I want to talk about feelings.
I want to talk about feelings. I think I pretty much always have. The moment I realised this from a career perspective, everything got a lot easier. Things began to flow. Walking around for 37 years pretending I didn’t feel things as intensely as I do was really frustrating. I had more or less convinced myself that work was mostly just dry boring talk all the time. In retrospect, it’s now so obvious to me and funny I never saw it before — I always preferred to talk to my colleagues about their personal struggles and accomplishments rather than talk about “work”. It was such an aha moment for me when I realised that I wanted talking about feelings to actually be my work.
Feelings are the conversations I really want to have. The real life stuff. To me, they are the most important conversations. The conversations that everyone skips over in the office, avoiding any social acknowledgment of things that might make people “uncomfortable”. When I ask you how you’re doing, I’m genuinely looking for an honest answer. I don’t want to hear that you’re “good” and then watch you divert the same question back to me, expecting a similar empty answer. Somewhere along the line something in me snapped. I realised I didn’t want to say I was “good” when I wasn’t. I’m no longer interested in making small talk. When Covid turned the world upside down, I lost my ability to bullshit.
When the pandemic first “hit”, I had somehow miraculously just managed to land a new client, right at the start of lockdown — something I should have been incredibly grateful for and happy about given the fact that all my other clients had had to close shop. Yet, when the work started, I found myself dragging my feet. The world around me had just come to a crumbling halt. Marketing tasks for my new client, website pageviews and instagram likes suddenly felt incredibly trivial when I was surrounded by so much suffering. My work felt pointless.
On one of the many sleepless nights I had during that first lockdown, I found myself scrolling through the NHS website, looking for work that might have more meaning to me. I wanted to find a way I could possibly help the overwhelmed system that had given me so much support over the years. I felt I couldn’t possibly just sit at home indefinitely and wait this Covid thing out. I was sure there must be a way I could use some of my skills to help, even if it was just doing admin somewhere. I stumbled onto a job description for a Trainee Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner. Reading the job description for that role changed the trajectory of my career.
The role was to spend a year assisting a busy NHS Mental Health Clinic with patients who had recently been diagnosed with depression or anxiety, whilst also learning a lot of the basic skill sets involved in becoming a Counsellor for the NHS. It was more or less a very hands-on, paid foundation course in Integrative Counselling that would then progress you on towards a counselling qualification. I was lit up inside at the prospect of such a role. It was a full lightbulb moment for me — and if I have learned anything about myself over the course of my life, it is to follow those emphatic F*%@K YES feelings. They are more or less my soul screaming at me to listen, my intuition communicating with me at MAX volume. I applied for the role. I also set up a google alert for anywhere else in the UK that was advertising roles with the same title. I started researching what basic counselling skills are in the NHS and different places I could study and earn qualifications. And just like that, I had changed my career.
When things wrapped up with my aforementioned client, instead of hustling for more marketing clients, I instead started researching masters programmes in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy. I attended university open days online. I started following psychotherapists on social media and I was especially excited to realise that two of my favourite podcasts were both actually hosted by qualified therapists. Coincidence? This was another “aha” moment for me as I clicked that this had already been “my industry” for some time, I just hadn’t connected the dots yet. The books I read, podcasts I listened to and blogs I followed were all created by psychological “experts” of one form or another. I researched curriculum for masters programmes and work placements and I applied for dozens of roles and courses. The fire was lit inside of me. Even though I wasn’t accepted onto the original job I applied for, just writing the personal statement shifted something inside of me (my personal statement will be my next post).
I’m so glad things have begun to change in the world and it’s finally okay to talk about how people are really feeling on the inside. The pop culture spotlight shining on mental health over the past few years, and especially since Covid, has been a huge breath of fresh air for me. Regardless of how you may feel about them, the Meghan & Harry’s of the world, Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, Joe Marler and many more to be sure, are helping to pave the way for a brave new generation. I truly hope to be part of the movement that helps people speak up about their private struggles. No one should have to deal with these things alone. As someone who has dealt with anxiety and debilitating panic attacks in the past in private, sharing with only a few very close, trusted friends, I’m relieved to finally see professional support systems being put into place so people don’t have to go it alone in these situations.
As I mentioned previously, the personal statement I wrote for the Trainee Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner role was transformative for me. Even though I didn’t get that job, just writing the personal statement changed something in me. I opened up about my own personal struggles with panic attacks and severe anxiety and the lack of resources that were available to me when I was trying to get a handle on them. I’m now proudly half way through my Foundation in Integrative Counselling, on track to start my Diploma in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy next year, where I will start working as a Student Counsellor within the NHS. I’m glad the world is finally turning a corner in the mental health arena and I’m proud that I will soon be part of a support network helping people to manage and cope with their mental health — something I once experienced but with almost no professional support. Training to one day be a psychotherapist has really reinforced for me that that is the kind of work I want to do. Helping to normalise conversations about what people are really feeling is now a priority for me. I want to talk about feelings. I want to read about feelings, study them, better understand them and help others to better understand their own feelings. No more small talk.