12) When you sleep next to the cemetery, you can't weep for everyone
This month I'm going a little "off piste" and looking at perspective. The title of this article (a slightly corrupted quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn) often comes to mind when I, possibly like many other healers, carers, therapists or shall we say Empaths , am asked why I'm being unemotional or "cold" towards a particularly grave and emotive subject matter that crops up in everyday life. War, disaster, family loss, a misunderstood person even a cry for help. "Well you're supposed to be a counsellor aren't you?" Are words that have ricocheted around my head outside of the consultation room when someone in haste has noted that I'm not quite reacting in a manner that "they" are expecting from me. Let me say here and now that I sincerely believe that to be a good counsellor/psychotherapist you must be able to feel pain. Deep rooted seismic core shaking pain. Be it our own, that of someone close or of the stranger sat opposite wh...