I have just completed my 13th hour of my placement. Just another 137 to go! I swore I wouldn't bow down to the pressure but I'm not superhuman and it does feel overwhelming at times. It's not the actual counselling though. Those hours go by and I barely even notice the time go in. I feel myself very much present and relaxed in sessions and it really does feel good to be helping in some way.
But I can't help but feel a little bit like a fraud sometimes, as I'm sure even many qualified therapists feel from time to time. I'm watching an American TV series called 'In Treatment'. Obviously I find the show interesting but the sessions I think are most enlightening are when the therapist (played by Gabriel Byrne) goes to visit his former supervisor (played by Diane Weist) for guidance and support. It brings it home that we are all human at the end of the day, struggling with day to day life and those pesky emotions that arise.
My own emotions have been playing havoc with me recently. There's still a shame and stigma attached to expressing emotions of any kind. It's tough for people to say "I feel so terribly sad" just as equally as it's tough for people to say "I feel incredibly, immensely happy". People kind of save the expressions of joy for events such as marriage, the birth of a child, a new job or the start of a new realtionship. Rarely do we see people dancing down the street feeling joy just for the sake of it, and if we did, we'd call them mad.
I get frustrated with bottling things up, and superficiality, empty words, meaningless gestures. I get frustrated with 'nothingness' and it's amazing how much humans fill their lives up with 'nothingness'. I get frustrated that we live in a technologically advanced age that makes 'connection' so easy yet so hollow. And I guess that's why I harp back to a time when humans relied more on instinct. Because they had to tune into themselves to survive. Not only that, they had to tune into nature. Then humans realised they had brains, and they could figure stuff out, conquer it, control and manipulate the environment so that survival was 'easier'.
I don't disagree that humans were meant to progress, hell, we were barbarians for an age. But I think we were meant to progress mindfully. Which is perhaps happening, at a very slow rate. Interestingly, it is through ancient philosophies that we are reverting back to, that are teaching us to progress more mindfully. Which further backs up my theory that we kind of lost sight of ourselves along the way, that we need to reconnect with ourselves, with each other, with nature and with the universe. But first, ourselves.
There's a whole bunch of people with their eyes wide open to the world. There's a whole breed of cynics who are beaten and bruised. I will not become one of them. Despite my sadness, my disconnection, my aloneness, I think we'll collectively figure this one out. The world will inevitably end. Some think that we'll just rape and pillage the earth until it disentegrates. Whilst our minds disentegrate so too does the earth. I rarely claim any opinion to be absolute but I can understand the concept of reincarnation and karma. I think humans are meant to go through this process and there are two possible outcomes. The cynics' outcome, the world will end, humans will destroy it. Then my outcome....humans will get there in the end. We will come to understand that love is pretty much the only thing of value in this world (which is pretty all encompassing really when you think about what makes you feel love/d) And when the world reaches that harmonic, peaceful state, it will end. Consciousness will end. Because the process will be complete and everything, everything, comes to an end eventually.
