One of my clients asked me this week if she would always feel how she does right now. I get asked that quite a lot.
I used to ask my therapist the same question years ago and she would always quote: ‘This too shall pass’. She was, of course, completely right, but it was infuriating. I liked her a lot, but how the hell did she know what it was like to feel really bad? She was clever, beautiful and clearly had her shit together. I felt like I was holding on by my finger nails…
…just like some people feel when they ask me the same thing.
What I try to help my clients see is that as soon as you have made a commitment to change how things are for you, you can be sure that you won’t always be stuck with those negative feelings.
And this morning, this picture popped up in my Facebook memories from 2011 as though it was reminding me:
The comment that I wrote to accompany it is something like ‘if only it was that simple!’
I was happy enough with my life back then – I had a good job, my own house and was ok with the fact that I was a very single, confirmed cat lady who very rarely left her home town. But there were days – like we all have – where I wondered if that was it, if that’s how it would always be, if I could just decide that I wasn’t being Helen Walker anymore. I longed for a crystal ball to find out my future.
But the funny thing is, if that crystal ball had turned up, I would have assumed it was faulty because it would have shown me that among many, many other things that single cat lady who rarely travelled far would:
- Go to the Philippines – alone – to do relief work after a typhoon
- Learn to scuba dive despite being so scared I perfected the art of throwing up 12 meters underwater
- Fall in love (and unbelievably, be fallen in love with)
- Become a step mum
- Run a marathon (2011 I was a chain smoking definite non-runner!)
- Be made redundant after 17 years at the same company
- Retrain, get a new qualification and set up a business all on my own
- Run group hypnotherapy sessions and corporate seminars including that slightly terrifying one with 350 attendees!
Honestly, most of those things were not planned or thought through or I’d never have done them. But despite that, it was me that took the steps to ultimately make them happen.
What I’m trying to say is that we all have days when we’d like to ‘not do that anymore’, when we want to know that we won’t feel how we do forever. Sometimes it’s more than days that feel that way, and it’s tough. But one thing is for sure: If you put one foot in front of the other, you move from where you are.
So to you, that lovely client this week, and all those in the future, and anyone reading this who needs to hear this right now: If things aren’t feeling great right now, know that you won’t always feel the way you do. This too shall pass. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, trust, and watch out…because there could be more round the corner than you could even think possible right now. Trust me. x
