From Where I Sit

Jake had been having a hard time since the break-up. During their 18 months together, Jake had been quite happy and he’d assumed that Ben was too, so Ben’s announcement that he was leaving came as a huge shock. The couple separated and went their separate ways, and while things had been initially amicable, Jake’s ongoing feelings for Ben had been complicating things of late.

After three fairly rocky months for Jake, he was slowly getting to a point where he could stay on top of things for a few days at a time. However every few days something would happen and Jake would fall in a bit of a heap once again. In fact it turned out that there was a pattern to Jake’s mood crashes, each time it was proceeded by a phone call from Ben. [Read more →]

Angela enjoyed her job, well she would have it weren’t for her boss. Her boss was one of those people who suffered from unpredictable mood swings and all the drama that went with that. One day her boss would be the best of buddies and everything was sweet, the next, her boss would be on the rampage lashing out at everyone in sight. Actually it was even worse because things could change from one hour to the next.

For Angela this meant that she was never really sure where she stood with her boss, leaving her with a sense that she lived in a “danger zone where storms could erupt at any moment”. What was worse was that when the storm passed, her boss acted as though everything were normal and nothing had happened, but Angela lay in ruins from the trail of destruction that had swept through the office.

For Angela the boss’ emotional storms wreaked havoc on her sense of self-esteem, her sense of competence and any sense of security. This is what brought Angela to counselling, her job was making her stressed, sad and sick. [Read more →]

I’d been meeting with Harry on and off over several months as he worked to overcome an addiction to a gambling lifestyle. Harry (and his family) had not been happy with the amount of time and money that was taken up by gambling. Harry had been making such good progress that he had taken a break and I hadn’t seen him for a little while. He returned explaining that he had recently found himself in the casino and had once again lost more money than he could afford to lose.

This story though isn’t about beating addiction, (that will be for another post), nor is this story about the lapses and setbacks that happen as people struggle to step away from the behaviours of addiction (the road to progress is paved with potholes and bumps); This story is about how Harry explained why he got separated from his better judgement and spent an afternoon gambling in the casino. In Harry’s explanation it was not his fault. [Read more →]

I almost fell off my chair when Hazel sat down and announced she had only lost her temper twice in the last fortnight. From where I sat this was an extraordinary change from the days when Hazel was experiencing major explosions on a daily basis. Hazel had a long history of a fiery temper that kept getting her into trouble and driving everyone away from her, and this was the reason she had sought counselling. She had struggled for a long time to try and curb her temper but it just kept getting the better of her and her good judgement, and kept upsetting her, and everyone around her.

So when Hazel announced only two small incidents in the last fortnight I wanted to know how she had done it, what had made it possible for her to bring about such a large change in behaviour? How did she feel about the progress she was making? However Hazel only wanted to talk about the two days where she had “failed” and lost her temper, rather than the twelve days where she had managed to keep her cool. [Read more →]

One of the issues Lucien came to counselling with was his paralysis around commencing a new venture for his life. He had long been holding onto an idea about a new direction for his life which involved his current line of work (electrician), but setting himself up in his own business.

Lucien had received lots of positive feedback from family and friends who saw in Lucien the ability and qualities to make such a venture a success. The evidence seemed to suggest Lucien could make a go of it, however Lucien struggled with taking the steps to translate a dream into reality. Lucien claimed that he couldn’t go forward because he was fearful about such a big step. Lucien explained how he believed the presence of the fear was a signal to him that it wasn’t the right time to go forward. [Read more →]

When Amy first came to counselling she prided herself on striving for perfection. She saw it as a positive quality that shaped who she was and brought out the best in her. Amy, like many other people imagined that striving for perfection was a healthy goal. She imagined that it was perfectionism that was bringing out her best performance in life, and hadn’t understood the hidden cost of perfectionism.

For Amy perfectionism had been a lifelong companion, always demanding that she do better, pointing out to her where she fell short, drawing her attention constantly to where she could have improved. Perfectionism never allowed her to praise herself or feel good for a job well done, because it focussed on the remaining possibility for improvement. Perfectionism always kept Amy focussed on what she didn’t achieve rather than let her see what she had achieved. Perfectionism was like the parent who might say to a child who comes home with a 98% test score: “That’s good but what happened to the other 2%?” [Read more →]

I often hear people say something along the lines of “I know I’ll be happy when….”, or “I’ll feel happy if…”

It may be that they think happiness will improve when they are earning more, or when they’ve achieved a certain level of success in their career, or when their health improves, or when they lose weight, or when they find a partner, or a myriad of other future conditions. What these people probably don’t realise is that they are not just making statements about what they imagine would make them happier in the future, they are actually also stating the reasons for not being happy right now. By locating happiness as something that maybe waiting for them in the future they may be inadvertently delaying or deferring possible happiness in the present moment.

These people may be falling into the trap of believing that happiness is only possible when certain conditions or circumstances are met; that we can only be happy under ideal circumstances. Now I wouldn’t suggest that there is no connection between the circumstances of our life and happiness, (for instance people living in abject poverty) however I do believe it is possible to be happy/happier right now with whatever circumstances we currently face. I also believe it may be a mistake to defer ‘here and now’ happiness in the belief that it will come to us in the future, or that it is only possible when something in our life changes.

There is always the possibility of greater happiness in the future, but why accept that you can’t also be happy in the here and now?

Happiness is available to all of us now, no matter what the circumstances of our lives. [Read more →]

Did you ever think to yourself,… ‘one day I’ll do that’.

Well that day came for me and this blog is the result.

As a professional counsellor, I spend my day in conversation with people searching for ways to bring more happiness and contentment to their lives. At its most basic level, the counselling I do is about meeting with people to find out what is making them unhappy and then removing those barriers to happiness. My view is that happiness is not something that has to be built into life, instead what we need to do is stop doing those things that take us away from happiness.

Having sat with many hundreds of clients and thousands of conversations I have witnessed a great deal about what stands between people and a greater sense of happiness. While each person’s story is unique there are common themes that run throughout the lives of many people.

For a long time I have wanted to document and share what I, and the people I have met with, have learned. By documenting what they have learnt I wanted to honour and pay tribute to their hard work, and to celebrate their hard won gains. I wanted to share what they discovered. My guess is that they might want this too, and indeed some have captured their own stories here, in the Voices of Hope Project.

So what I hope you will get from reading this blog are ideas about how to increase happiness , how to put an end to the small and big things we do everyday that can take us away from happiness. This blog doesn’t promise happiness, (despite the practices of self-help books, it’s very unwise to make promises in this field of endeavour. I only hope that it might provide some new ideas, some new ways of thinking about life that perhaps you haven’t considered before. I would be satisfied if you come away with some new ideas or new approaches that open up possibilities.

But who am I to be writing this blog?

I work as a counsellor in private practice, and have done since 1996. My counselling website can be found here, which includes some detail on who I am here.

Aren’t your conversations with people private?

Absolutely, I never share what has been said to me in the counselling room without the consent of the person consulting me. What I am documenting here is not the individual stories of individual people but the collective wisdom and experience of many people.

This is a very important point. In writing this blog, I would not betray the confidence of people who consult me. Every professional counsellor knows that counselling does not work if there is no privacy and confidentiality.

Each entry in this blog represents a typical story of the sorts of issues that people face, while not representing any one person’s individual story. Even where a name is used in an entry, this is a fictional name, for a fictional person, and is used only to represent the ideas. No real names are used and no story belongs to one individual person (even if the story is written to suggests it does).

For instance, if an entry begins, ‘Susan came to me saying she was depressed…’, this doesn’t mean I am talking about an actual person called Susan. The ‘Susan’ from the story represents many people who struggled with the same issue. I cannot stress this strongly enough, no real names are used and no story represents one actual person, but many actual people.

So read on, and see if anything catches your attention. Not everything will be relevant to you, but you may find something that could make a difference. If not, then I still hope you find it an interesting read.

Right now, I’m just happy the idea …’one day I’ll do that’, has become a reality.

Note to current and past ‘clients’, If you are currently seeing me or have seen me in the past and read a story that seems to be your story, I urge you to keep in mind that you may have been one of many who came to me struggling with the same issue. If you still have concerns, contact me and I will be happy to chat with you about it and address your concerns.

permalink