Change.....Desired & Avoided. Reflections: Counselling & Change
Change.....Desired & Avoided. Reflections: Counselling & Change
After recently watching the Netflix show, by Brene Brown, titled "The Call to Courage," I had a lot of inspirational thoughts. It was just so informative, inspiring, and just plain wonderful, something I could find myself listening to over and over. It has reminded me of the recent life changes, choices, and challenges (the 3 c's we all struggle with in life, often).I continually work towards integrating and practicing in my life daily.
Brene, talks at length about the courage to share, the courage to embrace change, to feel joy. We all can relate to the moments of shame, embarrassment, and hurt in our lives when we have the courage to share this with others in a safe setting. Yet we all have moments when we decide to keep it secretive, leading us to continuously holding onto our hurt feelings, and experiences. Courage is something that we all have the ability to activate, embrace, and ground our efforts to seek help in. It takes courage to take that first step, and to not only acknowledge you need help, but to also ask for the help or support, and then to accept the help through therapy. Let's all embrace a moment in our lives where we can choose to embrace courage, face a fear, try something new, and the courage to share with others when it feels safe to do so. Counselling & changes often go together, where this safe space is provided.
Vulnerability is a topic that we may want to just avoid reading about, hearing, and definitely facing. After all, who wants to raise their hand and admit to a vulnerable moment? Vulnerability is an amazing opportunity and also necessary to take a risk in life, that can lead to positive changes and growth. So if we avoid being vulnerable, we will become "stuck" in life. Brene talks about her vulnerability in such a way that normalizes her thoughts, feelings, experiences and helps us relate to it. Vulnerability when shared in a safe space, with trust and boundaries, can help you work through these challenging feelings. Vulnerability if not expressed and utilized in a constructive way, can surprisingly come up without having complete control of how and what the outcome will be. For example, think of when you asked someone to be a friend, or shared an example of your skills in an interview. These situations can be considered to be taking a risk in sharing information, and ultimately you don't know how the outcome will turn out, as in you don't know if that friend request will be accepted, or if you will get hired onto the job you want. Most importantly if you don't even try it then you can get stuck in a rut of life. Remember vulnerability requires us to be able to give space, when we have found a failure, to reflect and try again. Keep trying until we are able to overcome it.
I really love this quote, "choose courage over comfort," by Brene. It supports us with each day choosing to challenge ourselves to make that one degree of change and try something new. Will you choose to practice gratitude each day, reflecting on how you have the opportunity each day to wake up, and choose courage over comfort today. Distancing from the worry about what tomorrow will bring. Mindfully focusing on what today brings, working through each moment, gives us an opportunity to embrace the challenges presented each day, seek out the supports you need, and succeed with trying.
Change is often something we talk about, we desire, and yet we struggle to take the first step. 1 degree of change, to start the process, to reach our goal..... will you make a change today or avoid it?
