Spirituality / Relationship

Been thinking about 'spirituality' in counselling this week as the workshop with Brian Thorne has been getting closer. I think more and more the word 'spirituality' sounds like 'relationship' to me, the relationship that I have with my family, friends, colleagues and of course clients. The connection that I feel and the changes that I experience internally, in my thoughts and feelings feel like a spiritual experience.


Hmmm .... Wondering what I mean by a spiritual experience ....

I guess I feel adjusted,I feel calmer,I feel warmer and I feel more like a whole person, a feeling of doing what I am meant for, a sense of feeling more peaceful towards others and a desire to be with others ...

ooooow! .... That's lots of different things ....

Not sure about 'what I am meant for', I don't think I mean some kind of vocation, but more like this is what this whole experience of being human is geared for. Trying to think of a metaphor ....

Trying to think of something outside of me that is just working smoothly, just purring away, and I get the feeling that it's doing what it does best, that's the feeling I get in relationship. And it feels counterintuitive to me sometimes, when my anxieties are up, when I am tired and want to be alone, when I tend towards alienation. And then I experience relationship, my openness to another and then sense their openness towards me, the feeling is of all the parts inside me working together to do the job that they were meant for.

Feeling less violent, feeling warmer towards other people, seems like qualities that 'spiritual' and/or religious people have searched for and to some extent achieved, and I guess it's something that I have tried to achieve in myself through other means, study, application of myself to certain principles. And while those things are helpful and often worthwhile, I find myself travelling to that place of peace toward another when I attempt to open myself to them as fully as possible in that moment.

Like relationship is a shortcut to what I have strived to MAKE happen in other ways. As I think about the communities I have lived in and the activities I have undertaken, they seem more now like 'something to do' while the relationship develops, perhaps the more anxious we are, the more we need activities around us to engage in while we slowly and very carefully move closer to the people around us.

And here I am bumping into the difference I experience in Counselling, for the most part there isn't another activity to engage in, there is the client, the counsellor and a space. The relationship is not being created while 'doing' something else ...

... or is that the case???

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Finding my true north

Was hearing some talk about conscience this morning, and how it's important not to have another influence that could misdirect my conscience. Like a compass sitting beside a magnet might not point north but gets distracted by the magnet.

Got me thinking about how I find my "true north" my own internal direction that is fully me. Is my conscience my guide in this? I have also been Reading about "unconditional positive regard" or "acceptance" today. And the posibility if growing into ourselves if we have the opportunity to be valued for our existence.

I think it's an unselfish valuing that fuels my growth into who I am, but I need the people around me to trust that I am inherently social, even if it doesn't always look like it, or feel like it, I am still doing the best I can, that my "true north" is a direction towards deep connection with others, an energy that fuels me in pursuit of my own passions and needs that are at the same time connected up to supporting others to expeience and satisfy their own needs and passions.

To be fully unleashed on the world I don't need to worry about my conscience being seared or misdirected but I need to be supported as I fully am. My worry about the person who questions my conscience is their desire to control for their own ends.

Let's fuel each others internal energies to be fully ourselves and grow towards our "true north"


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Where will the journey take me ...

Today i popped into edinburgh to see this exhibition Joachim Koester - Poison Protocols and Other Histories which proved to be a little over my head but I ended up here

As Others See Us both exhibitions enjoyable and fascinating in their own right.

Gets me thinking about opportunities that arise from and during a journey, ones which would never be envisaged at the start and never opened to us if we dont embark ...

Time Travellers Wife

Just been to see the time travellers wife this afternoon, really enjoyed it and felt moved by the experience!

I love the subject of time travel ... I think it helps me to lift my head up out of my life and think about where I am and what's important to me ... not an easy and perhaps important excercise for me as I can get totally immersed in the present!

One of the key features of the story is the character ... look away if you haven't seen it :) ... time travels back to events with a major emotional and psychological significance. Something that can happen in real life in times of stress, although not actually time travelling (stating the obvious) emotionally I can be right back in a previous experience and responding from that much younger and inexperienced place, everything I have learnt in between becomes innaccessible!

The movie was an interesting way in to this piece of reflection for me!


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Contact & Depth

Spent some time with a good friend yesterday and we spent time thinking about depth in relationship. I surprised myself as I found myself leaning much more toward the idea of contact, and seeing this in binary form, either as on or off.

This is a concept I was introduced to by Keith Tudor during the online conversation we had in June that will hopefully be posted to www.onlinevents.co.uk shortly.

I do like to experience "depth" in my relationships and have noticed at times chasing this to the point where I may try and force it, or perhaps like I am chasing a "fix". And I notice when I don't feel like I am really connected to the other I can feel unsettled, like something is going wrong.

And I surprised myself yesterday how happy I was with idea of contact, at any depth ....



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Working Therapeutically with disordered eating: a conceptual framework

I have just been writing this blog for 20 minutes on my iPhone which just crashed and I lost it all ... Aaargh!

Hmmm what do I do now???

I wanted to write about my experience of organising the lecture that Julia Buckroyd delivered last week "Working Therapeutically with disordered eating: a conceptual framework"

Felt like a real privilidge to spend time with Julia, we had lunch together, spent an hour doing an interview and had some to time to chat following the lecture. I felt like I was in the presence of a person with a great mind, very straightforward and genuinely interested a combination that affected me deeply, and left me feeling nourished by my contact with her.

I was nervous about the interview as this is a completely new experience, but Julia has experienced national media a number of timed, most recently appearing on a BBC documentary and was completely comfortable being interviewed in front of the camera. Julia spoke passionately about her journey from Scottish historian to Emeritus Proffessor of Counselling and some if the significant moments along the way.

Julias lecture was truly impressive from an oratory standpoint, she talked for a whole hour from the most succint outline on a PowerPoint presntation and concluded exactly on time, no mean feat considering we were all inside an auditorium on the hottest night of the year and the air conditioning was clearly struggling! Julia presented her conceptual framework of how to work with clients who are experiencing disordered eating clearly and persuasively, she describes her work as "standing on the shoulders of giants" and her ability to make difficult and often innacessable psychological concepts available for easy understanding and application by practitioners is truly impressive! I don't think anyone left the lecture unclear as to Julia's message and I think most of us felt inspired and excited by what we heard.

This was the first lecture onlinevents has arranged and I feel extremely grateful to Julia that she agreed to participate in such an untested experience, giving onlinevents a wonderful launch into offering full events where we organise, broadcast and record.

Thank you Julia Buckroyd!

Interview and lecture available here http://www.onlinevents.co.uk/onlinevents/Julia_Buckroyd.html




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Saying goodbye to Keith Tudor & family at Temenos

Spent a lovely evening at Temenis last night meeting Keith Tudors family and saying goodbye to them as they prepare to emmigrate to New Zealand.

I was very moved to see the depth of connection to Keith and his family from people that he has known and worked with, some for years and others, like myself, who haven't known him for as long.

I notice the difference it makes to me when I see the relationships that Keith has made due to how open and humble he is.

When I hear lots about how disconnected we are and how isolated we have become to see the complete opposite warms my heart and makes me feel safer somehow.

And to experience this in my own life, my good friend from Southampton, Rich Cove drove up to Sheffield with enough time to have lunch and attend the party later on. It is so good just to spend time catching up and supporting each other proffessionally!

At the party we met lots of new people, some doing their training as a counsellor others very experienced and even published. But if you had walked into the lovely and peaceful building that holds Temenos, there was no way to distinguish between who is prominent in the counselling field and those who are starting off.

Was fun persuading Louise Tudor to think about participating in an online interview with onlinevents.co.uk and totally surprised to be talking to Colin Lago and his willingness to think about a lecture / interview with onlinevents.co.uk

Also met lots of other wonderful people that I hope to stay in contact with and build a relationship with.

The joy of connection!


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