Do you ever have an ‘is it me’ day? The kind of day where you feel unappreciated or used and feel that other people, either at home or work, are acting in a self-interested, judgemental or unfair way. It’s easy for these feelings to spiral and it’s possible that you may find yourself withdrawing or arguing. It might feel challenging to find a way to live around those who only think of themselves.
Relationships
I’m a convert so you should do it too
It’s a wonderful thing to find something that helps us. It can change the way we view ourselves, our relationships, the world and life in general. However, what works for me might not work for you and that is why asking someone else to tell you what to do can be really unhelpful. Counselling is one of those things that can change your life. It can work on so many levels. It can help you to understand and accept yourself. It can help you to understand your relationships and why you might keep repeating some unhelpful behaviours. It might help you to improve relationships with your partner, your family, your friends and work colleagues. Or it might simply be the only place where you can really be you and work through all those things that you don’t want to tell anyone else about. How often do we have the experience of starting to tell a family member or friend something before they jump in with their own story, say something silencing like ‘tell me about it’ or simply not care enough to engage and listen?
The way you make me feel
I don’t know if you have noticed but counsellors talk about feelings a lot. I’m smiling as I write that because the stereotypical therapist is often portrayed in the media as someone touching their chin and asking their client ‘How did that make you feel?’ While I do try to avoid asking that myself, it does happen.
So why is it so important to understand our feelings? Well it might be useful to draw on why you might be considering counselling in the first place. You might find that you are thinking or saying things like ‘I feel lost’, or ‘I feel depressed’. It is your feelings which are being foregrounded here, not your thoughts. Alternatively, it may be that you have no idea what you are feeling and you might say things like ‘I’m bad at relationships’ or ‘My boss doesn’t understand me’. Counselling helps you to understand your feelings. It helps you to recognise the triggers to these feelings and helps you to process them. It helps you to understand how to cope when your feelings are stopping you from doing what you would like to do and to manage them.
If you need someone to help you with the way you are feeling, please get in touch. Feel well.
What is counselling like?
There is no right way ‘to do’ counselling which sounds unsatisfactory I know. It is really going to depend so much on the relationship which develops between you and your Counsellor. It is also going to depend on the model of therapy your Counsellor draws on. For more on this please read my blog post different approaches to psychological therapy.
What keeps you awake at night?
Not sleeping well is a bad place to be. It seems so much harder to cope with day to day life when you are tired. It becomes so easy to snap at other people. You can end up worrying about not sleeping and this can create a vicious circle. Lots of clients come to counselling and mention that they are having trouble sleeping. It’s very common, especially if you are experiencing some kind of psychological distress. So what can you do?
There is a lot of helpful information available on the internet. Try searching under ‘sleep hygiene’ and you will find lots of common sense articles about how to get a good night’s sleep. Try some of the things suggested in these articles for about 2 weeks and see if things improve. It is amazing how many clients come to counselling and say that if they wake up in the middle of the night they go downstairs and make a cup of coffee. Caffeine is not known for its sleep inducing properties.
So what happens if you are still not sleeping well? It’s really important to try and figure out whether this is a normal response to an abnormal situation. If you are recently bereaved then it is possible that this will interfere with your sleep. If you have recently experienced some kind of loss, for example redundancy, again it is likely to impact on your sleep. Or it may be that you have some regrets about things that have happened in the past. And these keep ticking over in your mind at night. Maybe you feel guilty about something you have done. Or haven’t done.
If you are having difficulties sleeping you could go to your GP and ask about medication. Or you could try some counselling and try to process those losses or regrets or feelings of guilt. Sleep well.
Why don’t you work on your own story?
Isn’t it funny how we can go through life being told what to do by other people. Parents, teachers, bosses, partners and even people who claim to be our friends. At some point most of us decide that we can make our own decisions and stop deferring to others. We learn to say what we need. We stop believing that other people have all the answers. We start to believe in ourselves and realise that even if we get it wrong we can learn from the experience and repair damage if necessary.
Unfortunately not everyone reaches this stage and I often work with clients who have no belief or confidence in themselves. It becomes obvious when they realise that counselling is not about being told what to do and that even though I’m a Counsellor I am not going to make their decisions for them. I love the phrase ‘why don’t you work on your own story.’ It says so much about opportunities, potential, choices and responsibility. It is not about trying to control others or about trying to live your life through others or blaming others. It’s about realising that it’s up to you.
Mind you saying ‘why don’t you work on your own story’ is really assuming that you are able to. That you have an awareness that other people may be pulling the strings in your life. I don’t want to diminish the fact that many people have few choices. Poverty is one of the biggest causes of mental health problems. You may feel oppressed and stuck in a job you hate. You may feel trapped in a bad relationship. You may feel you have to do what your family tells you otherwise you will be rejected. I can’t change any of these things. I can’t change society for you. I can’t make life fairer for you. I can work on my story though and do my bit and maybe that means working with you. Helping you to find a way to cope with the things you cannot change while working on the things you can change.