The thoughts, reflections, rantings and ravings of a counselor who firmly believes that good therapy can change your life, and therefore change the world (for the better) and bad and/or no therapy can lead to wars and destruction.
“Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, ‘Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.’ You will be right. For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.”
Living in the “along” is the only living we are actually capable of. We can’t live in yesterday or tomorrow. We can’t live in the “there” or the “that.” We can only live in this moment, here and now. And while we watch the sunset and sunrise, off in the distance and witness day turn into night and night turn into day, we must learn to live in the “along” because life is what’s happening along the way.
Perks of being a counselor: knowing we are never ready for the sun to set and rise again. The planet spins and orbits and day turns into night and then into day again. How painful and disappointing to think we have to be ready before we can witness this beauty. I, for one, am ready in every given moment, even though I may be unprepared.
Just LOVE ♥️ (I’m going to pitch this idea to Nike. 😉)
“Love, I thought to myself abstractedly. Not ‘This is love.’ or ‘Is this love?’ Not a sentence, not a certainty, not a thought with moving parts or direction. Just love, all of it, as it is. Whether it’s enough or not. Wthether it’s real or we’re making it up. However shoddy it gets, or bent out of shape. It’s still extraordinary. However foolish, however vain. However badly it ends. Love.”
― Julian Gough
Perks of being a counselor: Learning from working with so many different people that no one ever regretted loving too much. They did regret not loving enough, but never too much.
So I’m passing this learning on to you in the hopes that any opportunity you have to love, you will go all out!
Love as much as there are stars in the universe and as long as their stardust continues to exist amongst us all.
The day has come when we all long for the “normal” day.
Let us burn into our memories the simplest of our routine activities which are connected with our mundane, normal and imperfect days, so that when those days return, we will never again take them for granted.
Perks of being a counselor:
Knowing that even in this moment, in the midst of a pandemic, there is still so much to be grateful for and not take for granted.
There is such a thing as a “normal” social isolation day. One day, we will even miss today.
Besides the arrival of the Corona Virus, Spring has also arrived.
A lot has happened in the last 2 months. One could say the whole world has turned upside down and inside out.
We’ve learned new phrases such as social distancing and become “experts” in Covid-19. We’ve learned that toilet paper is a hotter commodity in times of international panic than maybe even food. We’ve had to listen to our president address us almost on a daily basis and have learned about the World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control.
Our jobs have had to transform from in person interactions to online platforms overnight and our homes have become our centers of ALL activities. We are cooking more than ever before, spending more time with our families than ever before and have had to learn to be still and patient more than ever before.
Our skin on our hands are dry and peeling from all the hand washing and surfaces have never been as clean as they are now.
On the one hand, we are weary of anyone who so much as looks like they are going to cough and yet at the same time we are much more drawn to being out and about and interacting with others than ever before.
The irony of being told to stay home and do nothing and not being able to follow through, when in the past we might have even prayed for this kind of down time and eagerly accepted it, is not lost on me. We don’t like to be told what to do, unless we agree with what’s being asked of us.
Life has transformed from making plans to go out with friends to figuring out what to do all day, every day, at home along side the people who live with us.
How does everything that’s happening affect our mental health? The answer is not simple or easy. The truth is that for every single person, the width, depth and breadth of this time period’s effect on us will be different.
So what can you do? Without being too prescriptive, I’d like to put out some suggestions that I try to do myself when I’m feeling lost or overwhelmed. Here are some ideas in no particular order. I hope you find this list helpful.
When you’re lost or overwhelmed:
1. Create a loose schedule to structure your day.
2. Insert some kind of movement in your day. It can be yoga, dance, walking in place, jumping jacks, sit ups, going up and down your stairs, watching a YouTube video of some kind of movement, etc.
3. Treat yourself. Create deadlines for yourself and then reward yourself with a movie, a piece of chocolate, a nap, playing with your dogs or kids, etc. Do something that helps you to feel better about yourself.
4. Watch a YouTube video and learn a new skill. It doesn’t have to be something super hard. Watch a make-up tutorial and learn how to put on your fake eye lashes. Watch a hair tutorial and learn how to fish braid your daughter’s hair. Learn to cook something new or fix something that’s been broken a long time. Learn how to say simple phrases in a new language. The world is your oyster!
5. Check in on friends using any of the free video platforms available to you. You can use Facebook Messenger to video chat, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, etc.
6. Start your own unique weekly group event. For example, you can set up a weekly Skype meeting with friends where everyone shares their favorite book, recipe, show, quote, poem, music, sports trivia, etc.
7. Share your expertise with others. Host a weekly, bi-monthly or monthly event through a video platform and share your knowledge about a particular topic with others.
8. Get creative! Re-purpose some of the items of your home for other uses.
9. Rearrange your furniture. Change things up in your home, move things around. You can always move them back.
10. Schedule self care time for yourself every day. It doesn’t have to be long. You can paint your nails, read a book, read the news, scroll through social media, stretch, meditate, journal, write your own blog, put on a face mask, pray, look up sports statistics and trivia, etc.
Most of all, don’t judge yourself for where you’re at right now. No one has ever lived through what we’re going through right now. How can we have a standard to judge ourselves when such unprecedented times have never occurred in our lifetime?
Perks of being a counselor:
We’re all doing the best we can. And we’ve learned slowly, but surely, that we can do hard things. Yes we can!
There is no other way to live life than to actually live it, and in doing so, dare greatly, love much, try and try again, laugh often, forgive yourself, show vulnerability, apologize when you needed and get back up and try again always.
Carry on…
Perks of being a counselor:
Watching your clients learn how to dare greatly, succeed and fail, and then get right back up and try again.
Recognizing and being aware of your perspective on life can have miraculous consequences.
How would you live your life differently if you chose to see what you look at and/or the people you interact with as if it was the first time or the last time you’re seeing them?
And if you would behave differently, why aren’t you behaving differently right now?
I can’t tell you how many clients I have spoken with who have told me if they knew it was the last time they were going to see a loved one, that they would have let them know how much they loved them and how much they meant to them.
So why wait? Tell them right now. Go. Do it. Right this minute. I promise you won’t regret it.
Perks of Being a Counselor:
Always knowing that each session with a client may be the last one and so making sure that each one of my clients walks away with me having given them the best I have to give as their therapist. And then using the same process with all my loved ones.
Do I always succeed? No. But that doesn’t mean I stop trying.
If you’re like me, you often conveniently or accidentally forget how hard you’ve worked to make it through some of the rough times.
How you talk to yourself and what you think about yourself is extremely important. Your words and thoughts do affect you and your well-being.
It has been postured that talking to plants can help them grow. Imagine if you spoke to yourself in a way that would help you grow, what would that sound like? What would you say?
So take some notes about your life, especially about the times you overcame what may have at the time seemed like insurmountable odds, write yourself a letter, document your successes and read it to yourself over and over again when you feel all is lost. Speak to yourself the way you would to a loved one.
Perks of being a counselor? Witnessing growth and change in others when I sit with them in therapy in that painfully uncomfortable space where their doubts and sorrows live, seeing what happens when they are fully validated and accepted for who they are without any judgment and are truly seen and heard. Then knowing that I can do exactly the same same for myself, sit with my own pain and sense of failure, have a loving dialogue with the hurt parts of myself, because while I am no better than anyone else, I am no less than them either and deserve to be loved, cherished and cared for.
We often wait for life to be this way or that way before we make a move or do something we’ve always wanted to do.
The truth is that life will never be exactly the way we want it to be, it will never be perfect.
Life is messy. The winds will blow. Your hair will be messy. The sun will come out. Live and love anyway. Take pictures anyway. Live now. Follow your passions. Follow your heart. Don’t wait.
Perks of being a counselor: knowing there is no such thing as a perfect time or perfect life. The only perfection is how perfectly imperfect we all are. ❤️
Perks of Being a Counselor 