Journey Start

MY Journey

Introduction, hopes and fears.

My development started about 18 years ago. I have read a lot in the meantime of popular psychology stuff like louise hay etc..A lot of it I have forgotten as it is the same material repeated..but Tony de Mello, Louise Hay and Melody Beattie have stood out for me over the years and have had an impact on my life. I'm not very religious but I thank above for those authors and their work. They have meant a lot to me over the years and still speak back to me when I need them.When the course started I was quite nervous or shy , I can never quite separate the two. Maybe it was that the group wouldn't interact etc and I would have wasted all my time and money!.. The first task given was to just talk to the person beside you and share information. I didn't ask many questions and didn't find out much as when everybody else started to introduce the person beside them they knew a lot more than I did. I know to ask more questions in future!

Hopes and fears were then discussed

I was amazed to learn that we only retain 25% of what what we hear and even after training it goes up to 42%, and that eye contact,controlled emotions,don't assume, and correct posture enable you to listen properly. We then tried talking to someone who would not listen, which was nearly impossible to do and became very frustrating very quicky...I learnt that counselling is

Listening without judgement empowers people to help themselves

Is a process is empathetic

Gets people to be honest with feelings gives the ability to confront issues

It's your time it's about you the tools to use in confronting issues

In starting to counsel each other I found it hard to create an issue as such that was not real. I think it would be easier to bring up real life issues in future or even to watch out for something that may crop up during the week and to use that as a subject.

This was interesting as to the roles people play in groups. In my family of origin I would have been the silent/observer type. Now in a group I would say I am a gate opener/ contributor. I enjoyed contributing my ideas to it and I try to think outside the box. I would think that roles change depending on what characters are in a group .The most interesting exercise was the. I learnt a lesson that you need get as much information as you can in order to make an informed decision about anything.It's slowly dawning on me here that I don't really take care of myself and I don't have much self-esteem and