The clocks are about to go forward: a time to bring more daylight into our lives, to shake off seasonal sluggishness, and hopefully go some way to relieving our winter blues.
But it’s not like that for everyone. The newness of Spring can sometimes be a reminder that we’re not moving forward in our lives in the way we’d like to.
What about the hands on your own clock? Are they stuck in one particular position because it’s comfortable that way, and to make any changes would involve too much effort? Or are they speeding around the dial seemingly without direction or purpose, just trying to catch up with yourself?
People often come for counselling either because they feel they’ve lost momentum in their lives, or because they want to slow down and take stock. If that rings a bell with you, then here are four ways counselling and therapy can help you move forward with your own life:
1. Therapy can help you unwind
Stresses and anxieties can leave us feeling we’re going round in circles. The old adage says that anxiety is like a rocking chair: it gives us something to do but takes us nowhere. If you feel you’re spending too much time worrying, fretting and stressing – but getting nowhere – then therapy can give you some ‘me-time’. You can use that time to reflect, to go deeper into your thoughts and feelings, and to understand more about who you are and what you feel and what you think. Therapy is also the opportunity to just ‘be’ rather than to ‘do’.
2. Therapy can help you call time on issues from the past
If your clock hands feel stuck in one particular place or issue, therapy can help identify patterns from your past that might be playing out in your present. A therapist can help you explore issues from childhood and adolescence, and to help you move through past losses and hurts to an eventual place of forgiveness. Therapy provides a safe place for you to shine a light into shadowy areas of life and clear out some emotional cobwebs – so there’s more room for the real you.
3. Therapy can be a wake-up call for your relationship
Relationships that have fallen into a rut can get stuck in the same old ways, replay the same old scenes, and end up having the same old arguments. If you want your relationship to work for you rather than against you, then couples counselling can be a wake-up call. It can help you realise the qualities your relationship has, and how you don’t want to waste any more time point-scoring or rowing. It can also be a chance to decide how you can create some quality time together.
4. Therapy can help you chime with the true you
If much of your time is spent second-guessing what others want from you, and contorting yourself in uncomfortable ways to please others, then therapy is the chance to try out some truths. The counselling room is a space for you to express what you really feel – good, bad and ugly – without being judged or criticised. Therapy can look at what is keeping you blocked, and help identify ways you can build self-esteem, accept yourself for who you really are, and live a life according to your own values.
To discover how therapy can help you move forward with your life, call 020 8673 4545 or email [email protected]
The Awareness Centre works with NHS clients at GP surgeries in Lambeth, and we provide low cost counselling, private therapy, multilingual and LGBT counselling at our counselling centre on Abbeville Road in Clapham. We are also a private healthcare provider.
