Where would you like to begin?
Why this question doesn’t need to be daunting…
Whether it’s your first counselling session or your fiftieth, sometimes when you sit down and I ask you “Where would you like to begin?” it feels like I’ve just asked you the hardest question in the world. All week (or even for several years), you’ve been waiting for this moment to finally say everything you’ve wanted to say, but it suddenly feels like you have no idea where to begin. Well, I’m here to reassure you…
There is no right or wrong way to begin.
The reason I start most sessions with the question “Where would you like to begin?” is that it gives you the chance to take ownership of your own sessions. I come from a person-centred way of thinking that believes that you are the expert in you, and that you can choose what to bring to sessions, rather than being told what to talk about by me. However, especially to begin with, you may have no idea where to begin and you may not feel like the expert, and this is totally ok. Sometimes clients feel a pressure to get things right (especially if they’ve been high achievers), but I’m more of the school of thought that there is no right or wrong in therapy, and whatever you choose to start off with is worth following, even if neither of us know why to begin with. As we work together, we’ll notice particular themes coming through (people -pleasing, for instance, or our tendency to be way too harsh on ourselves…), but how we get there will vary from person to person and it can often be surprising how we get there. So take that pressure off and just go with whatever pops into your head!
What if my mind goes blank?
Again, this is so common and absolutely ok! If it helps, some of my clients write down things that they’d like to discuss, especially if they’ve a tendency to think of things that they’d really like to discuss and then their mind goes blank, but there is absolutely no pressure to do so. We’ll get there eventually and at your own pace. And I’m not going to let you sit in awkward silence for too long – there’s a difference between sitting in the silence to let something land and the loud silence of panic. I may be a rescuer by doing so, but I’ll offer something if the answer is that you really don’t know, and we’ll work towards you having the confidence and self-belief to know that what you want to say is important.
What if it’s the opposite, and it all comes out at once and doesn’t make any sense?
Don’t panic! This can often happen, especially in the first few sessions, and especially if clients have been bottling up everything for a long time. It is my job to actively listen and to start helping you make sense of it all – to organise it in a way that feels helpful – and this may take time. I sometimes liken it to tidying a room – you start pulling out drawers all over the place and looking over here and delving over there and for a while it can seem that you’ve made more mess than it was when everything was shoved away in drawers. However, eventually we’ll have sorted through it all, sifting through what we need to keep and what we can let go of. It’s not a case of getting rid of it all – depending on what it is this may be impossible – but rather tidying it so that it feels less messy and confusing. And we can do that together – I’ll help you take each thing out of the drawer, take a good look at it and process it as much as you can, aiming to do this safely and carefully so that anything fragile is looked after.
Growth takes time, but starts with a single shoot @Jules Lowe Counselling
You’ve already begun
By the time you are sitting with me in my therapy room or walking with me in my outdoor space, you’ve already begun. You’ve taken the scariest step – the step to get in touch. I am committed to making the whole process as warm, friendly and unscary as possible, but it’s worth acknowledging that of course you’re going to feel nervous. After all, this is something new, and we humans often find new things hard as we can’t predict what’s going to happen. And although some of our work together might be on turning the volume down on the anxiety that seems to be dominating your thoughts right now, we don’t want to get rid of it completely, as it’s there to protect us. Although it is so important to listen to our gut if something scares us as it may be we are actually in danger, sometimes our anxiety lets us know that we care about something, that it’s important, and I would offer that seeking support is important to us all, whether we are used to it or not.
Ready to begin? Book in an initial call with me here:
