Here we are at the end of March 2018 a quarter of the way through the year already. The Winter holiday season seems like it was just yesterday now. We are on the cusp of the season that everything vividly comes alive, the leaves are budding, pink and white blossoms opening everywhere. There is an appearance that the days are longer with the clocks moving forward this time last week.  I remember briefly in times past when the economic climate was not so great and I found myself without work that this time of year marked the passing of time in a way that I didn’t want.  However, things moved on, opportunities presented themselves and with perseverance, I got back up and achieved my aims. Quoting one of Jack Kornfield’s (American Mindfulness Guru) sayings “You can cut all of the flowers but you cannot stop the irrepressible force of spring.”  This growth is in fact very close to the heart of my original training in the Person-Centred Approach, It’s founder Carl Rogers was born to a farming family and noticed he that even potatoes stored in the dark grow tendrils in the scant hope that they would be able to thrive, and so he observed this can be applied to all of nature.  Humans, yes we are part of nature too, (although sometimes it seems that we forget this) we are always looking to grow, economic growth, passionate for more knowledge, forever striving to find improvements in living standards, what we have, what our children will have, how we will survive and thrive? Rogers called it self-actualization.  Our natural tendency to become our very best version of ourselves that we can be, to improve or even to survive from moment to moment.

We are challenged to keep pace with the changes occurring in every day modern life.  The pace is so fast we either ignore what might be important or react too fast to what we don’t like.   The role of social media gives an added pressure in that we have to appear to be living the perfect life whereas this may be very different from the way that we may be feeling inside.  I read in March’s Therapy Today that a recent poll of young people aged 16-24 the overall happiness and confidence ratings have gone down, 28-29% believing that there were few jobs or career opportunities, almost 60% are worried about the political climate and 39% felt that they did not feel in control of their lives.  For the full article see bit.ly/2GlfNnB

Sometimes this is difficult when our own personal experience is not matching up to the way that we want it to be or we receive criticism from others about us be it a family member, partner boss, friend or work colleague.  It keeps us up at night, disturbs our diet and makes us feel lethargic and if we let it take a hold then it’s not too long before we become despondent and start to give up. We shouldn’t have to give up, it helps to talk this through and reach a place where you value your wholeness and ability to move on, therapeutic interventions by counsellors can help you make this shift back to the people that we are, who we want to be, put another way, the best version of ourselves that we possibly can be.  Hope springs eternal!