Unravelling that messy ball of string.

Sometimes doesn’t it feel as though our head is just full of string, messy, intertwined, chaos. We have so many thoughts and feelings all mushed together and none of them seem to make sense.

That’s where I come in!

Or rather that’s the work we do when we are in our sessions together. We find the end or start in the middle or just sit and look at it for a bit, in awe of the confusion that exists. Then when the time is right we begin.

Slowly at first perhaps, although for some people those first couple of sessions can be an unloading. Years of pent up frustration and minimising which spills out unintentionally, intentionally, unburdening.

It’s OK if this happens, because it’s what you needed to do, and it goes no further than me. That’s that confidentiality we counsellors are always talking about.

But then when it settles, whenever you are ready, we begin. We begin to make sense of all the confusion. Slowly, gradually, sometimes pausing for a bit and sometimes going back because string has this habit of getting all tangled up again in a new and equally annoying way!

And there we are talking, perhaps about the week you’ve had, perhaps a funny story you’ve just remembered from a couple of years ago, or maybe this week you touch on that difficult time, the one you’re not so keen to talk about but something in you feels like this week you could try.

But we are talking, and you notice…hang on…that’s familiar…I seem to do that, don’t I? When people ask me to help I say yes, even when I’m tired, even when I haven’t got the energy. And then I feel resentful or frustrated, why are people always putting on me? Why do they expect me to always rush to their aid? And then you might realise, well…it’s because I always do.

Maybe that’s you. Maybe it’s not. But there will be something that we will unravel, and then you see and then you know.

Maybe next time someone asks and I’m exhausted, I’ll say something differently. I’ll say, ‘Do you know, I’m exhausted and I’m sorry but could you ask someone else?’

That’s hard because the guilt follows, but you know it’s OK. That’s another bit of the string, that guilt. And perhaps if you keep coming back we’ll look at it, that guilt. Where it comes from, why it feels so strong, how perhaps it doesn’t have to rule us.

Like I said this may not be your story, but your string will have it’s own path, it’s own tangles, it’s own intricacies.

Let’s spend time together slowly unravelling it and see what we uncover.