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”?

Hmmm, that’s a curious title if ever there was one, or maybe controversial?

So what do I mean by it takes more than one person?  Well you can’t blame someone for something if it’s just you on your own.  Even if it’s you and your pet, there is still more than yourself.

Let’s say a bit more about your pet and how the blaming works; your dog eats your dinner, whilst you answered the front door.  So there are two sides to this story (you may correct me and add another dimension and that’s ok too).

Firstly, could your dinner have been placed somewhere else so that your dog doesn’t have access to it and secondly your dog could be trained to not jump up and eat food off of the table.

Now, funnily enough, I am not keen on using the ‘blame’ word, but for ease of reference who is to blame in this instance, is it your or your dog?

This is exactly how blaming works in relationships of any variety too.

We can too easily blame someone for not doing what we asked or for doing something that we didn’t want them to do.  I wonder if you are able to look back on the last time, you blamed someone for doing something.  You may not have actually had the conversation and verbally blamed them, but you could have in your head.

Ok, what I would like you to do now, is imagine placing the blaming situation on a plate in the centre of a table. (Go with me on this).

Now, imagine walking around that ‘plated’ situation, look at it from all angles.  From the sides, top or bottom.  To go a step further, now look at it through your friends eyes, or your pets eyes (play with this) and see how they may have seen it.

You may find retracing your last few steps or indeed looking further back to how your day unfolded prior to the ‘plated’ situation.

What I am hoping now, is that you may have of thought certain things that may have either not be heard (If said at all), or interpreted a different way.

Let’s look at dinner not being ready when you walked in the door.

Your thoughts could be” I hope they have put the dinner on, taken something out of the freezer, or grabbed something from the supermarket on the way home”.

Now, the question is did you ask them to get the dinner on?  Do you think you asked them to get the dinner on, or did you presume?  Again, please do not feel that the blame is now being passed on to you for not asking, or presuming, this is literally, us ‘playing’ together what may or may not have happened.

You may know that you have dash out again and only have a small amount of time to eat, but did the other person know that.  Did you say you wanted to eat before you went back out again and if so did you say what you wanted to eat or that you would want to eat together, rather than grab something and go.

I appreciate I am using dinner as an example, but I hope, that this will give you the opportunity next time you feel you are blaming someone to look at the ‘plated’ blaming situation and see if anything could have been done differently?

Sometimes we can blame people for something, and yet, we may not have communicated it in a way that they heard us.  Or at that point heard exactly what we needed them to hear.

Blaming can lead to resentment and resentment can lead to unhappiness.

Break the Blame Chain – the alternative is much better.

I am fully aware as I wrote that title, I had thought of Mastermind or a gameshow, maybe even Big Brothers chair and realised the title alone could feel daunting!

So I apologise if that’s how you felt.

I just felt, it could be a good time to de-clutter what is going on for you. You may have been putting off looking at something or realised after the recent potential ‘activities’ something may have triggered feelings that you thought had ‘gone away’?

Sometimes, people can see the New Year as a time to ‘Spring Clean’ out with the old and all that, so why not do the same, but with your own Mental Health and Wellbeing.

You may be surprised to hear, how many of my clients say, ‘I’m so pleased to have seen you today’ or ‘That was a good session”. Having counselling, can give you the opportunity to ‘unburden’ yourself. It gives you the space to say how it is for you and indeed what that may feel like for you.

Sitting in the chair, is in no way intimidating or judging. After a couple of sessions, you will start to feel more comfortable about how a counselling session with me works and begin to feel more at ease about talking things through – together.
Ok, let’s look at this another way, when we sit down, it takes the pressure off of our legs and indeed the rest of your body. You know when you sit down and get that ‘ahhh’ feeling – because it is welcomed. That can be no different to sitting in the chair for counselling, as this gives you the opportunity to ‘take the pressure off also’.

Imagine having that time each week for you. For you to take the pressure off and have no demands or expectations from others – no, not even me. Of course, you may feel apprehensive that is totally understandable.

You may be thinking that you have no idea where to start or dread the idea of something coming up that you don’t want to talk about. Again, that’s ok. I am not here to ‘pull’ stuff out or take you to places you don’t want to go. Remember, it’s your counselling session and we go, where you want to go.

After a few sessions, you may decide to look at something a bit more painful now that you have an idea how the process of counselling works.

I am wondering, does the chair still feel daunting or perhaps, you have started to feel curious about it?

Let me give some other examples; if your car is making a ‘funny noise’, you would probably get it checked out, or ask a friend what they might do. If your tooth was causing you a problem or started to feel sore, you may put up with it for a while but eventually go to the Dentist to get it checked out and hopefully come away resolved and pain free.

That is no different to counselling. We look at resolving situations or at the least noticing things that may be causing you discomfort and working out how to eliminate or make adjustments to prevent causing you further discomfort.

Why not try one session and see how you get on.

What have you got to lose – or indeed what have you got to gain?