I seem to have spent years helping others. It’s a tough role, specially as a counsellor. A counsellor is no different from any other person on this planet, we are full of opinions and judgments, wanting the best for those we mentor. Mentoring and counselling are so close and yet there are differences. Mentoring for example offers opportunity to offer opinion to a degree, counselling is a process and counsellors are mainly processors of people and their thoughts and feelings. And as we get good in the process we are still full of our judgments.

Two situations come to a head in recent days. I determined some time back to change the fellowship meetings I attend. The reason? I felt my presence in certain meetings might hamper another’s development by my presence, for we are connected and know each other through other connections outside our fellowship. And new people to our fellowship need trust the process of our fellowship. They do not need my judgment or connection outside fellowship to flourish and I moved my meetings elsewhere. When I went back yesterday to an old and trusted venue for fellowship I was pleased they were there and getting on with living.

It nice to go back and reacquaint, at the same time there were outcomes for me. Seeing people I have not seen a while, and seeing people who wondered where I went. And it was good to be asked and be able to say I had been elsewhere and ok. At the same time my disconnection from a familiar set, my people and my connection felt as it was, somewhat distant for I have been distant. Glad to have been and connected. And my real reasons are that the new fellow had headroom to grow without feeling or worse suspicion they were being watched. I was right for they were away and out of my sight as fast as they could without saying hello when the meeting ended, for they have secrecy attached to their personal situation they prefer not to share out of fellowship with connections we have. Best all round and feelings are worth it. My feelings of dislocation from my familiars from this group was worth their growth and the confidence for the new fellow to flourish and take on hard decisions about their life. Acceptance is the key, the outcome was and is a temporary dislocation for me. Acceptance and growth all ways I guess. And me learning I let people grow well without my influence and judgment, for indeed my knowledge and presence would compromise their path to well being.

And my other instance was putting space between myself and a friend of some long standing. She is growing quickly and making decisions for herself. Is planning a path of growth without my connection. This was a tougher dislocation and loss of friendship as their growth required less of me full stop and more of other connections for life to work better overall for them. And they have another counsellor who is in their way with their judgment on their future. Futures require calculated risks and choices. Risks and choices most likely need a certain amount of self determination for them to stick. And in this scenario, I had wants and needs beyond friendship. And I let go mine so they could realise theirs, and that process continues. With deliberate care I will support and assist and keep good counsel. To a degree I will mentor where needed and that is a judgment call. It is painful for me at the same time, for their dear friendship is lost to an extent maybe for good and maybe not. My wishes are not met in this scenario, and I leave my wishes to be fulfilled elsewhere with friendships blooming in an other ways for me…

And as I see my judgment calls, they turned out well and to the good. Intervention can be the best way forward, not as counsel as mentor, but as friend to friend, when the friend is needed and wanted again till then I keep my own counsel and judgment where it belongs, separate and if I am truthful, desperate for voice if and when its needed, not before. Friendship, it takes a lot to work out what and where we are. And sometimes we are best served as we judge as long as we don’t judge others.

Judging others is going to cause my friends counsellor headaches, not for the current connection, more in the long term for counselling process is not for the judgmental interventionist, as I found when I spent time sorting out my own insanities some years back. I need good counsel not interventions to break my understandings of life gone mad. Yet everywhere these days it seems we are multi skilling ourselves to the point where we think we are best at anything and everything.

We need be clear on the role we have when we connect with people and community. We need be mindful our right size in our life and other’s. For the deliberations and decisions we make for ourselves are not the way for others, their way and choices are best served by their self determined and collected considerations and not my judgment.

So indeed the decisions I took and take have born fruit for them and me. A fellowship process has worked better in my absence and a distant friend is blossoming without my intervention definitely better without so close a connection to me. I guess this makes me feel good inside in a global context of honour and conscience, the cost is loss of connection to an extent, and certainly less connection and intimacy and closeness I might have wished as things have turned out. The benefit, is I did not sit alone to ponder what I was losing, I hear their gains. And in their gains and disconnection from me, I have flourished elsewhere with others and made good connections to new people in my life.

I am pleased and sad, sad and pleased as this living in the day extends its good process and keeps me clear on how things work. Community, connection, good choices, loss and abundance come from setting free all who engage in their luck and their good conscience.

We don’t often get win and win, for indeed in our fellowship a wrong call to our personal or overall judgments result in tragedy epic to the players and forever for individuals who might find their path ended prematurely with a return to self will, wilful self destruction, in that moment of insanity when a quick fix to relief and oblivion is the last.

I find this life is what it can be with due care and attention, our minds kept clear and our motives to good conscience. Never to return to “my way or the highway“, for that highway is best left deconstructed till time ends and eternity begins.

Acceptance is the key…