My first day back in grad school was yesterday and I will say, you know you're in the right place when you bought one of your required books years ago to read on your own. As much as I feel like I know absolutely nothing when it comes to counseling, I do feel like I'm exactly where I am supposed to be as I hang on every word spoken in class. What is interesting/different about counseling is the perspective it brings to everything else in life. Last night, in my Brief Therapy class we talked about change. Do people really change? Is change possible? What does change look like? Why is change challenging? As we approached all of these questions, I thought about my own relationship with change, especially when looking to change a habit, perception, or incongruent belief. From my experience, change takes time and compassion. My yoga teacher talks about how we are always changing. We are either moving towards ourselves in a positive way or away from ourselves. I said this to the professor last night, along with sharing the fact that my dad is a recovering addict. When it came to changing his addict behavior, I feel like it really came down to acceptance, love, forgiveness, and compassion. It had nothing to do with saying, "okay, tonight I won't drink." In class last night I shared that I feel we have the core of who we are which can be referred to as our spirit, our soul, our essence, and then we have our behavior. In watching my dad journey through and into recovery when he was 57, it felt like instead of removing a behavior, he was simply in the process of remembering who he truly is. He was learning how to come back to himself. I realize and understand that depending on circumstance, the situation is different for everyone. As a family, we had a lot of resources at our fingertips that allowed not only my dad the ability to do some deep work in rehab/in therapy, it allowed all of us as a family too, which I am truly grateful for. By the end of class last night, we were talking about change being truly personal. No matter if it is a change for the better or not, we are often resistant to change based on our own fear. We have strong attachments as humans. We are taught to self-identify in order to be somebody and it doesn't matter what that looks like as long as we do it to belong somewhere. The only way I know to change is to love myself right where I am, to forgive, and to have compassion for the learning that is always taking place. Last night my professor said, "Do the next right thing."
I like that. Do the next right thing.
Move within, But don't move the way fear makes you move.”-Rumi
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