I have finished level 3 of my core counsellor training!
When I say finished, I mean I’ve completed all the main assignments, including a presentation and activity for the group. Still a few weeks to go until the end of term but now I get to sit back and enjoying watching others’ presentations, knowing I’ve just got two more journals and a final self-review to complete. And portfolio to hand in.
Ok there’s still quite a lot to do but I’m so happy to have completed the presentation. I’ve had the topic in mind for about a year and I think I delivered it well enough. Presentations are scary and preoccupy my thoughts greatly on the lead-up. The last week has been a lesson in compartmentalising, not letting the anxiety weigh me down to the point where I have to put everything else on hold. Approaching the weekend, it feels good to know the only thing I have to worry about is whether the UK will score any points at Eurovision. My prediction: we will come third. From the bottom. But that’s just the hopeless optimist in me I’m afraid.
Happy happy!
Rest rest.
Repeat repeat. Only two years of level 4 diploma to go (bloody hell) before I can call myself a fully trained counsellor. There’s the mountain of the application and interview process to get through first, but for now, rest.
I feel so sad that level 3 is coming to an end. I love the group. Classes are an island sanctuary in a sea of turbulence and trouble and problems and uncertainties; a place to talk about anything, be anything, be fully held and accepted, met with curiosity and support.
Training hasn’t always been this smooth-sailing of course. I suppose compared to the atrocity that was 2021, anything was going to seem smooth this year. That was hard work, confronting my feelings about groups, the feelings that would come up so intensely they shocked me. Having experienced similar this year but more intermittently and not even half as intensely, I see this as progress in myself rather than being fortunate with the people in the group. Although they are a fabulous group of people. Oh my heart, I want to reach out and hug them and tell them what they’ve meant to me.
When I think back to three years ago when I started my counsellor training, when I was terrified at the thought of classes comprising of sitting around in a circle, group work, role play, all stuff very ‘not me’, and wondering what the hell I was thinking, yet somehow here I am! As awkward as I still feel when talking in front of a group, I am trying to become more accepting of that awkwardness as just part of me, while learning that much of the time people don’t even notice the awkwardness. Surprisingly that thought makes me sad. I must be quite attached to that awkwardness. I would like to embrace my awkward. As Brene Brown said, “Let’s choose awkward, brave, and kind”.
Finally, I am certain I want to proceed with the training.
I think I will give myself a little pat on the back for how far I’ve come, how much I’ve grown, while being able to acknowledge how far I still have to go, personally as well as in the professional training.
Pat pat.
Well done.
Now rest.
