Therapy for 40 Year Olds

Have you yet learned regret is just not worth your energy? No - read on.  If yes, then go back to search for another more useful blog :) I have pointedly few regrets - and decidedly so. Not because I am some whizz and letting things go - not at all. I am an elephant that never forgets.  I just have consciously decided that less regret helps me be more of who I am today - and not shaped by what cant be changed and is done. My two main regrets are: (you didnt ask but this is a blog...soo) That I didn't ask my Dad to dance with me at my wedding That I didn't understand how to maintain friendships at the end of sections of my life - like end of school or Uni or moving jobs -  just losing souls I quite liked and never saying goodbye or feeling it ended how I wished. And they are the twol that come to me. Now don't get me wrong, I wish somethings had been different, yes. Somethings may still come to me and I think what I could have done differently and what difference if a...

 Defining yourself is known and researched and proven to be a display of nature (the genes that made you up) and nurture (the environment around you). What's fascinating to me is trying to teach my 12 year old, a bright honest innocent soul, that there is a third. Him. How you were made and who made you and who you were influenced by in family or who you choose to shape your surrounds with now will always dominate.  But if you learn a strong senss of self, if you learn early your core voice and inner soul, and you trust it, you also have on nature and nurture - a lifelong knowledge you make up how you define yourself. For so long I defined myself by thinking I knew who and what I was. My nature had provided confidence and strength. My nurture early on taught me independence and ability to know I was alone very young.  One memory I had at school when I was 9 years old was crying uncontrollably. I don't remember what caused it. I don't know what happened before. But I remem...

  I watched something the other day which outlined the ages of time for all of us. He said it more eloquently - but I cannot stop building on it. 0-25 is a phase I can't remember what he called - but I will call the Initiation Phase - because it is you beginning your life, you and we all are learning the ways of the world, and becoming acquainted with all your foundations, and vessel (body). Its scary, enjoyable, free and unbound. It moves as you do - and it teaches you how and what it could all be about. You feel it is all consuming as you move through it - but learn in hindsight it was unchained - it was the most unchallenging. 60+ is the Release Phase -  the happiest generation, the release of all that came before. Despite the impending mortality; despite the vessel wearing tired, and despite your health being your largest concern. Apparently this phase is the most settled, the most secure mentally, the age you no longer pine, or fear, or succumb to unwanted territory ...

  Despite what you have (bless you) read so far - I am actually a really funny person. Like not in a knock knock way, i cant remember punchlines, but in a seriously quick witted and, if I do say - genuinely humbling funny way. I appreciate this is hard to tell from this thus far - but bear with _ I shall share some examples. In a recent lecture - when I used my humour to apparently 'disarm' and 'display non threat' (!!) to the lecturer - I was met with his learned, and solid half smile response. As a therapist he couldn't indulge my defence mechanisms. He smacked me awake, with me realising what I thought was an honest genuine approach could be perceived as immature and unnecsarily vulnerable. I shall tell you what I did and if you agree with my lecturer that you're surely both cunts, :) I opened the session - and I was online, I had been told not to display personal information - but couldn't unhook my work teams from the courses I was on. So I started with...

  Each one of us are entities of our nature (biology, genetics, etc) and nurture (our family, friends and interactions). I think alongside nature and nurture there is backbone ability. Backbone ability isn't being strong or forthright or even - being brave. Without backbone ability - you can't reshape the nature and nurture done on too you. You are in essence, a product of all those perceptions bestowed on you when you are born - with a fathers nose, a clumsy gait, a quiet type... With backbone, you accept these natural and nurturing aspects - but can use or lose them and forge some thing else. Psychology tells us that our emotions develop - and we expect development alongside other markers, like age - interactions and experiences, and how capability to store and review our ongoing sense of self. Reviewing your sense of self allows you to reshape and grow - evolve with these experiences. So a mother at 40 would not have the same worries as a mother at 20, for 20...

  And here is your tip - whoever you may be. Being scared, - really scared - does make you grow. What doesn't kill you - truly, I believe - makes you stronger. I spent the year assessing everything. My partner - did I really love him? My children - should I really be their mother? Why do we bother with a mortgage? Why are we teaching our kids to love us so much - just so they feel the loss hard too? And like what felt like to me - a clumsy child demonstrating massively unwanted and unexpected behaviours. Greif - loss - Fear - all of these things do this. When shit gets real - it reshapes the edges of your core self. You may still be witty but - you also have a sense of sorrow inside. YOu may still laugh madly - but its not as often and care free. You learn to bury the bruises and sorrow because you have children you know need to know life goes on - but it takes all you have. And when you are a shell - I have learned - you can re-shape. Its harder at 40 - because your path is n...