How to refocus on the future you want

Forget January, September is the real new year... Instead of the dark often gloomy days of early January where it is so hard to get motivated, September offers us the promise of the golden light of Autumn just around the corner. 

Even in adulthood that new term feeling remains, and can be tapped into as an opportunity to both buy some new stationery (if that’s your thing!) and maybe start over. Or if not a complete overhaul, you might be considering how you can live with more intention around the direction and purpose you’d like to find in your everyday life. 

Investing in yourself by committing to weekly therapy with a professional gives you time and space to help find out what matters to you, and to gain insight that will contribute to making desired changes.

Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring

- Truman Capote

Re-evaluating what matters

We have all been through a transformative period living during a global pandemic. As life in the UK seems to be returning to more normality you may be reflecting on what has happened to you. You might be considering questions like:

• What have I learnt that I want to take forward with me? 
• And what do I need to process, heal and let go of? 

Therapy is a safe space for you to be heard and held while you work out what’s going on in your own mind and consider the impact of the last two years on your relationships and your life.

A sharper vision for the next steps 

Sometimes the thought of making changes, even when we really want to can be daunting. It’s natural to get comfy in the status quo even when it is unsatisfying.

Counselling is a place where you might begin to map out what you need to do in order to take the next steps and talk through any anxiety you may have that could be holding you back.

We aren't aware of what might be going on beneath the surface. Therapy can be a place to talk about and gently explore any past traumas. 

Understanding our past is future-focused 

It can be so helpful and often freeing to better understand our pasts, especially the impact of our childhood and upbringing. It might seem counterintuitive to look back in therapy when the future and present moments are what feel much more vital to you. But when we are stuck, or notice that we are repeating unhelpful patterns or behaviours the answers to why and how we move beyond these things often lie in our past. 

What is getting in your way that’s in your power to change? 

This can be a difficult question to reconcile alone. As we aren't aware of what might be going on beneath the surface. Therapy can be a place to talk about and gently explore any past traumas. 

Integrative counselling and personal integration

Integrative counselling doesn’t adhere to the idea that there is one way of doing things. As an integrative counsellor, I believe that you are unique and capable, and it’s my job to blend together different approaches to find what will benefit you. 

Personal integration is also at the heart of this therapeutic approach. You are a whole being and so integrative therapy aims to help us access and unite all the parts of you that contribute to your overall well-being. From your thoughts and feelings to your relationship with your body, social skills and behaviours.

Research shows that regardless of the type of therapy you have a key factor in a successful outcome, whatever that might mean to you personally, is the ability to build a good relationship with your therapist. 

If you are reading this and have been considering making changes to your life that you believe counselling will help with, why not seize on that ‘September’s a new start' feeling and look at the profiles on Counselling Directory to find someone you think you could work with online or in-person today.