Taking control

As I sit here in my garden enjoying the glorious weather we’ve had lately, I’m thinking about something I get asked a lot – how I work with individual clients. Each person I see comes to me for a different reason than the one before. And even when it happens to be the same headline reason, their present will be different and so will the outcome they want. And I adapt my style and approach to suit the client based on their need.

There are however common traits for every client I have – I help them to understand themselves and their thoughts and gain a better control in life. When someone understands what’s going on in their mind and the impact that has on life they then have the knowledge to make positive changes. When you start to understand this, you can begin to look at the ‘should do’ and ‘ought to’ and what seems beyond your control.

This has certainly been the case for me living with a medical condition. Let me tell you a little story…

January 2018 arrived and so did my yearly tests. Now for the last 10 years that this has been a part of my life, thoughts and worries of ‘bad news’ have been all consuming at times, to the point of this being the deciding factor in making life decisions – big and small.

The routine of tests is a familiar one – I have a meeting with my consultant, we talk it through, he asks all the questions that would indicate change and then requests that I have an MRI scan and blood tests. The results then follow. The first few years following the treatment the tumour shrunk year on year. Then one year it disappeared! Following that it appeared again and grew a little. But my blood tests have always been consistently good showing no ill effects from the radiotherapy.

Yet there was one major difference with the all too familiar tests and results this year: I wasn’t bothered by it. I barely gave it a thought. I did the practical things I needed too and didn’t once get caught up in the ‘what if’ like I used too.

And it took about 8 weeks for me to even ring for my results. Now usually I would ring for them as soon as I could – even knowing that they may not be good was still preferred to the unknown, so I’d make it my mission to find out asap.

So, what’s the difference this year – I’m not controlled by it anymore. I have it and I can’t change it. But now I understand that I can control a lot of what it affects in my life. How much I think about it and if I let it form part of my decisions are both within my control. And once I got on board with that things changed for me.

If something in life has a negative effect, then change it. And If you can’t change it, then change your approach to it. It may not a simple thing to do but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. There is always something you can do!