If you could go back to your twenties and thirties, what would you like to have had with you? A trusted mentor or guide accompanying you on your journey?
When you think about it, don’t we live our lives in a rather upside down fashion? One would normally expect that important, life-altering decisions would be made at an expedient time and with the benefit of wisdom and awareness. Yet, we tend to make the most far-reaching decisions of our lives, in our 20s and 30s, whilst we are still coming to grips with the nature of our personal and interpersonal identities.
Generally speaking, most of us have, at this age, not yet endured too many of life’s vicissitudes, nor accumulated a vast store of wisdom, resilience and hindsight. Yet, we optimistically set sail on long-term relationships, parenthood and serious studies, whilst being veritable ‘babes in the woods’, so to speak. How many of us older folk went on to execute considerable lifestyle turn-arounds in our 40s or 50s, once we had deeper knowledge of our essential natures?
As a counsellor approaching 60, I realise how much I would have appreciated having me around in those earlier years, to assist my slowly developing awareness of self, who I become and who I struggle to be, in a committed relationship.
An experienced counsellor gives couples the chance to gaze into a crystal ball filled with insights, real-life experience and decades of evidence-based couples research. This vantage point means access to new skills that can be brought to bear on relationship challenges and roadblocks, reducing them to speed bumps and learning opportunities.
Couples discover the complexity of factors that they bring to a relationship, such as family-of-origin and generational influences, learned behaviours, gender and power dynamics, social pressures and so on. They can be assisted in finding themselves as individuals, partners, parents and community members in the enterprise of life.
Whilst I recall like my relation-ship sailing onto so many hidden reefs in my earlier years, times have changed. A quality counselling experience fits a younger generation out with a modern navigational GPS to assist when conditions on the high seas become difficult.
Consider passing this article on to any young couples who might be struggling with the demands of modern life and who could benefit from some decades of personal, professional and research-based hindsight.
My regards to you all,
Michael
Michael works from The Bardon Counselling and Natural Therapy Centre.
To make an appointment, feel free to call the Centre on: 07-3368 1300, or Michael on: 0411 537 394.