You may be thinking what has counselling and writing a contract got in common? Well, we often have ‘contracts’ with people which are unwritten contracts.

Unlike work, where you agree to do X amount of hours and in return, you will be paid X, which of course could be a verbal or written contract.

Our personal contracts happen all the time and most of the time we do not realise we are in a contract until it feels like ‘the norm’.

So let’s dive in a bit deeper about how this contract thing works….

Imagine you have a friend who you regularly go to concerts with and you are the one that always drives. Initially you may have offered because they hadn’t driven to the o2 before and so you were going to show them how easy it is. Or, you prefer to go by car even though your friend was happy to go by train.

As each concert happens, you offer to drive and soon in turn, it becomes ‘the norm’. It may also appear to become ‘the norm’ that they don’t offer to pay towards petrol or parking. The problem being, because ‘this is how it always is’, changing it may feel a bit tricky – and here lies your contract.

Let me give you another example; many, many years ago, a female friend and I decided as a New Year’s Resolution to do something very different (for us) and learn ballroom dancing – do not ask me why – it seemed like a good idea at the time!

So we arrived and one of us took the ‘male role’ and the other the femaie. (Now please do not get any bees in your bonnet about it being sexist etc. can I ask you just to go with my example).

The only problem with this, was that the person learning the ‘male moves’ was never going to learn how to be do the female moves. After a few weeks we realised how our learning was set for failure (and it wasn’t really our thing) so we stopped.

Again, if we only leant one set of moves, that would have become our contract that one of us would have had to take on the ‘male role’ if we were to go to dances for example – that was our contract.

This happens all the time, our contracts can be with parents, siblings, friends, partners and colleagues and some of these contracts are not healthy.

So all I ask, is you do a birds eye view of the people above that you interact with and ask yourself / notice what contracts you have and whether they are positive or detrimental contracts to you.

Changing a contract can take time and if the other person likes how the contract used to be, they may well struggle to change the contract or indeed try to ambush any new contracts. Because let’s be honest, the new contract may not feel as beneficial to them as the previous one was.

You may not have to completely tear up the contract, it may just be a few tweaks here and there.

If you are questioning yourself whether you have any contracts, I would feel confident in saying that you do – however, another way to notice a contract is noticing when you are with your sibling or partner for example, notice how your feelings change when they or you do something.

Notice if you start to feel irritated or, start thinking to yourself, ‘ugh it’s always me’! – Yep that’s a sure sign of a contract.

You don’t have to be a solicitor to write up a new contract, but if you’d like some help to start with – I am a phone call away.

As I went for my early morning walk, I came upon a mushroom, amongst many others on the same walk. I noticed how it was being eaten with varying degrees and this got me thinking about my clients – past and present and indeed future.

Counselling doesn’t always have to be a series of sessions. We work together you (the client) and me (the counsellor) to get to where you would like to get to.

Sometimes when I have finished working with a client, they may get back in touch for a one of session to look at what is niggling them right now. They really appreciate and enjoy having the space to explore what is going on for them.

This may seem surprising, but some clients make only want one session, just purely to look at the immediate situation they are in and I may signpost them to other professionals be it solicitors or doctors for example.

The main point, is that all of these clients, are amazing in my eyes. They all noticed that something was ‘Eating them up’ and they wanted to do something about it.

Even if it was to ‘get it off their chest’, or speak to someone that wasn’t a friend or relation – someone completely mutual and understandably non-judgemental.

Please refrain from keeping yourself in the dark with whatever is eating you up. Find whatever source may help you to acknowledge what it is, even if you don’t want to do anything about it right now – that’s ok too.

I believe even the simple act of noticing what is causing us discomfort can lead us to feeling less alone or indeed less troubled. Through noticing, you start to take out the ‘power’ that it may feel it has on you. It can give you the opportunity to look at it in a more pragmatic way. You could look at it clinically, by removing the emotion attached to it and looking at it from another angle. How might your friend view this or a colleague?

My concern with us not look at what is eating us up, is that whilst that problem is eating away at you, another problem can also start to eat away at you and without realising it, you can suddenly find yourself overwhelmed. The knock-on effect that this can have on your day to day life can become debilitating.

You could call the Samaritans (T: 116 123) there is someone at the end of the phone day or night 24/7. Believe me you do not need to be suicidal to speak to them. The most common reasons people contact them, is about relationships or family problem along with bereavement when someone has died.

A faceless friendly ear, could be just what you need.

Not feeling able to speak, that’s ok, you can email them; jo@samaritans.org although the response time is 24 hours just to let you know. There are branches in the UK and Ireland if you want to pop in and see someone face to face or you could put pen to paper and write to them; Chris, Freepost RSRB-KKBY-CYJK, PO Box 9090, Stirling FK8 2SA.

No, I do not work for the Samaritans, but I totally advocate what they do and stand for.

You can indeed slef-refer through your GP for Time to Talk, unfortunately though the waiting list can be quite long. There may be another voluntary or reduced rate counselling organisation in your area, or you may choose to see a private counsellor.

Any of these avenues can be helpful, the biggest thing for me, is that you recognise something is eating you up and that you don’t have to get through it on your own.

Now is the time for you to reclaim you – go for it – because you are so worth it!

And yes, I do really think it is an art! It takes time to practice and similar to art where art is a wide and varied spectrum of different nuances, learning to be Good Enough will carry through the different elements of your life, be it home, work and with friends to name a few.

So, what is the ‘Art of Good Enough’?

This is very much about you being ok with you. Being Ok with what you have or are achieving.

With everything at our fingertips, it can be all too easy to compare ourselves with others. Even if we didn’t ‘search’ to find comparisons, they may well have been there in your internet feed due t the algorithms / history of what you have searched for previously.

Ok I hope I haven’t lost you already? Sometimes it may be helpful to see where we are in relation to others, like a benchmark. However unfortunately, more people are searching for perfection, which I would argue a) does it exist and b) what does perfect provide?

I work with a variety of clients and I am pretty sure some of them may appear to be your perfect in your eyes but to them, they still have their own challenges just like everyone else.

I will start off with, what I feel is quite an easy example. For lunch I made a ham and cheese omelette. I’ve made these a few times now (as these have been a relatively new thing for me to make) and I did consider buying an omelette maker. Why? So, I could get the ‘perfect’ omelette of course.

Interestingly for me a perfect omelette tastes exactly like the one that I make but the perfect version is neat and the ‘insides’ are sealed in. When I said to my partner that I wish I could make perfect omelettes they challenged me and said they were perfect and that they tasted delicious. I have to agree, they are incredibly tasty and so I have learnt / taught myself to fight off the urge for my ‘perfect’ omelette maker and agree that my omelettes are, wait for it… Good Enough!

I work and have worked with clients who initially come to my sessions feeling very angry. As we unpick what is going on for them, w gradually uncover that they don’t feel good enough. It could be their school work or in the relationship, or how they feel their parents are perceiving them.

It never ceases to amaze me how young people feel that not living up to their parents’ expectations and these are the ones when parents haven’t put any expectations on them. Can you imagine the challenge and inner turmoil for the young people who have had their parents’ expectations pressed upon them continuously?

I would like to give you a challenge: next time you do something, be it your make up, your latest run, or a piece of homework. I would like you to congratulate yourself on what you have done and then say to yourself, ‘that was Good Enough’.

I agree it will feel weird initially saying that to yourself, (but you are probably quite good at saying not nice things to yourself), so you will be use to speaking to yourself – that’s my point.

If you notice yourself going back to touch up your make up or edit your homework, please tell yourself again, that it is Good Enough and that you do not need to make any other amends.

If you notice a friend, colleague or parent struggling with accepting what they have done, tell them it is Good Enough and if you are feeling comfortable ask them t repeat it back to you – that what they did is Good Enough.

When I was working with a young person, with the Art of Good Enough, it was lovely to hear how they passed on tis new found knowledge with their younger sibling. We worked with stickers to celebrate being Good Enough and their sibling got a sticker too!

Life is har, pressure can come at all angles, so if we can just prise off our own pressure even for just some of the time – that’s got to be a good thing right?

So next time you are feeling angry, take a step back and notice if indeed what you are doing is – Good Enough.

Buy yourself some stickers to celebrate you – we are never too old for stickers!

First things first, I am not saying that everyone has a ‘lemon’ in their mouth. You may be one of those people who always has a strawberry, which I totally applaud and try hard to keep a strawberry in mine too!

However, there are times when we may find our self with a lemon and this blog is about those moments.

So, what do I mean by having a lemon in our mouths or indeed changing it to a strawberry?

As you read more with this blog, you may find yourself justifying your lemon, saying oh it’s banter, a bit of humour or I’m just being sarcastic, there’s nothing in it. Well firstly, if you are saying there was not meant by it, I would challenge that and secondly the person on the receiving end, may definitely not see it as banter.

Please forgive me if you feel you are being scolded or told off, that is not my intention. My intention is to bring your awareness to your resident lemon and help you to recognise when it rears itself and also, how to eradicate it.

Ok, let me give you an example;

Let’s say you are a step-parent, a step-mum and your step child’s mother is not held with high regard in your eyes. You may well have good reason to feel like that – I am not questioning that.

But imagine, your step-child is talking to you about their biological mum, or their mum has come up in conversation. * Lemon Alert * At this point you may find yourself, referring to them as super mum to their child*, because let’s face it, they have probably in the past and even now are still not behaving like a mum or taking on this responsibility in your eyes. Again, I am not here to question that.

However, you may be completely unaware how hurtful it is for your step child to hear their mum being referred to as ‘super mum’. What you are actually doing, is reiterating to them, that their mum is indeed rubbish and let’s be honest they are probably acutely aware of their mums’ failings if that is the case.

Ok, I can hear your defence argument, ‘but that’s what we’ve always said, it was our “in joke”. I don’t doubt that and I am sure at times, your step child may have found that beneficial to have something that you two shared, that made them feel closer to you – because lets acknowledge the fact that the relationship that they may have been craving with their biological mum is somewhat fractured.

So how do you change that comment (lemon) to a helpful comment (strawberry).

Let’s put it into practice;

Before:
Stepchild says, mum is taking me into town for a coffee.
You: Oh wow super mum is doing her bit.

After:
Stepchild says, “Mum is taking me into town for a coffee”.
You: That sounds nice, having a coffee with your mum.

I am hoping that you can see the difference?

We can sometimes underestimate the impact of small changes and how they can ‘land’ differently on each person.

So my leaving thought is;

Keep Your Lemons for Lemon Drizzle Cake – That’s Where They Work Best!

* One of the points that I like to make really clear, is that no matter what age a child is, they are still the child. Yes, even if they are 8, 16, 25, 43 etc..

As I came up with that heading for this blog, I did ask myself if that is a term still in use, or maybe discarded or renewed with a more up-to-date version?

So what does it mean to have Ants in Your Pants? Well, you might be feeling a little bit ‘itchy scratchy’ with another person. You may notice that you are on a short fuse with them or it appears that they cannot do anything right on your eyes at this present moment in time.

Ok, what I would like you to do, is to think about yourself for a moment. I would like you to ask yourself is there anything that you are unhappy with about you. You may be annoyed with yourself for not doing something, or wish you could be more like this other person.

Let me give you an example;

Imagine you were going to go to the gym but instead gave it a miss for whatever reason. Later that day, your partner is eating a cake. They are enjoying it and clearly have no guilt – which is a good thing right?! Not for you, you may feel resentful because in order for you to have that cake without guilt, would have been going to the gym.

Now, please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you have to go to the gym in order to eat cake, remember this is just an example of how if we haven’t done something for ourselves, we can then pass it on to another person. Let’s say, they haven’t done anything in particular, but you are aware that you seem to be irritated by them.
I totally appreciate, that at that moment in time, it will probably appear to you, that they have done something to warrant your irritation but, if you are able to do so, I would like you to take some time out.

Ok, during your time out, can you go and sit in another room (preferably away from the person who has irritated you, otherwise the irritation could be stronger than you being able to do this exercise).

Right, now you are in another room take a moment to do a minute of breathing exercises, Just breathing in loudly and out loudly, notice the rhythm in your body. This will help ground you to the here and now and hopefully put your irritation on pause whilst we do the next part of the exercise.

Part 2. I would now like you to rewind your mind to the beginning of the day for you, from the moment you woke up. Then slowly as if going through each part of the day as if it is in slow motion, notice at what point you became irritated by yourself.

Once you hit that point – stop!

Now I would like you to ask yourself, why you are irritated? What did it mean to you to do or not do what you did – be kind to yourself why you do this bit.

Part 3, is to acknowledge that you are passing on your irritation to the other person.

I would encourage you to do another 1 minute of breathing exercise. Again, this will ground you to the here and now.

The final part, is to congratulate yourself, on taking the time to notice what was causing you to have ‘Ants in Your Pants’.

A good reminder to have noted down on your phone when you are next felling irritated is;

“What is it that I am not doing for me that I am passing on to someone else”?