Counselling is a process of change-work. Everyone that comes to my office wants to change something about their internal and/or external life. Often they want to change both, because one influences the other. Whether you want to have less of something (anxiety, sadness, doubt…) or you want to have more of something (confidence, peacefulness, trust…) the process of counselling/change work can be hugely helpful.
Every therapist does this a little bit differently. I’m thrilled to say that many of the therapists I have come across are now using a Holistic model that incorporates Mind, Body and Spirit. Many are also staying up to date on the new research on Neuro-plasticity and Neuro-psychology (the field has ‘exploded’ in the last 10 years with a ton of exciting new information about the brain and the heart). Also, many therapists are now incorporating additional modalities (Energy Psychology, Epigenetics, Mindfulness, Reiki, Accupuncture, Hypnotherapy, Quantum Physics…) in their practice, as new tools are created to measure the positive effects of these modalities. Note: these modalities have always had positive results, we are now just catching up by creating the tools to quantify these results. And lastly, many therapists are now thankfully using a ‘client-centred approach’ where the change-work is tailored to YOU and YOUR needs rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
During our sessions either in my office or on Skype, we will first outline the type of change that YOU are wanting to create. To help you get started outlining some goals for your own counselling, you can begin by asking yourself the following:
When my counselling is complete:
- what is different in my life?
- What is different about how I feel?
- What is different about how I think/my internal dialogue?
- What is different about how I show up in the world/in certain relationships?
- What is different about the quality of my relationships?
- What is different about my attitude toward myself?
- What is different about my overall happiness?
One way to look at change-work is to see it as both Increasing resources (healthy patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour), and decreasing problems (unhealthy patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour). The Counselling work itself will always shift between these two elements – back and forth.
When we increase resources we build on your unique inner strengths (you may or may not already be aware of them), and your natural ability to change. Neuro-plasticity shows us that our brain changes all the time. New neural networks are created, and others are destroyed. If stroke patients can learn how to walk and talk again, then YOU are capable of change as well. After all, humans change nearly all of their cells every 7-9 years, which means that as humans, our natural state is one of constant change. The only problem is that some of the changes that have taken place thus far have steered you in a direction that doesn’t work so well for you. We will use your ingrained ability to change and ‘steer the ship’ to where YOU want it to go.
When we decrease problems – and by problems I simply mean patterns that get in the way of our happiness – we change the traumas, habitual patterns and internal landscape that keeps those things that you want to change in place. You see, Traumas are created when we have a stressful experience that at the time, we have no idea how to deal with. This can be something big like abuse or something small like a kid not wanting to sit next to you on the school bus. When this stressful event occurs it freezes in our Nervous System and we begin to unconsciously organize around it (to make sure that hurt doesn’t happen again). So in the kid not wanting to sit next to you on the bus scenario, we might develop a core belief about people being mean so that we never get close to anyone again. We might develop a phobia of buses if we experienced the event as out of our control. We might decide that the kid didn’t sit next to us because we were overweight and develop an eating imbalance. There are many many computations and each is unique to the individual and the circumstance. When we process this trauma through any of the tools that I use, we also release the coping mechanism/pattern that was created at the time to protect ourselves. Also, we end up with more compassion for ourselves, and an internal sense of strength and peacefulness.
Releasing these traumas, and coping patterns is like removing the big boulders that get in the way of our course, so that the ship can now sail in the direction that we want it to sail (bringing us right back to the goals that you outlined for your therapy).
It would be my honour to guide you through this very valuable process of healing and personal development.
Contact me for a free 10 minute consultation to discuss if this process is right for you.
Warmly,
Tami