It’s Not as Solid as it Looks


A friend shared his good news with me. Many years after starting his training, he finally achieved accreditation as a psychotherapist. I was delighted for him, as it hadn’t been the easiest or most direct journey for him. As we talked about it, he said to me, “It taught me that things are not as solid as we sometimes think they are.” You see, he had thought that he wouldn’t get there. His belief was so strong that he put off applying as long as he could, for fear his application would be rejected. His belief was so strong, that he genuinely believed there was no point applying, because he would be Photo no (3)turned down. No possibility, no doubt, just truth for him. And yet, when he took the risk, he found his belief was just that.

It was a belief, not a fact.

Travelling home from my summer vacation, the airline said that due to the fullness of the flight, cabin baggage for those still in the queue would be taken to the hold (at no charge!) We were not in a hurry, and as the walk to the exit in Dublin Airport is so long, and the baggage processing so quick, we didn’t see it as a problem. And in truth, I’m pretty compliant, and it never occurred to me to challenge it in any way. The bags were tagged with big yellow labels, and taken from us as we boarded the aircraft. However, for one passenger I saw, the prospect of a possible delay was more than he was willing to entertain. His bag was tagged along with the rest of us, but while we waited to board, he quietly and discretely removed the big yellow label from his bag. When he came to the door of the aircraft, he boarded with his bag and stowed it in the overhead locker. For him, the obstacle was merely a challenge to his creativity, “How can I avoid complying with this inconvenience, and instead, do what I want to do?”

We could have an interesting discussion on the ethics of his choice, but that’s not the point here. I applaud his willingness to see beyond an apparently solid situation. He quickly sized up the futility of engaging the airline staff in discussion of what was non-negotiable, and moved instead to a pragmatic solution for him.

Things do change, all the time. Sometimes they change to more of the same, sometimes to something different. But they do change. Sometimes we can forget that, and assume that they are solid and fixed.

There have been many examples in the last one hundred years of barriers that had been thought to be fixed and unchanging, crumbling or dissolving. We have seen the beginning and extraordinary development of the internal combustion engine, of air travel, of space travel, of communication and technology of all kinds. Our understanding of the human body and the human mind is vastly different now than at the turn of the 20th century. Before these changes took place, who could have foreseen them?

positive changeAnd it’s not just in these huge issues that we see what was solid and firm metamorphosing into something quite different. Each of us can point to events in our own lives that have totally changed the way we see ourselves, our families, our relationships. Every day in our work we are witnessing the shifts and movements in a clients’ process that we could not have foreseen. And we all know people for whom the totally unexpected has happened. A couple become pregnant after being told they cannot conceive. A woman lifts a car off a trapped child. Cancer starts to recede without any treatment. We all know of these events, and yet we often persist in the belief that situations cannot be changed, we insist on “facing reality” as if reality were fixed and permanent, when it is no such thing. I wonder if deep down we have a belief that “It could never happen to me”?

Sometimes, we have fixed ideas about who other people are, and who we are ourselves. We talk about characteristics as if they are fixed and unchanging. I had such an experience recently when I realised that my fixed view of a client was getting in the way of our work. I was refusing to believe that the client had the potential to change. Not surprising that the client believed it too.

It all leaves me wondering how often we might believe things to be true about ourselves and our practices, that to others might not be true at all. I wrote recently in this context specifically about bringing clients in to our practices. But perhaps it’s not just in relation to bringing in clients that we can have fixed beliefs that don’t serve us. Maybe we create obstacles for ourselves (and with good reason, perhaps to keep us safe, or protect our sense of identity) that could be circumvented or adapted with a little creativity J

Self-help books often talk about needing to make a “quantum shift” or “move to the next level.” In truth I’m not a great fan of the quantum shift, although I have huge admiration for those who do take the big leap of faith. I have found though, that often people are scared to death by huge shifts. It shakes their sense of who they have known themselves to be, perhaps for all of their lives, and leaves them unsupported and vulnerable within themselves. I am more of a fan of baby steps. Take a step, stabilise. Take another step, stabilise. And so on.

When it comes to our therapy practices, my view is the same.

That’s why I’ve been thinking about ways to help you to get more creative in your thinking about your practice. I’ve devised a challenge to help grow some momentum in your thinking about your practice. The challenge is a 5 minute task, once a day for five days. At the end of it, I hope you’ll be thinking about your practice in a different way. Interested? Just click on this link, and for the next five days a challenge will pop into your inbox. It takes just five minutes!

Let me know how you get on.

And if I can help you with any aspect of building a therapy practice, please contact me here to arrange an appointment, or to avail of your free 20 minute consultation.