RED January 3 and 4

 Yes, yes, a post every two days is going to be terribly boring, even to myself in posterity, but any longer and I won’t keep it up. It’ll be interesting (I use the term loosely) to see how I fare when I’m back at work. There’s definitely something calming/cathartic about the flow of thoughts-words-fingers-screen - something about the process is almost like magic - you think it and it comes out. As an aside, I’m so glad I taught myself to touch type 30-odd years ago. 

Day 3 - total body workout. I love Fitness With PJ’s workouts - she guides you enough (but not too much), she balances muscle groups and you feel like a superhero doing a chest press or a concentration bicep curl (or possibly a bit like you’re in the prison yard - just me?) with 7 or 8kg dumbbells. When I started, I wasn’t sure it was something I would keep on with - like all of us, I’ve tried various hobbies and types of exercise over the years, and not all of them stick - I’ll come back to this thought, bear with. But I’ve kept it up, and every few months I buy heavier dumbbells (woop! Not sure I’ll progress beyond 8kg any time soon though - not least because it’s just really heavy to hold in my hands). I’m a Patreon member and she sends you a monthly workout calendar. I adapt it as necessary, because I occasionally run and I love love love open water swimming at the moment, but it helps as a guide. 

Day 4 - 45 minute total body yoga stretch. Back to the ubiquitous and reliable Yoga With Adriene. I’ve definitely noticed a reduction in my hip flexibility since I don’t do so much yoga, so I need and want to get back to it. But, hours in the day….

RED January: intro

 So this time last year I exercised every day for 117 days straight (End of Dec - mid April). Some days I might have even done two things (usually the second one would be a walk or something fairly light). 

I don’t have an exercise addiction, and I’m overweight, so arguably it was a healthy thing to do, but it was definitely a coping mechanism. I struggle most years with January and February (even with a SAD lamp and taking extra vitamin D) so this was something that I could control. Most days it wasn’t a struggle, and on the days when it was I would just do 15 minutes of yoga, and just making my body move with intention and purpose usually lifted my spirits. 

Then one day I just stopped. I can’t remember why - I think I was just tired. And that’s fine. 

Lots of charities have done a ‘Run Every Day’ fundraiser in previous years - that was never going to be me. I figure I’m doing quite well if I manage one run a week, and even that is rare these days. However one of the groups I’m in is doing ‘Record Every Day’ for January and as I’m a sucker for a pretty medal I’ve signed up. 

Not every day. Just January. Limits. 

Anyway, as I can’t really remember how it felt last time, I thought I’d record it for my own posterity purposes. 

Jan 1: 3.45k run. I was going to do Parkrun, but I slept badly (I wasn’t at home) and the thought of both running 5k and going somewhere new to do it just didn’t appeal. I prefer to exercise first thing (well after a cup of tea and a ponder) so it’s not often that I manage to exert myself later in the day. But I cajoled a friend into running with me, and chatting en route always helps distract me (that and largely 90s dance music). I got stitch at times, and it was pretty slow, but it counts. Also did a short walk around the block in the afternoon - I was quite glad when it started raining, as my quads were feeing it. Must have helped though, as I wasn’t sore the following day. 

Jan2: 250m? (not sure of the distance actually) lake swim. 6.6 degrees in my ‘blood of the orphans’ Primark wetsuit. They say you should go in slowly to avoid cold water shock, but then on the other hand the longer you are in the water the more you are cooling down….so basically I waited until the ‘WTAF’ feeling of cold in my pelvis dissipated, and then it was ok. It always helps when the sun is shining because it’s such a gorgeous spot. It’s rained so much lately that a) the car park is 90% pot holes and b) it was really slippy underfoot - I felt for the woman who got out after me and just face planted into the mud. Fortunately as it was a soft landing she wasn’t hurt, but she had to go back in to wash the mud off. 

I love it here so much. 

Therapy isn’t without humour... sometimes unintentionally

Before I started my training, it’s fair to say that I was known for being quite... blunt. Not so much in a ‘I speak my mind, me’ way, more of a ‘engaging my mouth before my brain’ type of way. I like to think that now I’ve managed to curb this impulse and/or transform it into something a bit more positive, but now and again it reappears.

Like the time I was with a long-established yet still quite recalcitrant client. I felt that some of their reluctance to open up was from a concern over being perceived wrongly, or judged. I tried to be reassuring.
‘There’s nothing you can say that would make me think any worse of you,’ I said.
Pause.
I twig that it hasn’t quite come out in the way I intended, and could in fact be taken in entirely the opposite way. Fabulous. I start gabbling about how it’s because I actually hold them in really high esteem, not the opposite, but then start laughing at myself and how I’m just digging myself a deeper hole.
Ever the professional.


Actually not my fault (honestly!) but a communication breakdown lead to a very confusing few minutes with a client once where they had meant to join the school council, and had instead made an appointment with us. They were expecting there to be more people there, I’m asking about the family background, we’re both looking at each other weirdly... it took a few minutes for the penny to drop. 

In one of our therapy rooms we have coasters that have blue owls on.
‘Is that the TripAdvisor owl?’
Yes, please leave us a five star review at the end of your therapy. Tell all your friends and family!

Client: I’d like to use the time today to think productively about how prayer can help me.
Me: Ok, let’s talk about that some more. What religion are you?
Client: I’m an atheist.
Me: .....

Trying to keep a professional appearance during some conversations is harder than others, particularly if you’re trying to reduce embarrassment, for example when talking to people about masturbation and sexuality.
Client: Please tell me I’m not the only person you have these sorts of conversations with!
Me: Oh not at all, I talk about sex and relationships and masturbation in sessions on a semi-regular basis.
Thinks: Don’t giggle at the word ‘semi’. DO NOT GIGGLE AT THE WORD SEMI. JUST DON’T...
<giggles>
I’m really sorry, the word ‘semi’ just set me off a bit there.

It broke the ice and enabled a frank discussion in a way that perhaps being serious and grown-up might not have done. 

Further adventures in client feedback

After yesterday’s food for thought, today a client told me that coming to see me was like picking at a scab. All that happens is that the wound is briefly reopened, looked at, and then nothing changes and it just scabs over until the next session where we do it all over again.

I gently remind them that they came in the first place because how they were dealing with the issues in their life wasn’t working.

‘Oh yes, I agree. But this isn’t working either.’

Hmm.

As before, lots to think about there and reflect upon.
Is it because now isn’t the right time for them? Is it because feeling resistant to therapy can be part of the journey? Is it because change is hard, and we tend to follow the path we’re familiar with?

Or is it because I’m not challenging this client enough? Am I doing too much reflecting and empathising, when what’s needed is more of a tough love type of approach?

Or - as ever- quite probably a bit of both.

Client feedback

Today I had a final session with a client that I’ve been seeing for a few months.

Me: So is there anything useful from our time together that you could use going forward? Any strategies, or things you found helpful?

Client: Not really, no.

😐

Working with teenagers is just so rewarding, they told me.

Now, I can put this response down to coming back after a break of a few weeks, or to the client finding it difficult to articulate the benefits of therapy (he did come regularly every week, so I like to think he must have been getting something out of it). But. Self-reflection is an important and essential part of this work and I need to think about what this feedback means for me. What could I have done better? What can I learn from this?

I also finished with another, adult client today.
‘These sessions have been massively helpful, I just can’t thank you enough... I don’t know what I would have done without them,’ the client enthused.
Their praise made me feel a bit uncomfortable and to want to downplay my part in it. ‘Oh, the hard work was yours, I’m just a guide’ I said.
Why do we find it so hard to accept compliments? Yes, absolutely the emotional hard work was the client’s, but my part is far from insignificant. A lot of the time my colleagues and I feel like we’re fighting to gain respect and to get people to understand that what we do is more than just tea and sympathy, and then I’m playing into this by minimising my own skills and experience.
Imposter syndrome? British reserve?

Lots to reflect upon from both clients today, anyway.

I’m sitting here in a very quiet house, listening to the fridge hum and occasionally gurgle, and I’m thinking about the future.

It’s very quiet because all three children aren’t here right now. Two are camping and one is at a friend’s and the best word to describe it all is weird.

Having child-free time isn’t actually that unusual, but what is is when it goes on beyond 3.15 (or more realistically, 3.12 which is when I leave the house to pick them up. Yes, I live really quite close to school). Six hours is on the one hand a lot of time to have child-free, but if say you meet friends for a 10k run at 10 am, struggle around the route chosen by your friend which may or may not include having to barefoot it across a ford IN DECEMBER, have lunch, come home, shower, and nap (because running 10k is bloody exhausting) then that’s the day gone, basically. So often I find myself wanting more time (don’t we all).

Today I’ve got more time than I had things planned for. Sounds bliss, doesn’t it? But now I’m thinking I should have planned things more, taken more advantage. And I’m really missing the nonsensical laughter at things that are well, nonsense. Or being able to make them laugh by pulling a funny face or just dancing badly (I’m still hoping that I might become famous and make Strictly one day. Shut up, it could happen).

And one day this house will be quiet all the time. Not for ages, of course, and I know how grown-up children have a habit of bouncing back home for intervals, but there will come a time when I won’t hear laughter, playing, fighting, crying, singing etc etc. And I’ll really miss it.

For all things a season and so on, and in the same way that a counselling relationship starts with a view to ending, parenting will always have a view to them becoming adults and not needing us in the same way. It’s just so hard to imagine right now.

I've been thinking a lot in the last 24 hours or so about choices, or lack of. 
Yesterday I spoke with someone in an abusive relationship, and we talked about power and control. She has neither (or, more correctly, she feels like she doesn't). 

I am (mostly) happily married, I (mostly) love my work; all in all I'm incredibly lucky and fortunate. What struck me yesterday is that where I am most lucky/made the best choice is in my husband.

This isn't a 'I'm so clever, I would never be so stupid as to have a relationship with an abusive man' post. The woman I talked with didn't, to begin with. When I was younger I did have a relationship with someone (I hesitate to call him a man) who, although not physically abusive, tried to distance me from my family and friends, put me down, gaslighted me, lied, cheated, basically made me feel crap and like he knew best. Fairly low level stuff compared to what so many women go through, and he never hit me. We were only together for a few years, but what if we'd stayed together? What if we'd had children? Then I would be in the same position as the woman I talked to. 

From a distance it all seems so simple. If he hits you, leave. If he cheats, leave.
But I'm left sitting here feeling like it wouldn't have been a stretch for that to be me. I'm also feeling helpless in my ability to make a difference to her.