed myself on a mug of tea. My Grandparents said nothing about my little adventure as we sat together eating the evening meal and then playing draughts.
I learnt from the shipping forecast that we had been experiencing force four gales, which was building.
Later my brother whispered to me from the bunk above.
“Grandad was watching you the whole time.”
“What do you mean?”
“The minute he saw you were heading out he was on his feet and asked me to come too. He had his binoculars, and we were headed to the cliffs stopping at the phone box on the way.”
“Who did he phone?”
“The coastguard. They put the lifeboat crew on alert. We were watching you from the cliff. Grandad said the lifeboat had the engines going, and if you capsized, I had to run to the phonebox and let them know. They would be with you in two minutes.”
I wonder now how much that unseen safety net my grandfather created was influencing and encouraging me to take risks, or giving me a safe platform from which to launch myself.
A few months after this experience I jumped on a train to London, and within a week I rented a flat and secured a job. My great adventure away from the safety of my parent’s world had begun.
Reminding me to step into the unknown
That feeling of going through the motions, living in one world while yearning to be in another has returned to me many times throughout my life. I also recognise how the frustration builds until I finally break through and how that process is not conscious. I wonder how much I am creating my own unseen safety net and how that contributes to the moment when my intuition says, “Now is the time.”
All logic and thoughts of consequences are suspended, and I head out into the unknown past the harbour walls.
If you would like help creating a sense of freedom and adventure in your life contact me through my website.
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The Door To Another World
Are you willing to take the risk to step through?
Image created by author The journey of self-awareness holds many opportunities to step through a door into another world. It may feel like there will be no way to turn back should you find the new world is not to your liking. It is a one-way door, but the danger of staying stuck in old patterns and behaviours is far greater than any risks to your well-being from moving through the door.
There is discomfort in living in a world you have outgrown.
We have a choice of whether to step through the door or not, but imagine the discomfort a crab would feel if it could not shed its outer shell and allow a new larger one to grow in its place. Imagine the discomfort of a snake reluctant to shed skin which has become too small. If you keep putting off stepping into a new world, you will gradually feel the discomfort building until it is unbearable.
Somewhere along that timeline of discomfort is when many people seek counselling. For the first few sessions, all we can focus on is the discomfort you are feeling. As a Counsellor, I listen to and help clients identify places where the shell no longer fits.
The new life is calling from beyond the doorway, and you begin to hear its enchanting sound alongside the constant chatter of your discomfort.
Begin focusing on the enchanting sound from beyond the doorway
Some people have already heard the call, which has drawn them to therapy. They yearn to pass through the door, but the large rucksack full of past experiences prevents them. Maybe they need to pause a while, to unload all the baggage they have carried for so long and consider it all carefully. They will need to repack parts that have served them well and discard the rest.
Often this process of sorting is enough, everyone is different, and as a therapist, I cannot predict or control your process. On several occasions, clients have reported feeling “much lighter” after the first session. Others will take several weeks before they even recognise a door is there inviting them to enter another world.
At some point, the client walks in, and I am aware they are in the process of moving through that door into the unknown world. There is a lightness of being that I have not noticed before. There is a sense that I am no longer needed.
How will you know when you have stepped through?
A common sign that clients have begun to pass through the door is that they are running out of things to talk about. Any regular complaints, anxieties, shaming or blaming, anger and frustrations have melted away.
By examining all these things in detail, taking responsibility and developing an empathic understanding of yourself and others, they no longer exert a hold over you.
How will you make sense of what has happened?
Trying to make sense of it will probably be the thing that holds you on the threshold, unable to take that final step. Some people like to hold up psychological theories, astrological predictions, and maps of spiritual pathways trying to make sense of their process by looking at it through the lens of someone considered an expert.
Be like one of my clients who came to me for over 20 weeks with all manner of conflicts and anxieties in his life. He walked in on the 21st session, and I expected his usual update. Instead, he said
“None of it matters anymore. Nothing has changed, but all the things I reacted to before don’t matter anymore.”
He then went on to describe his process in a metaphor.
“It’s like I was on a spider’s web, but all I could see was the small section in front of me. Wherever I went, there was danger. Now I can see the whole web from above and how everything is connected. A small disturbance in one part of the web ripples across the whole web.”
He was a man who liked to rationalise everything, but he had realised that he would never know what had caused the change in his reactions or understand what I had done to help him with that change. He had pushed open the door and was ready to enter the unknown.
Is that the end of therapy, then?
For some, it may be enough to step through the door. Others may need continued support to survive in this unknown world. I have returned to therapy on several occasions over 37 years. Each time I have discovered a new door, I need to pass through to yet another unknown world.
How do you know when there is another world calling?
One of the most obvious triggers is trauma of any kind. I have had the trauma of a tumour causing the loss of hearing in one ear (I am a musician, it is a big deal), the collapse of my business and my daughter’s death.
Each trauma was accompanied by a voice calling from an unknown world. The physical circumstances of my life had changed, and to survive, I had to change my whole relationship with life itself.
Sometimes I reacted quickly, and other times it was a tortuous process where I was hanging onto something from the past. I thought I needed it to support me when it kept me anchored in a pattern I had outgrown.
Responding to the invitation
One of the most familiar phrases clients use is “I’m overthinking it”, which will certainly not help you here. The door to another world leads to an unknown future. If you start planning or trying to predict the steps on your journey, you will stay firmly planted in your present struggles and difficulties. Any worries about what the future may hold will only serve as an anchor to the past.
The journey could be short or long, but if you dare to take the first step and trust in an unknown future, it has already begun.
If you are wondering more about what it actually involves to begin therapy, I have written a newer piece on that: [Crossing the Threshold: What It Really Means to Begin Therapy]
Get in touch if you want some support along the way.
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Being In Relationship
It’s not about dating apps
Image created by author on Midjourney Dating apps convince you that you are doing a relationship, but that is quite a different thing from being in a relationship.
Being in relationship
We will take a few steps back and look at everything it takes to be in a relationship with others. Maybe you can dump the apps and start living a life where you nurture your relationship with yourself first, and every other relationship flows from that.
Take a few more steps back to see the moment you were born. Yeah, that moment. The only relationship you had was with your mother from the inside to the outside. All sorts of stuff can kick off there. You are ripe for abandonment, neglect, abuse or being hurt. Maybe you were lucky and got a lovely big dose of care and attention, and then a bit further down the line, it all went a bit weird. Yeah, I can’t seem to write even one sentence with a fairytale ending.
Whatever you had to go through was your relationship training ground. Every cell in your body grew in childhood and took on patterns and relationships from your environment.
Childhood is your training ground for relationships
My family were not touchy-feely. My parents restricted physical contact to functionality. A boil on the bum meant I could lie across my mum’s lap while she took a needle to it. Being a bit pathetic at drying myself after a bath meant I got a good roughing up with a towel.
I needed touch then, and I still need it now. Do those strategies born of neediness still creep into every relationship? You bet they do.
What have you dragged from your childhood into every adult relationship?
Do all your romantic partners start out wonderful and then begin to metamorphose into someone with many similar characteristics to one or both of your parents?
Lots of things are going on here. Your childhood is your training ground for relationships. You learn how to interpret and live with your emotions in connection with those around you as a child.
When you move into independent adulthood, you are naturally drawn to relationships that reflect your relationship with your parents and family. You feel safe there. It is familiar. You have spent almost 20 years surviving in a particular relational environment. All your responses, habits and behaviour patterns have been integrated into your body/mind as a safe and sensible approach to life.
One of my survival techniques or patterns was to be the peacemaker, keep a low profile, and be calm in the face of chaos. This is a handy set of characteristics when growing up in a large, noisy and mildly dysfunctional family. It is quite an attractive characteristic; as an adult, it has drawn many people to me.
But what is the downside?
What am I missing out on ?
What am I dragging into all relationships as a result?
Recognising the relational baggage you carry
There are different approaches to this task depending on your processing style.
- Thinkers: Look at your thoughts around relationships. What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about others?
- Feelers: Visualise interactions with a parent when you were a child. What do you feel as you negotiate these moments in time? Do you recognise these feelings in current relationships in the workplace or in your social life?
- Action takers: List the times in childhood when you could not take action, were frozen or took yourself away from situations that immobilised you. Do you now avoid similar problems, or have you begun to face them?
- Seekers: Imagine you are carrying a large backpack on a long journey. You set it down, take out each item in the pack, and lay it in front of you. Explore what each item represents.
Whatever your baggage, your current relationships are influenced by what you carry.
I can’t advise you what to do next.
You have recognised a belief or an obstacle, a recurring feeling of discomfort or a symbolic item you brought with you from childhood into your life as an adult.
Now is your opportunity to transform that, and only you know how. It may be that by simply recognising the thought, feeling, obstacle or symbol, you can acknowledge the echo from the past and decide whether it is helpful to you now in the present.
You may need to start by going through a process where you develop a stronger, more loving relationship with yourself. Notice when you judge yourself, regard yourself in a negative light, or behave in a way that does not reflect your true self.
I recognise and acknowledge that my relationship with myself is where all other relationships begin or fail.
My ongoing challenges and how I meet them
I often find myself in communication, where my automatic response is to keep the peace. I walk away from challenging conversations and avoid confronting bad practices or behaviour. I resign rather than negotiate further. I give in rather than argue.
I am now noticing my responses, but instead of shutting down or stepping away, I acknowledge what I am feeling to myself. This is often enough. If I am feeling threatened or attacked, acknowledging the feeling is enough to stop me from reacting in my usual way. I can stay in the conversation. I can gather my thoughts and find ways to express myself that connect me to that person rather than create a wall.
Whatever your relationship challenge, dating apps will not solve it. Focus on your relationship with yourself, and maybe dating apps will be a useful tool to get you out there and practise your new skill of being in relationship.
If you need more help, get in touch
First published in Medium September 2022
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Are You Striving or Thriving?
How to take struggle and conflict out of your life
Image by John Hain from Pixabay I‘m pretty sure most of us want to thrive. To feel alive in the moment and in connection with ourselves and the rest of humanity.
Thrive: To prosper; be fortunate or successful. To grow or develop vigorously, to flourish.
The trouble is we have collapsed the idea of thriving with striving.
Strive: To make strenuous efforts toward any goal. To contend in opposition, battle, or any conflict; compete.
The striving mindset
We have created the idea that to achieve any success, you have to struggle and enter into conflict. In reality, being in a state of struggle and conflict is the polar opposite of thriving.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how you may take the struggle and conflict out of your life. I know that the first step is to recognise that you are in a state of striving, which is the very thing preventing you from thriving.
One indicator that you are striving rather than thriving is that you were attracted to this article by thinking I would show you “how to” do something immediately.
Striving is a state of doing, and thriving is a state of being.
The human capacity to strive is a vital one for survival. We all need to strive to survive if we are struck down by an illness or attacked by an enemy. However, it has become the default mode for some to engage in a fight for survival every day and every moment.
One suggestion for moving towards a thriving life is to watch out for the “flashover” points.
n. the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.
From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
I can recognise those flashover points in my life.
That exquisite concert where the music took on a life of its own and began to give me back more energy than I was giving out.
The breakfast with a friend where I decided to set up my own business, which thrived for 13 years until it didn’t.
The moment on Tower Bridge when I touched my future wife’s cheek and felt that exquisite static charge, melting the forcefield I had built around myself.
Then there are those moments of intense struggle where letting go and stepping away, abandoning the goal, seems to be the only choice.
When years of friction with the world, flashover in a burst of static electricity. All those months of intense striving suddenly drop away, and for a moment, you experience weightlessness and freedom.
I resigned from a job when I realised that my conception of what I was doing was entirely different for the rest of the management team. After months of striving to do my job to the best of my ability and keep my integrity, I had a sudden realisation that no amount of striving would bring me any closer connection with the rest of the team.
I still have no idea what their goals and aspirations were other than surviving another day and getting home unscathed. I stood next to a policeman who had assisted us in that day’s crisis and firefighting, and I had such a sense of peace. No great involved thought process took place. I simply knew in my body and soul that I was done striving. I got in my car and drove away and never came back.
Observing flashover points in others
A client had been struggling at work for nigh on twenty years. His mental health was suffering, and he had experienced a mini breakdown. He was constantly striving but had ceased to thrive.
Over 20 weeks, we moved from constant repetition of daily struggles, through discussing traumatic and life-changing experiences and onto simple survival mechanisms set up in childhood.
One day he arrived visibly transformed. He was no longer carrying a weight on his shoulders. I asked him if something had changed at work.
“No, not really, but it just doesn’t seem to bother me anymore.”
He had shifted from striving to thriving, and he still doesn’t really know why.
Take a step back and view things from above.
This story is repeated in many people I see. They arrive with their faces buried in their hands, desperately trying to work out what has gone wrong in some part of their life. They are doing their best. They are investing vast amounts of energy in trying to get their lives back on track.
I see myself encouraging them to take a step back and give themselves an overview. By the end of our time together, they can see the whole of their life laid out on a table before them. The struggle they came with is a small detail in the repeated pattern of the fabric of their life. The significance and power of it disappear.
Striving is all about trying to prove your worth. Who are you trying to prove it to? Yourself? One of your parents? A sibling? God? The Great Spirit?
Look at your whole life. Is your present concern such a big deal? Earning more money, owning more things, gaining more status, likes, and friends. Does any of that matter if you are not living a life you love?
You are thriving no matter what your inner critic screams at you daily. If you focus on the things in life that feel right, you will continue to thrive. You can still have dreams and aspirations but take your eyes off goals and targets. Dreams and aspirations are fluid, and they alter with your mood. They are possibilities that breathe and change throughout the day.
Thriving is about being human, and striving is about becoming a machine.
Which do you choose?