I have been thinking about what would be the most useful continuation of my blog, as I haven’t regularly posted in a number of years, and I got to thinking about the things that I often say to clients in the therapy room, and why.
(If you’re a client of mine, you’ve likely heard this one!)
‘How does that sound when you say it out loud?’
Sometimes I ask this when someone has voiced something shadowy and unclear from inside themselves, a self-critical thought or something that is perhaps emotionally true but not necessarily actually true (eg they will leave me if I am not perfect).
Other times I ask this when someone has said something important or painful; she left me, it wasn’t my fault, I tried.
It is both a way of calling attention to whatever has been said, and inviting reflection.
Sometimes the only way to know we have been operating on an out of date belief is to hear it and not let ourselves follow those familiar and painful tram lines. Sometimes the way that we really take in something painful or true is to say it out loud, to ourselves or (importantly) to another human being.
Try it. Take a shadowy half truth, bring it into the light, and make it solid. Is it true?
a space to reflect 