About 18 months ago I had a brief flirtation with “depression” – if it is possible to flirt with something as dark and miserable as depression – and spent roughly 7 months following that in counselling. I put “depression” in quotes there not because I see it as something to be laughed at, but because my depression was mostly stress-related; it culminated in me giving up a job I was doing from a distance and moving instead back to Bath where I now both live and work.

I wouldn’t go back to that time for any money at all – it was very dark, very disconnected and very frightening. Feeling out of control is not something I’m used to, or good at, and for many of the early days I was – as is often the case – completely in denial. Ultimately, as always, something good was untangled from the knot I’d got myself into, and I’m now happier and more stress-free than I think I’ve been in about a decade.

It’s ok to have a broken leg, a chest infection or ear ache. As soon as you mention that your brain went wrong for a bit, people start moving away from you at parties, coughing behind their hands and wondering when you’re going to murder everyone in the room. I’m fine now, of course.. ~twitches uncontrollably and reaches for the Prozac~

Counselling is a funny process, surrounded as it is with these taboos and unknowns. I’m a pretty analytical person. That doesn’t mean that I’m devoid of emotion but it does mean that I’m reasonably comfortable taking a step to one side and considering myself in the third person. As I started my sessions, I consistently couldn’t help but examine the counselling process itself. Questions like: “Is this working?”, “What does success look like?” or “When should I stop being counselled?” were in my head all the time.

During the time I was “in session”, I learnt three big things. The reason they’re big is that they resonated with me, and now form an important part of who I am and what I do. The reason I mention them here is that they are likely to form an important part of this blog, too.

The first of these sounds incredibly trite, but is increasingly forming the basis for many things in my life. It is that finding space – mental, quiet, self space – is absolutely key to fulfillment. At my stage in life – two young boys, job, social life, etc – it is extremely easy to just work, watch TV, go to bed, rinse and repeat. I am – slowly – starting to find ways to find silence and space. Sometimes this is late at night or early in the morning when everyone is asleep. Sometimes it is simply about removing headphones and instead finding quiet when en-route between home and work.

The second is that it is important to reach the end of things and to pause and savour the gaps. This is the moment that Donna Farhi talks about between outbreath and inbreath. It is the glow after orgasm, the satisfaction of finishing a piece of work, the out-suck of a wave before the next one comes in. Farhi talks about actively savouring the moment between thought and fulfillment. In the online world, particularly, it is very very easy to think of X and immediately be able to DO X. Savouring the anticipation is a skill that takes practice.

The third is the importance of the present moment. This is kind of a Buddhist point of view, but perhaps because of who I am, rings incredibly true with me. It is so, so easy to spend our time remembering the past or planning the future and forget that we are in the now; and that the now is actually the only “real” thing. Like many people, I find it intoxicating to plan, to think about the projects that I could to, the places I could go, the people I might meet. Thinking about the now rather than all this other stuff takes an active effort.

Counselling has illuminated these three things as synergies between many spiritual and philosophical approaches.

At the heart of these is the notion of awareness – looking around, noticing things, noticing our place in the world, having ideas.

This blog is about these things.