BLOG

Ring any bells?

So what changed you may ask?

For each reader who wants to be happy there is no reason why they cannot achieve that happiness. There will be hurdles and barriers that have to be overcome. Abusive / toxic relationships or Adverse Childhood Experiences. Poor education or low income. Criminal history or mental ill health. Poor body image or having been bullied. Being a bully or a predator. A gambler or a person who isolates. None of the people who exhibit the traits I have mentioned, or any others for that matter, are unable to overcome them and to thrive and prosper. To BE HAPPY!

Nowadays I have days when I am less happy but I would not change my worst day of happiness for my best day of unhappiness. You can achieve the same state of being, believe me. If this human being can, anyone can. Make the effort and the rewards will follow.

It would be nice, neat and easy if I could state one thing or one course of action that flicked the switch, that enabled me to move from unhappy to happy. Unfortunately that was not the case and I suspect it is not the case for the majority of unhappy people.

What worked for me is something that I see working in multitudes of people. Clients, friends and acquaintances. On a subconscious, then conscious and verbal level, I decided I no longer liked the way my way of living was causing me to feel. Then the action followed. Not having a route map or a guide I had to figure out how to change for myself. I made lots of mistakes but I am able to see now how they were necessary lessons.

I paid attention to my appearance - I shaved off the stubble and began to visit the barber regularly. Same with the dentist - painful but I still did it. Another thing I did was dress smartly - no longer wearing clothes until they fell apart. So far these were only superficial things but they were things I could manage to do and they expressed a desire to change. At about this time I got into a 12 Step recovery programme. Aaah, you might say, it was the drink and the drugs that made you unhappy. That would only be partially true though.

The recovery programme meant going to meetings, lots of meetings. In the meetings I met other people who were finding their way to a happier way of living. When you lay down with dogs you should not be surprised if you got up with fleas. By mixing with people who were striving to be positive in their outlook I was encouraged to try the same. I no longer kept the company of gloomy, negative and self destructive people.

Guess what?

I started to feel positive and hopeful - not gloomy, negative and despondent.

What I have described so far did not happen overnight. It took as long as was needed but it was working. I no longer felt worthless, miserable and useless. The thing I find puzzling is that I did not understand that being positive begat feeling positive. I am so glad that it did though.

So, some period of time later I realised how much I valued this new found happiness and also how much I wanted to sustain it. I felt very scared as well. Scared because being happy was new to me. I feared that it would all come crashing down and that I was being a fool for even thinking it could be different, let alone trying to change it. The fear of the unknown (happy, positive and different way of being) can be so powerful that it causes us to stay in the known discomfort. I consider myself so fortunate to have been able to push through this fear.

So I faced the fear and chose to go back to studying. What an experience. I studied counselling and that turned out to be a journey and a half. As well as being a voracious reader I was able to challenge and address the issues from the past that, unwittingly, were clouding my everyday life, my everything! That was not painless but was so worthwhile. The things that haunted me then hold no power now. Maslow, Rogers, Levine, Yalom, Assagioli, Winnicott, Bowlby, Dryden, Prouty, Finkel, Neizsche, D’Escarte, Porges, May, Rothschild, Fischer, Brown etc. all gave me a perspective that I hold dear today. I was and still am hungry for knowledge.

So I digressed somewhat there. The journey I described was my own personal journey from unhappiness to happiness but I hope it serves as an example of what each of us is capable of, if we want and if we try.

JUST FOR TODAY I WILL BE HAPPY - MOST FOLKS ARE AS HAPPY AS THEY MAKE THEIR MINDS UP TO BE.

Bill Wilson

We search for ways of changing how we feel. Be it that gnawing guilt or constant anxiety. Perhaps it is seething anger or deep depression. Maybe it is feeling we have been wronged or misjudged. It can be that we feel resentful because we have been taken for granted or self loathing because we do not feel able to change our circumstances when others seem to do so effortlessly. Oh my, you have my deep and sincere sympathy. Such feelings and thoughts are depressingly common but they still hurt us, affect us, cause us to feel less than we want to be.

As a counsellor I prefer the word empathy rather than sympathy. Sympathy is usually about the person offering it, sincere but self serving. Empathy is about feeling those feelings another person feels, feeling the impact those feelings have on the other person but still staying with that person. Being next to them as they experience the feelings, not judging but instead letting the other person know they are not alone with the feelings and it is okay to experience those feelings. What if I was to tell you that there is a different way, a better way, a longer lasting way of dealing with these feelings! In my time as a counsellor I have had clients who feel so over powered by the feelings that they are seriously considering suicide, feeling dangerously angry as well as thoroughly depressed because they feel valueless and unheard. Feelings of guilt and shame. Unseen, unloved and not worthy of being loved. Emotionally and physically deeply unattractive.

I see all my clients as being worthy and each one having a potential to change. Be it the parent whose child who is being placed for adoption, the victim or abuser, the spurned or neglected.

Sometimes my own lived experience closely mirrors the circumstances the client brings into the room, sometimes not. The hole point of being a counsellor, for me, is being able to recognise each client as being an individual, each client experiencing difficulties unique to them and being able to care about them. Care about them as individuals. Individuals who deserve the same dignity, compassion and care that we all do.

It has taken 4 years of formal training to be qualified as a counsellor as well as many hours of working with clients. Clients who I learn from in every session. That effort enables me to be the quiet presence who holds a space for the client to feel all the feelings they are experiencing. The person who is accepting of the raging anger, the tears, the despair and the tragedy.

But why do I do this you might ask? For me it is because I get to see a client who is able to move on from the overwhelming grief, the crippling stress, the anxiety or the depression. The client who is able to put the PTSD behind them. These are the clients who achieve a lasting and positive change in their lives. The clients who have found their own way of overcoming the obstacles that were making their life a misery. I have to be honest, being a counsellor is good for me! It makes me feel valued, worthwhile and a part of as opposed to apart from. In all honesty the pay is pitiful, inconsistant and fluctuates wildly. I knew this when I started training as a counsellor and accept it as par for the course. What makes it easy to accept is the fact I look forward to each counselling session. I cherish my clients and revel in the unique experience of each session. I learn and I grow. For me that is enough to keep me working as a counsellor. Not every client is at a place in their life where they are ready to change, that is okay! They are not there yet! When a client starts counselling and finishes after 1 or 2 sessions that is alright. Perhaps a seed has been planted and when they are ready, when the pain is enough, they will have experienced something that they can recall as being positive and helpful.

So back to the title - why me?

Well why not you? None of us are so special that life is a bed of roses and untroubled. Some people may appear to have lives that are, but appearances are deceptive. I do not wish painful experiences on any person, nor do I wake up and feel overjoyed that life could throw me a curved ball at any time. With a lot of work, perseverance and a willingness to learn I am able to look back on past events as learning experiences.

So can you! Pain passes and when it has passed you will have learned. Learned about life, learned about yourself and learned how to be a stronger and more satisfied person.

Please don't suffer any longer than you have to before you reach out for a counsellor! You deserve a way of life that is satisfying and positive. Only you can do it and good counselling is way of achieving the life you deserve, the life you want.

One thing that all of those newer, faster, better products have in common is a massive industry behind them. A sales industry that consistently recruits the best psychology graduates, the best writers and the best advertising minds to be in their workforce. George Orwell wrote about the sales industry in Keep The Aspidistra Flying and more recently Vance Packard in The Hidden Persuaders we are subjected to ever increasing amounts of advertising. No wonder it is so effective. Against such concerted effort and concentrated intelligence who would not struggle to prevail?

Perhaps it might be worth taking a look at why this is so effective.

As I see it, the advertising and marketing world operates on a couple of age old and recognised phenomena. Fear and difference. Both of these are very interesting to a counsellor.

Fear is a big factor in all our lives. Initially it might have been fear of the hairy, sharp toothed and clawed creature outside the cave but in today's world it is nuanced. Fear of being picked on in the playground or workplace, fear of being ridiculed, fear of being excluded or perhaps fear of failure, fear of our partner or fear of the adult who says they love us but we have to keep what we do a secret. It is still fear and as such is a very powerful motivator, it can affect us in so many ways. Indeed we are hardwired to respond in certain physical ways when our fear is triggered. Our bodies behave in certain ways and our mind operates in certain ways. Ways that served us well in the presence of what we feared but ways that can very easily become a fixed way of being which does not serve us so well.

What about difference? Difference is closely allied with fear, they cooperate with each other. Be it fear of not having the right iPhone model, trainers, car, hair type, skin colour or the wrong politics, social graces, performance levels at work or any of a multitude of differences too numerous to list, they all have a core of fear, of difference. The fear of being seen as different and thus vulnerable to ridicule and exposure. They all trigger fear.

As a counsellor I regularly see clients who have, in some way, been influenced by fear and difference. Typically they have experienced those two stressors and the physical responses have become the “normal”. They live in a state of mind that is always on guard for a new threat, they behave in ways that are felt to reduce the presence of fear and also difference e.g procrastination, obsessive hand washing, worrying, self harming, dieting, overeating, people pleasing etc. etc.

Worryingly they may have elevated blood pressure/pulse rates, their breathing is shallow and rapid, sleep is a problem and compulsive activities that reduce these symptoms are very often present. No surprise that eventually they become overwhelmed and just cannot continue. They experience a 'nervous breakdown'. Quite often they blame their own lack of ability and strength for this which feeds into the negative spiral. When life is bad enough they might seek out their GP who, with the best will in the world, will prescribe some medication that for a short while will help alleviate the symptoms - but not the cause. There is a lot of evidence that such medications are at best only effective for a short while.

Step in the counsellor!

Being able to recognise the state of anxiety, chronic fear, is something that can be learned. Being able to provide a space where the anxiety can be overcome and surpassed is not so easily learned. But providing this space is what I, as a counsellor, strive to do. When it is achieved by the counsellor great things can happen. A client who has been anxious since childhood, or for whom recent events have caused a state of anxiety, each is able to explore their way to a less stressed and anxious way of being. This is not easy for any person, especially clients, but it is not impossible.

A client can change the way they let the pressures of life affect them, they can choose how to respond to events that are affecting them. A client can change their sense of self worth, and self being, from maladaptive to a way of being that leaves them satisfied, feeling worthy and content. A way of life that allows them to recognise the stress of everyday life and to regulate, soothe themselves. Their body will relax and their mind can become a place they are happy to be in rather than one they feel the need to distract themselves from.

As a counsellor I have learned how our being reared can have long lasting effects on us. When the space and environment of trust has been established (therapeutic relationship) the client can see how events (recent or deep in their past) have impacted them. Are impacting them still. Be it the emotionally unavailable parent, abusive sibling or the recent death of a loved one, the client is able to see the events and the influence of them. Being able to recognise the causes of their anxiety the client is in a potentially very powerful position. Firstly when an anxiety has a description, a known cause, a shape, it loses a lot of its power to influence i.e I know I am scared of dogs because I was bitten once - however, that is not the same dog and it is not attacking me now. Secondly the client can choose. Choose how they respond. They can continue with the maladaptive state of being that brought them into counselling, which is okay. Perhaps now is not the time they are ready to do something different. Or they can figure out a different way of responding to the anxieties, fears, patterns of behaviour. I love it when a client arrives at this stage - real progress is happening already!

So a client who is experiencing pressure, be it from the pressures of the world we live in or the world they have lived in can change. With effort and support a client can become the best them that they can. It is not a weakness to seek help to do this - none of us can do it on our own. It is perhaps a sign of weakness to not seek out the help that can enable us to achieve this.

Change does not happen by chance - it happens through effort.

Whatever the causes of our anxiety, and there are many, a fundamental factor is how we choose to respond to the causes.

Sometimes the causes are Trauma/trauma based and the causes require looking at and gentle careful reprocessing. Other times the causes of anxiety can come from a place of powerlessness and low self worth. For example if you do not feel able to change things in your daily living that you want/need to change then anxiety coming from powerlessness is really not surprising.

If, on the other hand, you are not able to feel you are worthy of being heard and your wants/needs are not considered then, again, anxiety is a 'normal' response.

It might be that your partner is overbearing and does not consider you, maybe you were never good enough in the eyes of your parents, teachers, peers, colleagues. Maybe you were never told you were good enough - warts and all. Perhaps the fear of 'getting it wrong' and thus being seen as less than is what causes your anxiety to go into overdrive.

If your anxiety is intense and/or prolonged you may have tried different ways of dealing with the feelings. The most commonly recognised way of dealing with anxiety is to subsume it with the use of drink or drugs. There are other ways we try to manage the feelings though. These can be self isolation, over or under eating, self harm, excessive exercise or people pleasing.

Any course of action we take to alleviate our anxiety is, I feel, an expression of us trying to regulate how we feel. Some are more successful than others but with chronic anxiety they have either ceased working altogether or only temporarily ease our anxiety, eg, we binge eat to change how we feel and then feel guilty about our calorie intake or we self harm and then feel shame and disgust at the damage we have inflicted on ourselves. With drink and drugs, quite often the temporary relief we feel when we are drunk or high is outweighed by the hangover or financial cost of getting the temporary relief. This can feel very much like we are trapped in a cycle of anxiety which causes us to try to change our feelings and inevitably leads to feeling the anxiety again. We repeat the cycle and keep getting the same unsatisfactory results.

There is a way out of this cycle though. As the things that led us to being anxious might be numerous and serious the solution I am talking about is not easy and rarely quick. So why consider this solution, you might ask. Well the solution is effective and can be long lasting, if not permanent. The solution is to be found in yourself and this discovery is aided with the help of a skilled and compassionate counsellor.

Said counsellor can hold the space for you, hold the anxiety and by doing so allow you the space to consider the causes of your anxiety. You are free to look at how the anxiety is experienced and the effects on you, and how those you love are affected by the anxiety. When we are able to express our anxiety and distress it no longer is something shapeless and ever present in our thinking. Rather it becomes defined and quantified. When it has a shape and structure we are better placed to consider ways that might change its shape and structure, ways that anxiety affects us.

When we are at a place where we can identify our anxiety we have already come a long way, we have already put a lot of effort in. It helps to be able to acknowledge this. It is a demonstration not only of our willingness to change but also a demonstration of the effectiveness of our effort. Something that was not readily available when we were in the grips of the cycle of anxiety.

This stage is not the end of the journey though. When we are able to identify our anxiety, its causes and its effects we are then able to consider how we can change the cycle. Well done for getting this far. Both you and the counsellor have shown resilience and tenacity - shown a desire to change. How unimaginable was that when anxiety was in full control of your life?

So what next? Well now is an ideal time to consider what you can do to change the anxiety cycle. Be warned though, the cycle will not want you to change. It has probably become a pattern of being that you are used to, it likes its presence in your life, is comfortable with its role and certainly does not want to change this. It may present you with unwarranted and intrusive thoughts. Thoughts such as being stupid to think you can change or you are not strong enough or good enough to change the way you feel. Again here a counsellor can help you challenge these thoughts and in doing so you are able to find alternative ways of thinking. This is not easy and quite often you will have to try several different ways of responding before you find ways of thinking and feeling that suit you best.

Remember - PRACTICE DOES NOT MAKE PERFECT - PRACTICE MAKES POSSIBLE.

When you are able to challenge and rethink the old, anxious ways of being you are in the realms of the beginning of the end of the need for counselling. You may change the counselling sessions from weekly to fortnightly. As you become more confident you might have monthly counselling sessions. Some of my clients are at a place where they only come back for a check in and re-grounding very occasionally.

For the counsellor this is not a problem. They do not see it as disloyalty or ingratitude. This counsellor sees it as a sign of success.

Finally, it may be that you feel the need to change time between sessions to be more frequent. That is also alright. If the analogy of 2 steps forward and 1 step back is applicable, which I feel it is, then you have still made progress of 1 step forward.

Please do not suffer/struggle alone. It takes courage to be vulnerable enough to seek help. Seeking that help is where meaningful change can begin. You are worth the effort it takes.