What A Chinese Banquet Can Teach Us About Working Together

I was lucky enough to be invited to a (late) Chinese celebration to mark Chinese New Year.

I was a bit apprehensive - I only knew the person who’d invited me - because I’m not as informed about the culture as I feel I should be and had very little idea what to expect. I try to embrace change and look positively towards the unknown but I have to admit it can sometimes be challenging. 

Fortunately, the company was kind and those fellow diners at my table did their best to include me as they told fascinating stories of their time in the Far East.

The dinner - a banquet really - was presented in a traditional Chinese way. That is, with a revolving glass table that sits on the table top and which can be turned in one direction or another so that each diner helps themselves to a dish.

The dishes are plentiful and intended to be shared. The point of the New Year dinner is to celebrate family and friends, to be thankful for what you have received and to combine and share your provisions with grace and goodwill. A great deal of thought goes into the food and it is important to be aware of the giver’s generosity and to honour the guest in attendance. 

It was easy to acknowledge and be grateful for such a delicious dinner. It was so enjoyable it will remain in my happy memory bank for some time yet.

But I found another thought creeping in as I was enjoying my fare and that was how efficient the system of distribution was. The moveable plate went both clockwise and anti-clockwise and you could see who was helping themselves so there was not a chance of either missing out or accessing your particular choice because you simply turned the style in your direction of travel and, hey presto, there it was! 

It did come unstuck just the once and that was when a guest was helping herself to a dish one side and a fellow guest on the other - who was talking intently to his companion - began to turn the platter in his direction. He was quick and it happened so fast that the first guest still had her hands in the air clutching at the serving spoons with a slight sense of panic as the table moved away from her.  

Delicious dish carnage was only just prevented by a quick intervention from another guest who managed to gain a good grip of the revolving glass and stop it moving. Apologies followed and honour was restored.

That episode brings to mind the plight of cars, traffic lights and roundabouts. If a driver approaching a set of traffic lights just before a roundabout stops his/her car when the lights go red, the traffic from the right-hand side will be able to flow freely, either turning left and going away from the roundabout or turning right to move further into it.

If, however, the driver - and the one behind - continues crossing the line just as the red light appears when their way forward is not clear, the problems start. If it’s busy, that leaves those drivers on the right blocked and unable to move. As the queues snarl up, so does the frustration and the fury. And all for what? The chance of reaching your destination a minute or two ahead of time. Instead, the likelihood is that you - and everyone else - will be stuck in stop-start traffic for a great deal longer than you’d planned.

You may have heard of Stanford University Professor Walter Mischel’s 1972 experiment on pre-school children and their ability to hold out for a culinary reward. Some children gave in to temptation quickly while others were able to contain themselves for a while longer. The children’s progress was followed over the years and those who could hold out the longest were found to do better throughout life than those who gave in to the first temptation.  

Research has moved on and a 2020 study reported in US publication Greater Good goes further and finds that children do even better in this test when they cooperate. The study put two children together in a room, gave them a task to do and left them with a biscuit and permission to either eat it or wait until the researcher returned and then get another one. The study involved children from industrialised Germany and children from a rural community in Kenya to see if there might be a cultural difference. The results were the same. Those children who worked together were able to delay their own gratification for longer showing, the researchers said, that humans found working together for a common goal to be more enjoyable than going it alone.

And that brings me back to the revolving table at the Chinese banquet. It works so well. If only we could remember it’s not just about us serving ourselves, but about sharing with others.

  

 

 

 

Life's A Risky Business

I started on this subject before the invasion of Ukraine and it felt a little frivolous to continue considering the enormity of what is going on now within our European borders.

However, after some reflection, I’ve decided this idea may not be as disconnected as it first seemed. 

The life-threatening situation for the poor citizens of Ukraine clearly demonstrate the risks they face. 

Those brave people defying President Putin’s invasion and fighting for their liberty and their land are taking a real risk. There is a frightening and growing chance of either being injured or killed and, as borders close up, the opportunity to escape decreases. 

We who are safely distant are witnessing a real horror and risk. Some Ukrainians are leaving the safety of their home here and going back to fight for their country. Most of us, however, can only watch and hope. Or pray.

Our lives seem so much more comfortable than compared with the days before the invasion. Our growing worries about net zero costs and how we were going to pay the rising energy bills no longer seem so important. 

Even the necessity of finding tens of thousands of pounds to replace a boiler or car to achieve that same net zero goal is paling into insignificance as I wonder if President Putin is serious about nuclear weapon plans.

I’m hoping that what’s going on within my own inner world is not so different from others. I’m imagining we’re all considering putting our petty quarrels to one side as we contemplate and absorb the reality of what calamity our brave friends may be facing.

And yet, when I venture outside my inner world to the world outside, I get the feeling our authorities have not yet grasped what I understand as real risk. 

The rules around lockdown - remember that? How so last month it all seems - have been abandoned. Theoretically, we have no need of nose and mouth coverings or written instructions about how much distance we need to maintain between our individual selves. 

We can once again open our arms wide and explore the - safe - country around us. We can acknowledge the continuing risk of covid but hope that our vaccinations and boosters will make it less deadly and, in time, it may even disappear altogether.

My journey around London shows me how risk seems to be perceived. 

I’m warned to wear a mask on buses and tubes to “protect others” (a clever bit of psychology in case I’m not concerned about protecting me) and told to wash my hands for at least 20 seconds in case of germs. 

Careful not to trip up the escalators, “mind the gap” on the tube, keep your distance! Do this, Don’t do that. Travellers holding on to their mask habit avert their eyes from someone who is mask free. They look anxious, their eyes darting nervously from nose to mouth. Are these warnings helping us or are they making life just that bit more frightening?

Of course it makes sense. We have been locked away and scared for almost two years. We have discovered a new illness that was highly infectious and for which there was initially no cure. Who wouldn’t be scared? 

But it’s all so obvious too and, some would argue, these are decisions that any adult person would take. Germs pass through contact - wash your hands; cover your mouth if you’re coughing and sneezing and keep your distance. If you’re ill, keep away from others. We knew that before the pandemic so why, I wonder, does it all seem so threatening now.

From a personal point of view, I am concerned that this two-year period has left us as needy and insecure as small children. It’s as though we’ve had our own agency taken away and we’re having to learn to live again from scratch. We already know lockdown has had a damaging effect on children and young people but what about those of us who thought we had left our childhoods way behind us? This in-between stage at the wrong time of life is very unsettling. 

Part of the problem may be because politicians and those in authority like it when people do as they’re told. It makes it easier for them if we’re compliant. Rules are habit-forming. If we are forced to stick to them for long enough, they may become second nature for some people.

For others, this just brings up resentment. Take a look at a toddler who wants to do something for themselves as you try to help them. The chances are they will brush your hand away impatiently and continue on their own path. That is as it should be: they are on the path to growing up.

It seems that we presently have this  dichotomy between those poor people in Ukraine who have had their safety and security ripped away from them at a terrible and astonishing speed, while those of us lucky enough to be in the UK are almost reluctant to ease ourselves out of our own state-sponsored and comfortable cocoon.

May I politely suggest it’s time we took back control and acknowledged life is a risky business. However, as adults we are perfectly capable of making our own risk assessments. In order to get the best out of life, we need to live it as adults, weighing up the risks and taking our own decisions. Decision making may be hard but life’s more fun that way.  

Photo 1:  Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash

Photo 2:  Matt Artz on Unsplash

Photo 3:  Edward Howell on Unsplash

How To Say Sorry and Mean It

Sorry is a word that many of us find hard to say.

Sometimes, it’s not so difficult. You bump into a person, say sorry and move on with the easy acceptance that it was your fault.

But it becomes a little more difficult to own up to one’s own errors when there might be repercussions and, the worse the repercussions, the trickier it is to say the word.

Let’s start with the need for an apology. Why do we need to do it?

Put simply, it’s part of our society’s rules to allow us to live reasonably well within our group. It is usually seen as a way of making good a situation that has gone wrong.

It feels as though it should be second nature. We are taught from almost the time we can speak that sometimes we have to say sorry. It’s effectively ingrained and that means our conscience will be giving us a strong clue when we should be apologising.  

So how is it that, almost from the time we learn of the need to own up to our errors, some of us also feel the need to wriggle out of that apologetic mode?

As with most things, it probably starts in childhood. Think of the child who has that naughty expression even when they’re innocent and they get the blame. Imagine that sense of indignation when it’s not your fault. If it goes on too long, you’re quite likely to wonder at the merits of apologies with a distorted view of your own.

And what about the angelic-looking child who looks as though butter wouldn’t melt in his/her mouth - and yet their behaviour is devilish? They don’t need to say sorry because they’re never blamed. When they grow up, they, too, may have a skewed idea of how polite society works.

Most of us are somewhere in the middle, occasionally being blamed for what we didn’t do but being able to set that off against the time when we “got away” with things of which we were guilty. An example of that might be going slightly over a 30-mile speed limit when driving and not being caught. Guilty but lucky. 

Many of us are also fortunate that our apologies tend to be private matters so, if we do feel humiliation, it will probably not last too long.

When sorry seems to be the hardest word

But what happens when you’re obliged to make an apology in public and it’s televised around the nation. How should you manage that? 

Let’s now turn to the political arena and the current PM’s quandaries.

In our culture - and this is different from other parts of the world - we require the person saying they’re sorry to look at us when they do so. 

It is important that we see each other’s eyes. On a primitive - instinctive - level, we need to feel that the person really is truly sorry. And then we can decide whether we are going to forgive and forget, accept it and bear a grudge or reject it completely. Generally, people tend to be forgiving so the first option seems the most likely to work.

But, and there is a very big but, all this depends on how contrite you really are. If you apologise because you must but you neither feel it nor mean it, then your potential friend or foe will pick up on those inner feelings and react accordingly. They will sense that your heart isn’t in it and they may be reluctant to forgive.

This leads us back to the PM. Putting aside the misinformation, confusion, possibly being economical with the truth and the fact that a great number of people in Britain obeyed the lockdown laws set by the Government over Covid, it was possible Boris might still be forgiven for disobeying those same laws, if he did.

However, his apology needed to be good and, in my opinion, it was not. The problem came from his clear discomfort as he addressed MPs in the House of Commons. It seemed to me that he was grudging. He is a usually clear speaker. He may - he often does - go off on a tangent but I can hear what he says. 

This time it was harder. 

The apologetic words were said but were somehow rushed over. There wasn’t a pause for us to digest them and to consider what we felt about them. It seemed like a take-it-or-leave -it moment. It was almost as if he were a little boy being made to say sorry when he really didn’t want to. It was not as though he was the man behind the laws and the one who had put us in lockdown. 

Lockdown was hard on everyone

Even so, this, too, might just have been forgiven if he had kept his eyes on the prize - to get the electorate onside. If he had only dropped his gaze, bowed his head a little longer when coming under fire from his opponents and left us convinced that he accepted he was to blame. 

This didn’t happen. 

Boris was too quick to brush over it and launch his own attack on someone else - to deflect, in other words. Attack was not the best form of defence, here, and he blew it. We were not convinced it was a heartfelt apology, despite the best efforts of his loyal supporters to insist that he really was contrite. 

And the moral of the story? 

Only apologise if you mean it. Be prepared to tolerate some form of admonishment and maybe even allow yourself to feel a bit awkward and accepting that you deserve it. If not, say nothing. A phoney apology only makes matters worse.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

A Hidden Death From Covid

I heard recently of the death of someone who died over the Christmas period. It was a sudden unexpected death and it went unnoticed for some days.

Friends telephoned their friend over a period of two or three days, assuming they might have gone back to family for Christmas. 

They left messages and heard nothing so went round to the person’s home to see if they were there but just not answering the phone. No answer so the police were called. 

The property was securely bolted so it was hard to get it. Experts were needed to remove the protective locks and doors.

Inside, it was as friends and family feared. The person's life force was gone.

The cause of death has been given to some extent so relatives and friends can go on with their mourning. There are toxicology reports to come through but, while those are necessary, they will not impede the process of what happens next.

Meanwhile, there are relatives and friends, officials such as police, medics, locksmiths and paramedics, who are likely to have experienced some form of trauma at the way this poor person left this world. They may be used to dealing with tragic and emergency cases but that doesn’t make it any easier.

And somehow such a death over Christmas seems to make it worse, to die all alone when many of us are celebrating with our loved ones at this time.

I’m told that those who entered the person’s home were shocked at the squalor. There was dirt - of all kinds - and mess as though nothing had been cleaned for years. Takeaway cartons were discarded where they were finished; empty bottles of alcohol lay beside chairs and a sofa and there were no sheets on the one double bed. Just a mattress with a pillow. Nothing else.

The signs might indicate someone with depression or an alcohol problem. I don’t know, I never knew this person. What I am told, however, is that pre the pandemic, they enjoyed meeting friends and going out to the local pub. True, they rarely invited friends into their home but some had been there and not seen anything to concern them.

So, what seems to have changed someone from being a reasonably sociable human being into a total recluse in a period of just less than two years? Yes, that’s what I suspected too. Covid.

It seems this person went into extreme covid-protection mode. They - I’m keeping this gender-free for confidentiality reasons - was very afraid and took the government’s laws, rules and regulations as seriously as it was possible to take them. Perhaps even to extremes.

They ordered all their shopping online, left it outside to allow any germs to dissipate and then slowly and laboriously carried it in with surgical gloves and then washed it all through again. I don’t know how the takeaways were managed but they seem to me to give an indication that, despite all this extreme care (even obsessive behaviour) this person still wanted to live.

So, imagine, you go from being a mildly outgoing person some two years ago with, admittedly some tendencies that a professional might wonder at and bring to your attention, to somebody who continues to live but seems to have also completely shut down. 

The problem was, because of lockdown, such extreme behaviour went unnoticed. There were no checks or balances because no-one was there. All state-run organisations had gone to ground, including GPs, social workers, community carers, and to be fair they were only doing what they were told to do. Everyone had to be kept away. 

That also applied to families. If you were individuals who were all part of one family but lived separately, you either had to bundle together or stay on your ownsome. Unsurprisingly, many people chose to continue to live on their own. After all, it was only going to be for three weeks or so, wasn’t it?

And, in case, we forgot to comply with the latest law or rule - not for our own good, you understand, but either to keep the NHS safe (isn’t it supposed to keep us safe?) or to protect others - we were threatened with a possible £10,000 fine or even a 10-year prison term.

Meanwhile, those who had imposed such draconian laws on us have now been found to have been partying their way around lockdown from almost the start of it. 

So, when I heard about this latest death, I felt both sad and angry because of what covid and lockdown has left for us. 

This particular death will never be added to that strange number reported on the TV and radio that is signalled as being “with” covid, rather than “from” covid - making the numbers impossible to understand. 

Instead, the death certificate will register something quite different. A sad tragic accident that ended the life of someone who was perhaps a little vulnerable. We can be momentarily upset but not too concerned; it’s unusual after all.

Except that I worry it’s not. I imagine there are many more sad deaths like this one that will never be recorded as they should be. Deaths that might have been avoided if not for lockdown and its strange, unconsidered laws and rules that forced us to comply, even when we disagreed. We know they were unreasonable because the behaviour of our political leaders shows us. They partied. They did not believe they were going to die. 

So where do we go from here? I’d suggest it’s an easy one. No apologies, no lessons to be learnt, no waiting for inquiries. Just no. 

We must never let this happen again. 

Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash 

Photo by Deleece Cook on Unsplash

2022 - Facing a Fearless Future

Sometimes a person’s brain seems to be particularly susceptible to an external message. Say, for example, you’re experiencing a feeling of hunger while not being aware of the actual feeling. You may be watching television and you see someone eating some chocolate. “I know,” you think, “I wonder if I’ve got any chocolate. I feel the need for something sweet.” And off you go, none the wiser. 

And that’s how advertising works. By persuading the unaware person that what is being sold is what you want. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s just clever psychology.

One phrase has been resonating with me more and more in the past few weeks.  

Don’t be afraid!” is the command I hear, even when I’m least expecting it and when I’m not doing anything that needs particular care. It arrived a number of times over the festive season and it seems to have snuck up from somewhere in my subconscious to reach my conscious mind where it’s been hammering ever since. It’s a constant - one that keeps popping into my head - like an earworm but without the jaunty jingle. 

It doesn’t take too much reflection to understand from where this may be coming. The past two years of our lives have been dominated by fear, not just individually but as a collective. It’s been an extraordinary and exhausting time.

The arrival of Covid-19 at the beginning of 2020 (there are indications it was in Europe as early as November 2019 and the clue may be in the name) took the UK from what appeared to be a nation looking forward with a reasonable share of optimism to a country full of despair. Hopeless, in fact.

Suddenly, we went from being a society full of mainly sociable people to a group of fearful and isolated individuals and the longer we stayed like that, the more fearful we became.

It’s easy to look back and suggest things should have been done differently. Who knows? There’s to be an inquiry into the official handling of the virus and that will offer up its findings in due course. The data will be telling but what it says, I imagine, will be dependent on who’s listening. 

What we do know is that it has always been open to interpretation and, even as recently as last month, we were still being kept in a vortex of terror. One day we were being allowed and encouraged to believe life was on the verge of returning to normal, the next day came omicron and the threat of another complete lockdown. Our political leaders appeared to have no idea - though the scientists seemed determined that their way was the right one - and we were back to a level of uncertainly that does not improve with age. 

There is a glimmer of hope though because there may be signs that we could be experiencing the beginning of the end. If the virus is mutating into a less deadly form, or if the vaccinations are as effective as hoped, then there will be no need for another lockdown.

So what are we to do about the fear factor with which some of us are still left? 

Some people argue that we need to be kept apart and isolated for the good of society as a whole; the opposite of how we were used to interacting. Those people - including some influential scientists - seem to enjoy the status quo. I puzzle to understand that and look to the past for an explanation.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes put forward the idea of offering total allegiance to the sovereign in exchange for safety. You put your all (including material possessions) at the feet of your sovereign and, in return, he kept you safe. If not, the contract was void. Hobbes was living during the Civil War so we can perhaps understand his reasoning. 

Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, in The Fear of Freedom, argued that humans are not actually that keen on individual freedom and are drawn to having rules imposed on them from above. That, he explained, was the reason for the rise of the desire for a totalitarian state. He was writing in the 1940s, during World War II, so we can again see his influences.

And moving into the present, journalist Laura Dodsworth talking specifically about this pandemic discusses the theory that it’s easier to control a population if we make them frightened. I don’t think we can deny that we have been frightened. 

I’m hoping against hope all this was not a deliberate plan to frighten us. However, I’m one of those people who believe it’s time to escape from this almost-solitary confinement and to take the risk of living again. 

We need to be brave and draw on the strength we all have within us if only we remember. Personally, I’m going to acknowledge I’m afraid - no, maybe not afraid, maybe just nervous - while continuing with the “don’t be afraid” mantra to allow me to take those first delicate steps to reconnect with the world outside. 

I may even dust down my edition of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway and see what extra tips I can glean. The one thing I do know is that I’m not going to allow another two years to go by before I get back my old level of bravery.

If you watched the latest Strictly Come Dancing, you’ll remember the inspiration winner Rose Ayling-Ellis, who has been deaf from birth. She showed what an amazing talent she is and how resilience and perseverance can pay off. 

She posted this on Instagram: “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”

Wise advice.  

 

Photo 1 by Fuu J on Unsplash

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Social Media and the Drama Triangle

Social media may be punching way above its weight. What was intended to be a great source of friendship across all worlds, seems to have turned into a constant fight fest. Facebook was well-liked until the algorithms meant we stopped hearing what our friends were up to and were instead directed to specific sponsored sites “they” thought were good for us. Worthy or not, who knows, but certainly pretty dull. Time to tune out.

So, following the young - always way ahead of the late adapters - and moving on to Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok these, too, seem to be the preoccupation of would-be influencers hoping to attract enough followers (I think it’s 10,000+) to gain sponsorship and financial reward.

And then there’s Twitter and its not-so-merry band of tweeters. In a time where pleas of “Be Kind” are on everyone’s lips, who would enjoy hearing about the appealing sound of tweets. Except, of course, we know that’s not what the Twittersphere is all about. It’s about FURY, SHOUTING, TROLLING, INSISTING ONLY YOUR OPINION IS RIGHT. And so on. Anything but kind.

There is always one twitterstorm or another because they’re easy game for articles in the old-school media. The way it works is a journalist looking to fill a website looks on Twitter to see what is trending. More often than not, it’s a quarrel that excites. That trend gets picked up, written about, and distributed to millions more readers. And the original “storm” (probably a couple of rude messages) gets blown up into a giant argument which we at home can all discuss and feel as if we’re taking part in some countrywide conversation.

I’ve followed some news stories recently and am reminded of the Drama Triangle, a theory developed by Stephen Karpman, a follower of Eric Berne, the Canadian psychiatrist who developed the psychotherapeutic practice of Transactional Analysis.

Put simply, the idea behind TA is that our life consists of communication transactions that are governed by a series of games. These are not fun games and Dr Berne’s aim as a psychotherapist was to help his clients find a satisfactory way of nativigating through the emotional miseries of such games to achieve a good outcome.

The Drama Triangle is an inverted triangle involving a group of three: the victim, the rescuer and the persecutor.

So, imagine for example, that you are a famous sports person who is accusing another person of racist remarks. In that case, you would be the victim. You are the person who is being picked on. You put this out into the public eye and you are pleased and relieved that the painful episodes you have talked about are supported by many of those who read or hear your story. “This is wrong,” they rightly say. “This should not be happening.”

Those supporters could also be described as your rescuers. They may have not been there when the offence was given but they are going to look out for you and ensure that your complaints are taken seriously and no-one’s going to be unkind to you again. That makes sense and it seems like a good outcome for everyone.

And then … somebody starts taking a look at your own old tweets; tweets you had sent years when you were still a teenager and those tweets are re-reported in the media. Suddenly, the feeling is not so good. Your rescuers may be wondering why they stepped in and they awkwardly step away. Suddenly, you go from victim to persecutor and it’s an uncomfortable position to be in. You apologise but the damage is done.

Or maybe you’re a TV presenter who’s admired within media circles and beyond for your talent across both serious and light-hearted platforms and the public likes you too. You’ve had a meteoric rise from hard work and luck in the print world and you’re now tipped as the next big star presenter on TV.

And then you do a documentary on a prominent family while working for an impartial organisation and there’s a bit of pushback. This time, it’s not tweets that come back to haunt you, it’s one-liners in editorials you wrote in your newspaper days. In another short period you’ve gone from persecutor (through your documentary) to victim of those laying into you for that very same programme. Your employers move into a rescuing role as they tell all the critics they have full confidence in you. You, meanwhile, are probably feeling a little vulnerable.

There’s a final story of a former stand-up comedian turned actor (in my view, very good at both) who seems to have inadvertently launched a pre-emptive strike to save himself from being a victim of the Drama Triangle by confessing to his persecuting ways during his stand-up years and hoping that full and frank disclosure will avoid any future reckonings. 

So how do the rest of us avoid these drama triangle moments, particularly where social media is involved? It probably helps if you’re not famous. The fewer people read your tweets, the less likelihood of a backlash. 

If you are famous - or know someone is - it’s best to try to remember to stay in Adult mode as TA therapists might advise. Be rational, argue from a logical, reasonable point of view and stay well away from your naughty or emotional Child state. That means no tweeting or social media arguing when you may have had a drink and judgment may be impaired. And, if all else fails, remember to delete your old tweets and/or messages.

Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

 

The Shocking Pain of Loss

A friend of mine died recently. It was unexpected and the news came as a sudden and great shock. I heard about it via a message from her mobile phone. To read a message from her number telling me that she is no more made it seem all the more unbelievable. 

Much of my work centres around loss, with bereavement perhaps being the greatest of all losses. I like to believe that, as an experienced practitioner within this field, I know how careful and sensitive I need to be when I’m working with a client who is suffering.   

It may be, however, that experience can make a so-called professional just that little bit blasé. Not consciously and never arrogantly or intentionally but because our experience may give us an understanding of how time really will help (whatever you feel in the moment) and our learning will hopefully allow us to lead you along that painful path until you can begin to manage on your own. We may not mean to know best but we may sometimes inadvertently slip into such a sense.

In a way, such a thought process is both natural and inevitable; to be so overwhelmed with empathy for each client’s sad story would mean we would no longer be able to do our work as well as we would want to. We need to be able to support, hold and be there for our client but we also need to be able to stand back. It’s one thing walking with them on their journey, it’s another trying to merge with them or claim their suffering is ours too. That would not be right.

That is what I might have said before experiencing my own reaction to the news of my friend’s death. Not now, however. 

My experience was visceral. I had a sense of not being able to understand what I was reading followed by disbelief. The message from my eyes to my brain was clear but my brain could not grasp it. I had to read the message again, and again. I still couldn’t take it in. I read it aloud to a friend who was with me and who knew of this person. Did saying it aloud help? I’m not sure. I don’t think so. 

Let me tell you a little about my friend, a creative force of nature. She was an award-winning stand-up comedian; a poet; a writer; a teacher and a loyal and entertaining friend. She was a great cook, a great traveller and an all-round bon viveur - a lover of life. She also had a waspish tongue and sharp wit that could inflict a fair bit of damage if she disapproved of what you were saying and you were on the receiving end of it  - I was once, and it did. 

She was a tall blonde beauty in her youth and had matured - she might question that word - into a glamorous and sophisticated woman of the world in her middle years and the wisdom she’d gained over the years honed her natural gifts. Above all, she was a truly vibrant human being, full of energy and life and still with many plans for what she was going to do next.

Then, within a month, she was gone, leaving friends, colleagues and students feeling bewildered and bereft. As in life, she had her devoted friend by her side and supporting her at her end. 

My strong reaction to her death surprised me. It’s reconnected me with the emotions that a person goes through when s/he loses someone dear to them. The difference between “imagining” how I’d feel and actually “feeling” a personal loss is stark.  

I’ve learned from this - though I’d prefer my friend were still here and I was still ignorant - that I need to remain open to my own feelings, rather than perhaps using my own counselling role as a shield. 

We live in a cynical age and it’s easy to get caught up in it. It’s sometimes easier to sneer than to praise, and it may be a way of guarding against feelings of disappointment. If we don’t hope for much, then we won’t feel bad about losing much. But does that make for a good life? I think not. 

In this month of remembrance of people who seemed to be so much more idealistic than we are, I like the idea of trying to reconnect with some of that desire for something better or desire to protect the good qualities and values we have.

I’m aware that I’m preaching and that’s not part of my role which is to reflect, observe and point out those observations to a person who is looking to gain some understanding and relief in their own life. I feel, though, this is part of a reflection caused by her untimely death.

And so, back to my friend. I'm not going to say RIP to her because I’m not sure that’s what she’d want. I’m going to hope instead that somewhere in a parallel universe, there’s another fabulous party going on featuring the best champagne, the most delicious food, the best reggae music and my friend at the centre of it all, sprinkling her bon mots to her devoted attendees. I hope she’s having fun.

Meanwhile, still on this planet, thank you, Ms A, for continuing to teach me even after you’ve gone. I’m going to keep you in my heart and hope to honour you by remembering just what your loss has meant to me. 

Photo 1:  Egor Myznik on Unsplash

Photo 2:  Marc-Antoine Dubé on Unsplash