When people come into counselling, I suspect they think that if we just talk about everything, that in some miraculous way, it ‘fixes up’ the content of whatever is going on. The problem is there is SOOOO MUCH going on.

People not liking what we have done, people wanting more from us, unhealthy workplaces, poor relationships, addictions, people dying, sickness, struggling children … the list is endless. All of these issues benefit from a bigger perspective conversation. But the amount of time this would take is unreasonable, and new ‘problems’ surface along the way.

As part of her current More Signal, Less Noise 5 Day training Barbara Patterson presented a simple understanding of how everyone perceives in the moment – including ourselves. We are either interpreting life (and ourselves) from clarity, or we are interpreting from an agitated internal state and our thinking distorts reality. It bends it out of shape.

See the actions of a family member in a clear state and we see their acts of kindness and care. See it from an agitated state, and we distort our attention and thinking, catastrophising one small detail. See our own agitated internal state from clarity and we experience compassion. See the same internal state from agitation and we distort our experience into shame. Sensing whether ourselves and/or others have a calm internal climate or an agitated one, makes all the difference in knowing whether we, or others, are seeing clearly, or whether thinking is distorting reality.

Knowing this simple understanding provides flexibility in response as against groundhog day of repeated neural firing. If I know I am perceiving from an agitated internal climate, I can choose to sit still, breathe, redirect my attention, listen, etc. If I can see that the other person is expressing from an internal agitated state, I can choose to calm them down, distract, or I can walk away.

Everything going on in a person’s life can’t be talked through and ‘settled’ into place. But everyone can discern whether they and/or others are seeing clearly, or are innocently distorting reality. Familiarising ourselves with this simple ‘tool of awareness’ then opens a portal to forming a conscious relationship with the Me behind all the distorted thinking. The Me that nudges, realises, insights and knows – even when an internal tsunami is underway.