Leeds Centre for Psychological Development

Leeds Centre for Psychological Development A centre for professional development of counsellors and psychotherapists

18/11/2019

Mistakes.
Don’t you hate making mistakes? You get something wrong and there’s a mess to clear up or something is broken that can’t be mended. A relationship, a precious object, that corner that wasn’t quite at right angles, the stitch that was dropped, that incautious comment; they all result in some problem that can’t easily be undone.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You make a mistake and probably say ‘something’ under your breath or even out loud. Usually what then follows is a litany of self deprecation where you tell yourself how stupid you are, how you should know better, how you should have been more careful etc, etc, etc. What can follow next is self inflicted mortification and embarrassment. “I feel such a fool” you tell yourself or, “What on earth did they think of me?” If you attempt to answer these sorts of questions it will probably be with a bit more self flagellation. There are, of course, more serious mistakes where you believe the harm that you have done is irredeemable, beyond forgiveness, and cannot be rectified. These are the most damaging of all mistakes because they affect other people and your relationship with them.
Mistakes have many causes; sometimes it’s a lack of attention, our mind wanders off from a particular task and our hand or foot slips, or we move too quickly or a dozen of other small things. At other times it can be that we act or speak without thinking – this is the classic ‘putting your foot in it’. At other times again it’s because we come to realise that we made a wrong decision about something, perhaps because we did not find out all the facts at the time or even didn’t know them or we were rushed into a decision.
None of these things are intended to cause a problem; some were just plain accidents, others were caused by not focussing on the task in hand, still others by lack of awareness of some information or fact. Some mistakes are inherited from the past. They are things you learnt to do a long time ago. Back then, when you were a child, they sort of got you through, but now they will keep causing you problems.
Whatever sort of mistake you make remember that everybody makes mistakes and mistakes help us to learn. They give us the opportunity to identify what went wrong and to do something different to get a better outcome.

“Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.” (Anonymous)

03/10/2019

For everything there is a season . . . .
Life is such a patchwork of experience. There are moments of great happiness and, regretfully, dark moments too that bring fear and even hopelessness, and much of the rest is simply ordinary. For many, their happy moments are spoilt by the anxiety that they will lose the joy that they hang on to, and in that clinging they of course do. In the dark moments which seem endless it is so easy to believe that we will never emerge and our hearts will never be light again, and some give up the will before it ends. Even in those many ordinary moments many will chafe that life is boring or uninteresting and long for a bit of excitement. In their restlessness they miss the beauty and wonder of what is.
Wandering around one of our lovely Leeds parks I was struck by how autumnal everything looks - the leaves turning brown, the flowers dying away, a damp chill breeze blowing and the heavy rain clouds casting a gloomy shadow over everything. As I passed one area of grass I remembered a moment in the early spring where that particular spot was filled with the dancing yellow heads of dwarf narcissus, daffodils. I remembered too the hint of warmth and the promise of summer, the rising of my spirits and the promise of new things, new life, new experiences. Yet as I stood there was not a single sign of any of those things; no daffodils, no new life, no brightness in the light and the trees and bushes letting go of their summer dressing in a flutter of brown, faded green leaves.
It occurred to me that in this cycle of life it is so easy to believe that that moment was, and is no longer part of life. It was so hard to hold on to those dancing yellow heads on that spring day. This is not surprising because as I looked around me there was not a single thing that indicated that that moment ever existed. None of the old grass, tufted and uncut, showed a single sign of the thousands of flowers whose bulbs lay beneath the soil.
Perhaps the positive encouragement of living in the moment needs to encompass the awareness that what was, and what will be again, is also part of now. Even though there may be no sign of promise and hope, of any newness and even of any life, it is there, around the corner, though still out of sight.
Joy and Sorrow (The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran)
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”

Worries!Being worried is part of the human condition and is therefore a fairly regular experience for us all. I have com...
03/03/2019

Worries!

Being worried is part of the human condition and is therefore a fairly regular experience for us all. I have come to believe that much worry is not only pointless and unproductive but also emotionally and physically damaging. Now this is not to say that some worries aren't very real and present and are linked to a here and now problem that requires a solution, however other worries are much less connected with reality.
Sometimes we worry about the future, what might, could happen. Usually these worries are based in some fantasised worst case scenarios. Perhaps we do that because we are trying to get ourselves to face the worst outcome in order to be ready for it. Alternatively we may have a deeply held belief that we will always fall foul of life and we will never have anything good happen to us.
Inevitably neither of these worries will help us. As far as an imagined worst case outcome is concerned, it rarely happens as we imagine, and even if it does, it is never quite how we imagined and will usually require a very different way forward. Pessimistic worries are likely to be connected to our early life experiences than to our present reality. Life has no intention for us - it just happens. The good and the bad and the in-between occur and it is how we deal with what happens is the only thing that matters.
Just like you I have had my share of worries so you may be wondering how I manage them. Well here are some tips.

I will focus on the best possible outcome from the situation and this will only change if the actual reality is otherwise. This has a number of advantages: I remain positively focused. Everything that we are learning about the body/mind connection is that the more positively focused we are the better the outcome is likely to be. Secondly I can get on with life rather than feel constantly drawn back into anxiety and despair. I will experience life as being normal rather than heading for a 'car crash' which is not normal at all! Thirdly, I know that all I can do anything about is what is happening now, not what I imagine. This helps me to address the problems that I can do something about rather than waste consummate amounts of emotional and physical energy on imaginings.

Easily done? No not at all for it will require effort and commitment and considerable repetition. Is it worth it? YES!

Robin brings over 40 years experience as a clinician along with 20 years as a trainer to presenting the 'Working With' s...
18/12/2018

Robin brings over 40 years experience as a clinician along with 20 years as a trainer to presenting the 'Working With' series. The first being Working with Transference.

27/08/2018

WHAT ON EARTH IS RETIREMENT?
People who don’t know me think I’m retired. Retired – what a misleading and unhelpful word that is! To retire means to retreat or to give something up or stop doing something and if that’s the definition then I’m never going to retire.

I’m troubled when I meet someone who thinks that, because it sounds like they have decided they have reached the final phase of life and it’s time to put their feet up. It’s as though they feel that they have made their contribution and that there is nothing left but to rest until the end comes.

So how do I think about this phase in my life? For me reaching my later years means that how I use the rest of my life is supremely important. Yes I still do some ‘formal’ work and I love the work I do and find it satisfying and fulfilling. Now I want to use what I’ve learnt from 7 decades of living to enhance my life and other people’s lives. I want to cram in as much living as my mind and body allows.

Retire? Never!! (RPW)

16/07/2018

What life to live?
What sort of life should we be living? To what extent do we seek to meet our own needs and to what extent do we put ourselves aside to serve others?

I suspect that this is a dilemma for most people and if you are anything like me that balance can change day by day or even moment by moment. Additionally there will be some times when meeting our own needs coincides with helping others and perhaps those moments are the ones we need to pursue.

For the rest of the time I think we have to decide according to circumstance; on some days we need to be of service to others, but on other days pay attention to just ourselves. Too much emphasis in one direction results in egocentricity and too much in the other results in burnout. (RPW)🤔

28/06/2018

Most of us Brits aren’t used to this ongoing very warm weather. We love it at first then can feel tired of it especially if we have to continue to work. It set me thinking about human nature, too much of something and we are not happy, too little of something and we are not happy. I know I’m like that and perhaps you are as well. Unfortunately the world is not like that; it does not arrange itself to our comfort.
I guess our challenge is to make the best of whatever happens. I guess the alternative is to be miserable!

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