Counselling

Do you know that before I started counselling, I didn’t really think about what I did or the reason why I did it?  As I’ve been having more sessions I have been thinking more about the characters I create in my stories and what their motivation is.  

It is strange how little you think about what you do.  You end up just living your life without really considering it.  Or maybe you don’t.  I don’t know.  I was one of the ones who didn’t.  And although Kevin and I have discussed our future plans in a general kind of way, but not specifically nor how we would get there.

But I will admit last week with the counsellor was amazing!  She actually got me thinking about what I loved in the past without asking specifically what I liked.  And it brought the joy of it back to me.  OK, I’m not in the place where I can go and recreate it again, but at least it is a start.

One thing the counsellor said was that we make a start  - one tiny teeny change.  And with each one we make we move slightly towards our goal.  Now ok, not everything is amazing or will be amazing.  I was thinking about the question “How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.”  I want to expand on this idea.

When you think about it, this is the same with any animal you eat.  Not every bit is eaten in the same way.  And the same would hold true for an elephant.  Obviously each part of the meat would be shared or cooked or prepared in a different way.  Some of them need slow cooking, others need just a quick fry etc etc.  And some bits are completely inedible.  I mean, I can’t imagine eating an elephant hide - don’t know about you, but I think that would be impossible to chew.

But the analogy holds true, I think.  When you try and change things in your life it takes work and effort and preparation.  Now some of it is easier, some harder and some impossible.  I think the fact of change isn’t impossible but you have to know what CAN be changed and what can’t - just as much as you would for anything.

If you were, oh, I don’t know, building a bridge, you wouldn’t put the pillars or posts or whatever you call the things that hold the bridge together on sinking sand, you’d find a rocky place.  And yes, that will be hard to get to and get into it, but if you want people to be able to go over that bridge and survive in wind or rain or anything else, it HAS to be solid.

And if you want to eat an elephant, you have to know what you can and can’t eat and where to start cutting to get to the actual meat.  So with change, I think, once you have discovered what you CAN’T do, find out what you can, where the difficulty or tough place is and start with one blow at a time.  As a stone mason would say, it’s not the first tap or the last tap that breaks a stone, it is both and every other one in between.  If you want to be effective, slow and steady is the best way to achieve.  Get everything out of the way before you start and then remember it’s only tiny steps.