The Bare Bones

It’s New Year’s Eve, and what a year 2015 has been.  Well, for me anyway.  I know a lot of therapists cultivate an air of enigmatic remoteness in their dealings with their clients and patients, but that has never worked for me.  I try my best to get a balance between professional discretion, and honest disclosure.  My work is done from a place of meaningful connection, which is based on the belief that if I am really to be of use to the people coming to me for help and support, I want them to feel safe to be real, authentic, genuine with me.  And I find that is most likely to happen when I am real, authentic and genuine with them (without burdening them with my real-life baggage – because, you know, we all have baggage).

So, 2015 has seen for me the break-up of a 28 year marriage, the going off to university of my younger child, an unexpected but wonderful new relationship, and just last week the death of my much loved mother after a ten year descent into dementia. That’s quite a full plateful to digest, and at times it’s been hard to put one foot in front of the other in a constantly shifting environment.  But through the long months, my work has been a constant and reliable given, and I have had more comments from my wonderful clients this year about how much they value the work we are doing together than ever before, which has got me thinking about what happens when life gets stripped down to the bare bones.  The essentials.  The base note that tells us what really matters to us, and what key we want the tune of our life to be lived in.
We are in the depths of the winter now, the time of year associated with surrender to the darkness and expectation of the light.  In Chinese medicine it is the season for the Water element with its key emotion of fear (and its flip-side of courage).  There is the seed of hope for good new things to come too … and in a normal winter, we would be thinking “soon the bulbs will start pushing through into the light”.  But maybe there is some positivity to be drawn from the unsettling sight of daffodil spears and green leaves still on some trees, in December for heaven’s sake!  Perhaps we can redefine this bizarre natural ‘wrongness’ and tell ourselves “Even in the depth of darkness, new beginnings can occur and growth can continue”.

So let’s take that thought into 2016.  Out of adversity comes the gift of rebirth and renegotiating the terms of our life contracts.

If this resonates with you at all, then I’m delighted to have shared it with you.

And, as always, take this is a open-armed invitation to book in with me for some acupuncture or Zero Balancing in Northampton or Daventry this winter – call me on 07970 295177.