Let's Bust The Myth
Let’s bust the myth.
Being a coach, counsellor or therapist does not mean:
That you have all the answers.
That you can fix anything or anyone.
That your life is perfect and always together.
That you don’t experience bad days.
That you never doubt yourself or feel anxious or afraid.
We are human after all. We are not perfect nor in possession of magical powers.
Let me demonstrate this through sharing a personal story. I am living up to the Arabic meaning of my name after all, the female storyteller.
All the work I did in relation to mental and emotional well-being, provided me with insights into my childhood experiences and how they led me to have certain behavioural patterns as a result of those experiences. This is also often the case with most of us. The circumstances surrounding our childhood shape who we are as adults. The coping behavioural patterns we develop as a result were helpful then as children, however prove to be ineffective strategies when we are adults. One of the things I became aware of are the issues surrounding abandonment, feeling unloved and unaccepted as I am. It drove me to try hard to people please, to adopt a perfectionist attitude and to suppress my authentic emotions. Gaining that self-awareness was transformational on a personal as well as a professional level.
I quit working as a pharmacist after many years in the profession and retrained to become a coach and a counsellor.
In my existing professional role I do experience periods where I am busy with clients, inspired to write blogs and social media posts, interacting with other professionals in the field, and attending webinars and workshops as a form of continuing learning and education.
And there are also the periods when I am less busy, have fewer or no clients, feel uninspired, experience fewer interactions and sit in a kind of stagnation.
I noticed that those quieter periods make me feel uncomfortable, and I observed that I seem to fall back onto the old out-dated childhood strategies of trying too hard to be and do what I feel is expected of me, in order to escape this discomfort. This was mostly evident to me during the COVID lockdown years when the world felt like it came to a standstill.
“How interesting”, I thought to myself, on noticing my discomfort. “I wonder what is happening here?” I questioned myself.
So I decided to consciously take a different approach during those quiet periods. Instead of getting busy ‘doing’ I chose ‘being’, to instead sit quietly with that discomfort and discover its source. I remembered Dr Susan David’s famous quote, which I love,
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
- Susan David, psychologist, speaker and author.
It’s not surprising that I did gain some meaningful information through withstanding this discomfort. I discovered that the source of this discomfort was connected to my past abandonment issues and feeling unloved and unaccepted. The discomfort I experienced in those quiet periods was due to me connecting to my Inner Child’s old fear of being abandoned, forgotten and left behind.
That insightful moment was so helpful and healing. It meant that nowadays when I do experience quieter and less productive periods in my profession, I do not feel that uncomfortable anxiety anymore. I let myself be and trust the process. I embrace this time of quiet and enjoy the valuable reflections it brings me that ultimately are so helpful in the work I do with clients. I see them as periods of enrichment.
Being coaches, counsellors and therapists simply means that we have the knowledge about psychological models, and having experienced them during our own therapeutic and supervision sessions, we know their value in assisting others, as well as ourselves, to resolve emotional and mental issues. We know how to implement them to support others without judgement and with much empathy and compassion.
The solution to ease our suffering lies within us. In the same way I was able to support myself in easing my discomfort I support my clients in finding the answers within them to ease their own discomforts.
I am curious what other professionals in this field think?
Please share in the comments.
Your Past Could Hold The Key To Unlock Your Future
Many of my clients tell me at some point during our intake session that they don’t want to look back at their past, that they just want to shut the door on the past and never look back. For whatever reason, they have a great fear with regards reflecting on their past.
“I just want to move on”, they often say to me.
However in some situations, just like driving a car, to move forward you need to glance backwards, to make sure that no obstacles are in the way.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.“
Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher
There is no denying that sometimes examining the past can be painful. However, sometimes the issues that we take to a coach, counsellor or therapist can be deep rooted in our past. Reflecting on the past, as painful as it might be, will most probably be less painful than suppressing it and pretending it’s not there.
“The past is never where you think you left it.”
Katherine Anne Porter, Writer
When we want to just shut the door on the past we might be in denial of the suffering that this past is causing us today and maybe by not processing it we may end up carrying that suffering into our future.
“We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.”
Rick Warren, Author
What I usually tell my clients is to have courage and to be brave. To dare to look back at the past, because this time, they will be looking at it from a grounded ‘here and now’ place. They will be looking at it with a new lens and a fresh perspective.
“Study the past if you would define the future.”
Confucius, Philisopher
This healthy way of reflecting on the past will allow them to gather knowledge and arm themselves with important lessons from their past.
By shutting the door on the past we are missing out on a wealth of resources that can help us navigate our present and in turn our future.
“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place; we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”
Pascal Mercier, Philosopher
By looking and learning from our past we can discover how to make the necessary changes so our past doesn’t necessarily equal our future.
Personally, it’s not the thought of looking at my past that I find scary, rather the idea of walking into my future without the back up knowledge and wisdom from my past.
“My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.”
Steve Goodier, Writer
I always invite my clients to let go of their fear of the past as it maybe holding them back from making the changes that they desire in their life. To let go of fear and experience true freedom.
“Everything has a past; everything; a person, an object, a word; everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future.”
Chaim Potok, Author