I've been reflecting lots lately, but then I think in this strangest of years, 2020, so have many others. Musing prompts a natural pause, a moment (or several) to stop, think, perhaps peruse and do, or not do, as the case may be and realise where we've been, what we've done and how this might inform the next stage. One of those reflections was reading back over past blogs when I was studying for my masters degree and reading how they helped me to fathom out things and make sense of whatever I was trying to make sense of - so with 'thought in hand' and keyboard at the ready, I am here once more writing a blog and reflecting.
I am no longer a MAPP student as cited in my previous blogs, I am in fact an extremely proud MAPP graduate and look back on my Middlesex University work based learning days with great fondness. The skills, information and independent research that I learnt on that journey have continued to inform my everyday life both personally and professionally. The experience also continued to quench my thirst for learning, something that I seem to have an insatiable appetite for (as long as its not maths of course)! Since graduating I gave myself some breathing time for a couple of years and allowed the process of this level of learning to settle and inform my work.
In early 2019 I was off again on the learning curve and started to study hypnotherapy and counselling skills. That has been incredibly interesting and promoted my understanding of my own, and other peoples behaviour. In order to progress and develop as a skilled hypnotherapist, I had to study for several months, 18 in fact, and work with case studies before successfully qualifying. Throughout my hypnotherapy training I would naturally pick up on similarities that I had experienced before, writing journals, writing essays, researching practitioners, enjoying the process and the 'new' knowledge, experiencing those feelings of 'feeling out of my depth', but like before in my MAPP days, I did it, I survived and I am now a qualified practicing hypnotherapist and able to help others achieve and overcome whatever is holding them back - that's a great and wonderful feeling and I'm looking forward to my therapeutic journey.
I am continuing with my learning journey and am now training to be a counsellor in addition to being a hypnotherapist. Once again, those demons of not being able to make sense of theories and practitioners have their moments of rising to the fore and making the homework tasks seem somewhat stressful. However, what I noticed the other day when I was preparing for a staff presentation on 'Curriculum Review', is that already my knowledge and understanding of the theorists linked to the counselling world, informed my delivery of the presentation with a more considered approach towards my audience; I prepared with the thought in mind about different human behaviours, the different ways in which we view the world. This may sound strange, because it's a well know fact that there are different styles of learning, but, I personally, have not considered 'human behaviour' in the way in which I do now as a result of my early counselling training. So that got me thinking even more, and more mindful questions were being asked in my psyche, one of which was "why don't you go back to writing a reflective journal/blog?" Reflection is such a powerful tool that 'we' inherently have. It can be our own natural powers of hypnotherapy; those daydreaming moments, pause for thought, positive musing. Just by taking 'the' time, whatever 'the' time is, we can question, find out and discover. I think it's that bit, the discovery that I love most about learning, they are the 'aha moments', the 'penny drop moments', in some aspects the 'relief moments' that bring about realisation and change within ourselves.
So, as I go off to read some more books and learn some more about counselling theories, I will also start my reflective journal and try to make sense of the various different changes and musing that I'm experiencing at this point in time.
www.attandw.co.uk for anyone who is interested :-).
