Author: gjef2871

I lost a friend recently.

I lost her because I choose not to go down with her ship.

I have written about this previously here and here.

I want to write about some of the blessings of counselling for this person.

They might read it, they might not.

You are reading it though, and it might help you, too.

In Australia, many people have the perceptions that health care workers only cause illnesses, they don’t fix them.

This is not always true in my experience.

I have met health care workers who have given me a lot of knowledge about my blind spots.

I have also met health care workers whose main role in my life was to suggest books and training for me.

I read Russ Harris, Martha Beck, Joe Dispenza, John and July Gottman, Johann Hari, Mario Martinez and many others.

Another health care worker told me about how reading fiction books can increase empathy.

That year, I started giving all my students novels for Christmas. The effect of that research spread to the health care worker which spreads out through me into my students and on.

One health care worker taught me about asking for help.

She taught me that we all need someone to tell us about our blindspots, and asking for help to know what they are is one of the best routes to that.

She did a Lot of work with me on compassion.

She taught me that abuse is never OK. She taught me to recognise what is and is not abuse, and to try to stop abusers in their tracks.

She taught me what the abusers play book looks like and feels like.

Click to access CRARMF-Fact-Sheet-3-Perpetrator-characteristics.pdf

She taught me that defending myself is OK.

“Never attack. Never attack. But be an absolute expert at stopping harm to yourself and defending yourself and others from those who wish to harm you.”

“Never attack. Never attack. But be an absolute expert at stopping harm to yourself and defending yourself and others from those who wish to harm you.”

Those are some of the lessons I’ve learned from counselling.

I pray for the happiness, awe and delight that is part of my daily life to continue.

Any one else who wants to pray for that for themselves, I can highly recommend it.

Note: There are no affiliate links in this post. Yes, even the links to amazon are not affiliate links. I actually believe in this stuff, I’m not writing it for money.