Your Therapy Space

Accredited CBT and counselling Leamington Spa, Warwickshire and online

Relationships

I’ve made a mess of my life

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Can you imagine what it feels like to wake up every day and feel that you’ve made a mess of your life?  To look around and wonder exactly why you have made the choices you have made?  To beat yourself up because you seem to have made the same mistakes over and over?  To feel that you have no control over your life and that what lies ahead just seems too hard to face?

In my counselling practice I work with many people who feel like this.  These people seek counselling because they can’t find anyone to understand them.  They are fed up with people telling them to ‘get their act together’ or telling them that they are a ‘loser’.  They feel distressed and lonely and simply don’t know what to do next.  The good news is that the future does not have to be like the past.  We can find a new way of being, explore different choices and learn to understand ourselves.  If we’re not sure who we are then it’s hard to get to know anyone else…….let alone allow them to get to know us.

Working with a Counsellor can be a very healing process.  It can help you to stop beating yourself up.  To start to value yourself.  To value others.  To learn about what it means to be in an authentic relationship with another person.  It could change your life.

Wanting someone to be different

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What do you do if you want someone to be different and you want them to change?  How do you do this?  This is a common question that clients bring to counselling.  And I don’t know the answer. We simply can’t change other people.  It’s no good having a relationship with someone based on the idea that you can change them.  It never works and often ends in disappointment and resentment.  We can only change ourselves and how we deal with something or someone.  And when we realise this we may notice that other people start to change how they are with us.

Imagine that you have a friend who always puts you down in front of other people and makes fun of you.  You might allow this to continue because you like this person (and maybe some counselling could help you to figure that one out) or because you feel that you have to put up with it because you need to please others and you don’t want other people to think badly of you (again some counselling could help to understand this too).  Now imagine that the next time this ‘friend’ put you down that you said in a firm and neutral way ‘I don’t like being made fun of.’  What do you think would happen?   We can’t know for sure but it’s likely that your ‘friend’ would be surprised and really hear that they had gone too far.  They would recognise that they had hurt your feelings.  It’s possible that other people would think ‘good for you to stick up for yourself….I wish I was able to do that.’  A small change can have a big impact.  Imagine now what your life would be like if you were able to be assertive in a respectful way.  Maybe there would be no more angry outbursts or stored up resentments.  Maybe you’d stop putting up with people who didn’t deserve to be in your life.

That old devil – making assumptions

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Have you ever felt that the world is well and truly against you?  That no matter what you do you seem to mess up or get things wrong or that you ruin your relationships.  Do you beat yourself up about all the times you weren’t perfect?  It’s so easy to disregard all the great stuff you do in life if you  suffer from underlying low confidence or low self-esteem.  Guess what.  Most of us have days when we feel like this.  I know I do.  And I know lots of other people who feel like this sometimes too.  The problem is if you feel like this all the time.  It’s really important to get a perspective and talking things over can help you to decide on the things that you would like to change in your life.  The things which stop you feeling like the world is against you.

In my work as a Counsellor I never fail to be surprised at the extent to which people make assumptions.  It is probably one of the most unhelpful and toxic things we can do to ourselves.  Imagine if you stopped making assumptions.  You could let go of continually worrying what others thought of you.  You could learn to trust your own judgment.  You could stop beating yourself up about the things which didn’t go well.  And you could stop thinking that everyone else has got life figured out and knows all the answers.  The only thing I can know is what I think and feel.  If I want to know about anyone else then I’d have to ask them.  Try it.  You might be surprised.

The importance of compassion

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On my way home last night the traffic was slow and I noticed a young woman near my car shouting angrily at a man on the other side of the road.  She looked so angry and upset and she had tears running down her face.  I couldn’t understand all her words but her language was colourful.  I glanced across the road.  The young man she was addressing had his head down and looked embarrassed.  There was something about the whole incident which touched me deep inside.  A real sense that two people were hurting.  One didn’t care who knew and the other cared very much.

I wondered about the other people witnessing this.  I suspect that some people felt the same as I did and maybe others felt a bit embarrassed themselves.  Perhaps others were judgmental and thought that the woman was behaving inappropriately in public.  The thing is we just don’t know what is going on for other people.  All I knew from this situation was that someone was hurting and a kind word makes all the difference.  Being compassionate to people we know and love is easy.  It’s being like that to those we don’t know that’s the hard bit in life.

It’s not just about the footballer and super injunctions

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I was in the supermarket yesterday at the checkout and the lady dealing with me was chatting to her colleague and another customer about  the identity of the mystery footballer in the news (please don’t get me started in the fact that she considered that to be more important than making sure she rang up my shopping correctly).  To be fair she tried to involve me in the conversation but I did not contribute and kept my head down.  Later on, the television news was full of this story.  Everyone has an opinion it seems.

Why is it that we are so judgmental?  How would you feel if everyone was talking about you?  We don’t know what happened or how much of this story is true.  The only thing we can be pretty sure of really is how devastated his wife must be.  How alone she must feel.  And what about his children?  What kind of day are they having at school?  And while next week or next year this will be old news, it will never be old news for this family.  Maybe the next time you are tempted to join in with gossip you could think about the impact on others.  Every contact leaves a trace.  And what you say says so much about who you are.

Is everyone else better than you?

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Can you imagine going through life thinking that everyone else is better than you? Do you ever think that what other people have to say matters more than what you have to say? Have you ever felt that you should stay in the background and let others take the limelight? I often work with people who feel like this. Why is this? In psychology the nature versus nature debate is well established. Some people argue that how we turn out is down to genes. It’s all there in our DNA. Others disagree and say that how we turn out is all down to how we are reared, the experiences that we have in childhood.

I, and many others, think that how we turn out is influenced by both our genes and our upbringing. We learn so much in childhood. If our parents row continuously then we may never learn how to establish a loving relationship. If the people around us are worriers then we may learn to worry too.

Now imagine that you felt that you were as good as other people. That your voice mattered just as much. That people would be pleased to meet you and find out about you. That you were entitled to a life. Is that hard? Well where is it written down that you can’t be all these things. Thought so. It’s probably you that is telling yourself this stuff.

The great thing is that you can change. Become the person you would like to be. Counselling can help with this. What are you waiting for?