Counselling Christians?
This blog, aimed at Christians, explores why counselling as provided by Prevail would suit them.
Christian objections to secular-based counselling are explored. That it may be seen as a sign of lack of faith to partake with man made counselling.
The role of a supportive Church community is encouraged.
The means of including faith practice within a diverse Church environment are discussed.
The process a Christian might use in deciding to enter counselling is discussed.
How a Christian client chooses a counsellor is covered.
The presence of counselling principles within Church practice is presented.
If, as a Christian, you are considering counselling therapy, I hope this blog helps you make the right decision for you.
Do we need another hero?
Heroes: do they play a constructive role for us today, or are they just wasteful distractions?
When you consider the prevalence of heroes throughout time, we have to acknowledge that there seems to be an inherent need for them in our psyche.
Do they provide us with an inspiration to overcome our own obstacles? Are they a role model for us to achieve greatness in our own lives? Do they provide hope when all else seems lost?
Therapy Story Time
Identifying the negatives in your life story that have led to the problems you experience today is a key part of Narrative Therapy. This model of therapy encourages clients to creatively set a new course for the direction of their lives.
Gardening: It Grows You
Gardening is good for the body, the mood and soul, or so they say.
What is it that makes Gardening so attractive for people? What makes it good for us?
If it is so good for us, what is it that holds us back from going out into the outback, our own wilderness?
How can we get over our barriers to creating our hideaway? our oasis of calm?
Ireland: Don’t you just love it?
A discussion on what it means to be Irish in modern Ireland.
Yes, it is not as straightforward as it once was. For me, being Irish refers to what we share in common. Our sense of place and experience of living here, along with our cultural heritage, I believe, is what defines us.
The fact that there is so much contention about what it means to be Irish now is a typically Irish thing.
Is disagreeing perhaps what we do best?
It is good to like being Irish when we are Irish.
Nurture your Inner Child
Reliving childhood fun does not mean you become a child again. It does not mean you abandon all adult responsibility and common sense.
Reliving childhood fun does mean you are allowing yourself to remember what was good in your youth. You are recharging your batteries to deal with your adult realities.
There can also be healing in remembering that your youth was not all bad.
Now, what else is there?
What we hope for the future may or may not happen.
What we place our hope in now in the present, and building upon that is the hope that matters.
Don’t wishfully just hope that someday it will all be alright.
Use today to build a better tomorrow.
Indiana Jones and the Idol of Eternal Youth
When is old too old?
The perception of the last Harison ford Indiana Jones film was that Ford was too old to play the role. According to our cherished memories, yes, he was.
But why can’t we let our heroes grow old?
Do we hold to a belief of eternal youth that is offended when we see our action heroes become slow and weak?
Surely we can believe, as Indy did, that there’s life in the old dog still?
Struggling with bereavment by suicide
This blog looks at the experience of losing a loved one to suicide. What are you to expect from such a loss?
How can you look after yourself in the immediate and long-term experience of the loss? How to develop hope for your future while still having sadness for the person you have lost?
When Humanity goes Ape
Has humanity evolved from being the hero to becoming the villain in recent years? In my view, the Planet of the Apes films reflect that it is now appropriate to say they have.
Has our perception of ourselves as a race become more muddied and negative over the decades? If so, Apes films still present a view of humanity that is hopeful.
Words to the broken hearted
Positive quotes about our ability to overcome adversity.
While such quotes can seem overly simplistic, they can still spur us on to better things.
Dying to survive: Facts about suicide in Ireland
The reality of suicide has touched all of us in some way.
The statistics of suicide are bleak.
Whether it is younger or older people, male or female, the reasons for suicide are individual to each person’s story.
Common to most stories are the realities of isolation and hopelessness.
Perhaps this is because by the time a person comes to the point of suicide, they have stopped properly engaging with people and have lost hope that there is any solution apart from death.
Thankfully, there are numerous emergency services available via the phone to meet these people in their time and place of need.
Failure - The fear around every corner
The fear of failure is one of the greatest draws holding a man back in life. The fear of failing at risky things like a new job or at passing exams, etc., is perfectly normal.
The problem is when you begin to identify yourself as a failure at life just because you have had failures in your life.
This self-identifying yourself as a failure is devastating. It destroys your confidence in social situations, professionally, and in your role in your family. Simply put, you don’t want others to know about your failures,s and you hide.
The way to shake off the failure mantra is to teach yourself, first and foremost, that failing is normal. Everyone fails.
Repeat to yourself “I am not afailure, just because somethings in my life failed”.
Eventually, you will then be able to develop ways to manage failure as it happens and to learn from it so as to decrease its risk of recurrence.
And this is how I got my life back after Cancer?
Three months post-discharge from hospital. My cancer story seemed to come to an end. I was discharged from the day hospital.
I had the internal tube removed that gave me chemotherapy during those 5 months as an inpatient.
While the significance of this was real, I truly had passed my direct cancer treatment. The cancer was gone, but my life was forever changed.
I looked back, I tried to look forward, but in truth, I was still in shock.
Who's in charge of you, You?
My third cancer blog and the last one I wrote while still an inpatient. I may have had two cycles of chemo left.
By this stage, I was drained of anger. I still had my days, but it was getting me nowhere. I was pushing myself to choose to accept the situation, but to keep the hope alive of future reunions and restarts.
This blog focused on the effect of the loss of personal autonomy and knowing I was not in control.
I questioned whether we are ever really in control of our lives.
Small Picture Big Picture
About halfway through my chemotherapy, which I was on for 5 months in total, I was really struggling with accepting what was happening.
I accepted that my survival prospects were good, but I was angry with the life I was losing. Simply put, I just felt it was unfair. Additionally, I had lost my spacious, bright room, which had an access space before entering, making it very private.
I was now in a dark, poky room which looked straight onto the main corridor.
I had a long way to go, and things seemed to be getting worse.
I took solace that the moment I was caught in was just that. A day would come when I would re-enter the fullness of life, I believed. I wanted to see the big picture.
On being Diagnosed with Cancer
This blog was written when I was in the early stages of being in hospital, being treated for cancer, the 2nd half of 2020.
In many ways, this reads as a diary entry where I outline the events of my illness, starting with pre-diagnosis and ending somewhere after my first of six rounds of chemotherapy.
I delve into the emotional and physical trauma of that time. What gave me strength and what made me weak. Relational and spiritual issues are highlighted.
This is all in the context of the initial 2020 lockdown, which meant I had to experience this painful medical world alone.
Anxiety; Where fear takes over
Anxiety is one of the most common topics raised in therapy. It is a debilitating condition that prevents a person from engaging with life.
It is closely associated with depression and often co-exists.
There is a strong medical connection with anxiety; medication is often the first stage of treatment.
Medication, however, can become a near-permanent part of persons ’s life. Many people do not want this and will prefer to resolve their anxiety through psychological work.
Such work identifies the triggers and helps to develop coping mechanisms to lessen their impact.
What Gets You Up in the Mornings?
What is the daily routine of life for?
Is it to make a success of ourselves professionally, to make an impact on the world?
Is the success of our life to be detemined materialisticly?
Or do we get out of our beds every morning to somehow improve the lives of those around us?
Is our value what others hold of us or what we hold of ourselves?
Hope
Hope is perceived as being essential but also as elusive. The hope for a better future plays a large part in motivating us to work through difficult situations.
Some may also say that being driven to achieve by a hope unfounded in reality can result in a destructive end.
Whatever your views on the helpfulness of hope, we all strive to have hope.