Who counsels the counsellor?

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I have wanted to be a counsellor for many years, ever since my first teaching post in the early 90s. Back then I could see the need in some of the children I was teaching, to have someone who would listen to them and help them overcome their life’s challenges.

Even more than that, I knew that I needed counselling but there was no way I was going to be able to access counselling for financial reasons as well as knowing how to avoid explaining my whereabouts to my mother. I managed to get onto an introductory course in the hope I might learn some self help skills and then promptly put it all aside for 20 years.

With the support of Geof I decided to have another go and another introductory course, the Levels 2 and 3 later, I am currently half way through the first year of the 2 year Diploma.

Phew! What a journey it has been so far. What has been the most liberating for me is that throughout the experience I have been partnering with God. He started the work in me many years ago back in 1999 when I first met my dear friend S. Through her friendship and mentoring I began to discover the woman God saw when he looked at me; who I am in him and most importantly, I began to heal.

As this process began, I developed the courage to break free from the toxic and abusive relationship I had with my mother who was also beginning to show signs of dementia at the time. Then straight off the back of that I met my beloved Geof while on holiday who decided he was willing to take a chance on spending the rest of his life with someone who had no idea who she was or what she wanted or could do. He says he fell in love with the person I was going to become; the promise of who I would be in God. Foolhardy and risky if you ask me but I am ever grateful to have him by my side.

It is a big step for me; blogging about my mother. So far I have kept her out of it. I know she always loved me and wanted me and, for the first 25 years of my life, I never questioned the kind of love she was giving me. I tried to love her back but I was unable to love her in the way she expected. This was not her fault and I no longer blame her for it. I now understand so much more about her life and how her own childhood experiences conditioned the person she became, the choices she made and the way she behaved. I feel immense sadness that throughout the nearly 85 years of her life she never lived her life truly as herself or experienced peace with the people in her life.

God’s direction and guidance, followed by the counselling process and training have shown me how to heal, firstly by revealing to me who I am in him and how I relate to him as his daughter. God has taught me about forgiveness, restoration, acceptance, real, true unconditional love and Grace, so much Grace. Counselling has confirmed, supported and reinforced in the natural all the discoveries I have made in the spiritual. Not everyone makes the choice to access the healing power of God; most people don’t even know it is available. God in his infinite wisdom has inspired so many people in the natural to develop counselling therapies to bring about healing. I personally believe that innovators such as Carl Rogers, Erik Erikson and John Bradshaw who have Christian backgrounds have been divinely inspired to develop their therapies.

The most exciting transformations I have experienced have come through parenting my own daughter. I always thought that God would have to fix me first before he would let me loose on any child. Through parenting I have learnt how God himself wants to parent us. He never shouts, blackmails, bribes, cajoles, beats, punishes or threatens me when I screw things up. I freely admit it has been challenging to follow his example and I have not managed it on many occasions. His boundaries are set by love and my choices are governed by my own desire not to damage our relationship and I am learning daily what this means in my own parenting; to parent Unique as he parents me.

As my friend S prophesied to me back at the beginning of my transformation, God began to

‘restore the years the locusts had eaten’.

Joel 2:25

And he has been true to his word…more than I could ever imagine.

I want to share more about what I am learning as the course progresses but I will finish for now on this thought; I am receiving more affirmation of how far I have come with God and I am seeing how he has already healed the deepest and darkest pains and trauma in my life. I see counselling as an extension of God’s work in society, making God’s healing accessible through secular practice.

Years ago when watching an episode of Poirot, at the end of the story one of the characters was so badly damaged by her parenting Poirot said to her ‘God can heal a broken heart if you give him all the pieces.’

You bet!