A little kindness

Recently, a client said something quite disturbing to me. I hear a lot of fairly disturbing things during sessions… life is full of suffering and hardship, and so it is difficult to shock me.

Here is what she said that made me jolt back in my seat…

“I’ve seen a lot of counsellors, but none of them have ever been kind to me about my story, I’ve always been judged”.

Um... say what?

As a counsellor, part of my job, in fact a very big part of my job, is to model empathy and kindness to clients. And why is that important? So that they can potentially offer it back to themselves.  It can be nearly impossible to move forward in life when there is a harsh and judgmental voice inside your head, criticising you and demanding of you.

Offering kindness to others can sometimes open a small gateway for their own self compassionate voice to be heard. And when we speak kindly inside our own heads, we encourage ourselves to move forward in an engaged way with life, without dragging around the burden of our self-critic.
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So, speak kindly to you…you need the encouragement not just from others, but also from yourself. 

Photo by Robert Baker on Unsplash