“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need”
One of the cornerstones of counselling is to create a safe and secure space in which the client can allow these difficult feelings into the room and stop battling to keep the demon outside the door. Because that demon is, of course, part of you, it’s not some exterior force, which is out of your control, although it might seem like that sometimes. So let’s start with the terminology.
‘The demon’, full of menace, threat, probably red or black with a scowling face snarling at you! A powerful word. And remember, it’s part of you, would you want to be called a demon? Probably not? Maybe you would?
Words are incredibly powerful, they help mould our thoughts and feelings and, if used often enough they become a habit, the norm, our received wisdom, they become our ‘truth’. Notice how many times in the day we use, or hear others use the same word to describe something. Journalists are notorious for this, listen to any news report (actually don’t do this too often at the moment) and you’ll hear the same, lazy words used to describe events. The ‘flood’ of immigrants entering the country would often be described as ‘waves’, tragic events invariably ‘unfold’, celebrity rows are often ‘drink-fuelled’, communities (particularly after a tragic event) are invariably ‘tightly-knit’: all lazy shorthand, designed to give us simple, digestible thumbnails of events which then become our ‘received wisdom’, we don’t need to think further behind the story; we ‘get it’. It’s ‘The Truth’
And so with the word, ‘demon’. If we accept that it’s the correct word, the accepted word to use, then it is so. But try thinking of those feelings, those ‘voices’ (try using ‘my’ instead of ‘those’) and we can begin to let in the feelings and accept them as part of us. Let them in. Welcome them. Accept that they are you. Acceptance plays a huge part in the counselling room, self-acceptance in particular. By slowly letting in that part of you (the dark side perhaps as Jung would have it, we all have one) you can begin to tackle those difficult thoughts and feelings. Our lack of self-acceptance or low self-worth is often formed by the drip, drip, drip of negative, hurtful, unhealthy and destructive words spoken to us (or heard by us – two different things) or spoken to ourselves, over the years. These can form into ‘The Truth’, what we believe about ourselves, and can solidify into a stony, calcified stalagmite (I think that’s the one that goes upwards, right?).
That stalag-whatever can be a tough thing to break down, but if you make a start on it today – listen to how others use the same phrases and words, more importantly, listen to your own self-talk, the negative words you might use about yourself, try changing one or two – you can then begin to spread a little light into those shadows and create your own, new, personal truth.