FROM SETBACK TO COMEBACK – PART 3
Have you ever noticed that before you make any important changes in life, there is always a series of questions you ask yourself? Who are we really asking and who is it that really has the answers?
I found myself back at the ‘starting point’ again. Only this time I was starting again with a self-belief, building faster than ever. I knew the journey up to that point in my life, all the studying, all the investing, all the decisions that kept me growing personally, all made me the best version of myself to date. Even with the setbacks and struggles, I knew I was a strong, resilient person, but something this time was different. A question that seemed to really throw me. From the age of 23 (maybe even before that) I had told myself I will work with people to help them change their life for the better. This put me on an eight year journey training in different therapy models, then years studying the mind. This took a large part of my life but has given me the best life that I could want.
So why did my question throw me?
I was feeling really good since my ‘detour’ and was back in the NHS working and although the pandemic was still ongoing, I was at my mental and physical best. I knew the time had come to start going again and I was mentally ready but I just kept asking myself WHY? Why am I going for this dream again?
Where did I even start? I knew I was a qualified counsellor and had studied the science of the mind, which taught me how I could help change somebody else's life. But for some reason my ‘WHY’ wasn’t there anymore – I just couldn’t feel it.
Questions like, why do I want to help people? Am I really good enough to do this? Did I really just need to help myself all along? These questions kept going around my mind throughout the days ahead.
I had absolutely no idea where I was going next but I was in a great place and living from a very grateful heart.
It was over a couple of weeks whilst working on the ward in the hospital that I noticed a piece of jewellery on a patient that I hadn’t seen for years, but I used to love and knew I had similar pieces in my keepsake box stored away in my roof-space. I remember talking to the patient about it and then thought no more of it. Over the next couple of weeks, I kept seeing it on other patients and it was really starting to feel like I was meant to see it. It really isn’t a piece of jewellery that is common but after seeing it repeatedly, I decided to go up to the roof-space and bring down my memory box.
I sat for hours on my bed with my memories. There was a variety of childhood keepsakes, memories, photographs, and of course pieces of jewellery! I wondered was there a message for me or the answer I was looking for?
I went through absolutely everything. So many memories came to mind, all my friends, all the different journeys we were on since separating as kids. My school tie, my badge from my first office job, gifts that people had bought me, cards people had written me. It brought up so many different emotions for me and brought back visions of me growing as a person and the people that were part of my journey. I really went through a timeline of my life since I was a child. Just as I was about to put it all away again and I’m telling you this exactly how it was, I just flicked open a small book that I had never read and there was a photograph. It took me right back to the time that I tried to end my life age just 13. I just had this wave of emotion wash over me and my answer became clear...
My career choice isn’t just my choice in life, it’s my passion, it’s my calling. It’s not just what I do but it has become who I am. I have been on an interesting journey since I survived my suicide attempt and every bit of that journey comes with me when I am helping someone else change their life. I understand emotional pain, mental pain and stuckness. I understand when you don’t know who to talk to or even how to talk about how you are feeling. I know what it’s like when you only have just one person that may believe in you, but ultimately that may be enough. I know what it’s like to feel that you are too far gone emotionally to ever feel happy again. So when I sit with someone who has come to me for help, they aren’t getting a text book or a certificate therapist, they are getting someone who has walked a path of change, (a tricky one at times) but a path that has made me the happiest person I know, a strong, caring, skillful therapist that my clients can trust to take them on their personal journey of change.
So, when I asked myself the question again WHY? Why do I want to help people, my answer is easy. It’s WHY I am here…
May 2021 I signed up to train with world renowned therapist Marisa Peer. After deciding to move forward again I wanted to create something that would allow me to integrate all my counselling training and personal development study in order to help as many people as I could, with what I believed to be the most incredible information and skills available.
Have you ever noticed that before you make any important changes in life, there is always a series of questions you ask yourself? Who are we really asking and who is it that really has the answers?
MY ANSWER CAME FROM WITHIN AND YOURS WILL TOO!!!
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