Bringing creativity to life

It’s been a while since my last post! Today a quick piece about using creativity when you are “stuck” illustrated by a personal example.

I’m writing a(nother) book. I’m not a published author so no need to check Amazon just yet. It’s slow progress. Today I was tied up in knots regarding some key concepts. So I decided to practise what I preach to clients and look for alternative ways of viewing the problem. I tried mind-mapping, but really needed to SEE what was happening and what the solutions could be. I have a healthy collection of playdough for clients of all ages. I turned to this and let myself make rough representations of the concepts. I also have a good collection of figures for sand play work – and realised they would really help where my modelling skills were lacking.

Lo and behold, the issues began to unravel and, in fact, new exciting solutions began to present themselves.

How can you use this approach in your everyday life? If you have a personal issue, an issue with colleagues or family or anything else, consider if “seeing” the situation would help. Perspective, bird’s eye view, what ever you want to call it. Give yourself a chunk of time for this exercise, where and when you won’t be disturbed. Find objects to represent the people or issues. These could be pebbles, buttons, kitchen utensils, children’s toys, stationery items….anything! Move them around until you feel they are in the right place. Notice how you feel, towards the objects, towards the situation. Sit with the situation and consider different approaches, or different outcomes. Move the objects accordingly and notice your reactions. Trust yourself. You’re “playing” with ideas. Be fanciful, be bold! You’ll know when you have reached a conclusion, even if that conclusion is you need to spend more time on this issue or you need to talk to a specific person. As you finish, have a Bagpuss moment and make sure you unburden the objects of the personalities or concepts you applied to them. For example, the pepper grinder is no longer Auntie Ann and is just a pepper pot again etc.

The secret is to “play” with the ideas, and in play, a natural and creative solution may present itself to you. It’s worth a try?

Let me know if you have any success with this!

Bringing it into the room

Tomorrow is Halloween. Tomorrow evening I will be counselling, in a room on a street where trick or treaters roam, oblivious to social norms, hungry for sugar. I am anxious.Not because  of the costumes and commercialised terror. But what will happen if they approach and do not heed the note on my door? “Do not Disturb” my sign reads. It usually works. Sometimes an over enthusiastic Amazon delivery person ignores it in their mission to deliver at all costs. I am not sure it will be enough to deter a herd of drooling zombies or cute witches.

I have already primed my clients and offered alternative time slots. For those who choose to run the gamut, what might happen if the knock at the door comes? Well, I guess we’ll bring it into the room as always. I won’t be moving from my chair! Maybe it will bring up issues of interruption, not getting full attention, not being first priority. It might bring up fears, nightmares, hidden shadows of the soul. Or memories of Halloweens past. Discussion of belief systems. Commercialism. What happens after death.

And for me? It is making me consider the space I provide for clients. Can I keep it safe and boundaried? How do I manage unexpected events? What does Halloween bring up for me? Am I open to all eventualities and primed to go with client experience?

Halloween was always about the space between worlds, and it seems tomorrow it will be, for me, more intensely than usual, about the therapeutic space between the external and the internal.

Digging around

When I was younger I wanted to be an archaeologist. I read stuff, volunteered on digs in all weathers, in the middle of nowhere… Then someone told me being an archaeologist was a labour of love and most time was spent in an office…so I became a counsellor instead.

But I still drag those around me off, frequently, to wonderful places (or “another pile of rocks in a field”) and love to muse on the significance of these resilient structures.

At Cerrig y Gof in Pembrokeshire recently we met a team making sense of Wales’ megaliths through writing, drawing and filming. And they fired up in me that feeling I had so strongly as a teenager: that I should have pursued archaeology.

It didn’t want to subside, that feeling, but sitting with it I noticed it change and unfurl like the Welsh bracken, and finally unfolded the pleasant realisation that I am sort of, a little bit, like an archaeologist.

I sit in my office surrounded by papers and theories, clues and hints.  And I make forays into connecting with complex structures, clearing a way gently to reveal the shape, orientation, wondering “what lies beneath”. Wondering about connections to similar types, wondering what belief systems shaped them, how they fit in the local and universal landscape. Wondering even whether now is the time to clear a path to them or whether actually, the feeling is to let alone for a while and peruse from afar, make tentative connections. Sometimes brambles and nettles are a necessary protection.

Some clients I am with for months and years, and the relationship becomes rich and deep, constantly evolving, throwing up surprising finds.

Sometimes the engagement is more fleeting – we get a general sense of shape, an outline, some features better understood, but no necessity for deeper exploration.

Sometimes I make mistakes, don’t see the way clearly, encounter a new feature and fail to understand it.

But every encounter helps me better understand the territory of human experience, just like an archaeologist, and shapes me.

 

 

Outer (and inner) space

I love this place. It’s “just” a little bay, somewhere in Wales. Going there expands me. Thinking about it expands me, relaxes me, releases dopamine. But I don’t go there very often. So how come it is so important to me? When we visit places, we internalise them. A potent mixture received by the senses imprints itself as a memory. Good or bad. In this case, the smell of beach fires, the sound of tiny waves, the feel of slate on my feet, the taste of salty water and the sight of – well, just look at that image.

I offer you to think about your favourite place. Go there in your mind now. Gently consider how it stimulates your senses. Enjoy any feelings of peace or release or awe or safety. Sit in those feelings until you are full up.

You can recall this place whenever you need to, and counteract negative feelings knowing you can generate positive, supporting ones.

I’d love to hear about your special places if you’d like to share!

Where will you go today?

I like sign-posts. Strange but true. I like the implication of choice, journey, mystery. And sometimes comfort. In a fit of creativity my children and I made a sign post yesterday. Unlike some of our craft projects, it turned out well and we were all very satisifed. It was a democratic project – we all got to choose mythical places that meant something to us. We all helped.

And we all recognised that although our choices were different, they were all valid and meaningful to the chooser.

Here’s another signpost I found, mossy and mysterious, in a piece of ancient woodland in Wales.

I like the ambiguity. It is not giving much away about destination. These tracks are definitely about the journey and not the goal.

I wonder what your personal signpost would look like? What would it say about you? Would you be happy about your initial ideas or want to change it?

Welcome!

My intention is to use this blog to write on therapy (counselling) and related matters. Practical rather than too theory based. Hopefully useful to someone out there. Please do leave comments!