The Longest Journey Begins with a Single Step

The Longest Journey Begins with a Single Step 

These days the phrase ‘reinvent yourself’ is bandied about. There are endless self-help books and blogs which argue that it is possible to leave your old life behind and start a completely new one. Fiona Harrold’s book, ‘Reinvent Yourself’ sets out seven steps to reinvent yourself. You have to ask yourself, ‘who are you now, who do you want to be, be authentic, what do you want, fake it, look the part and finally, move on’. These books are very valuable and they certainly help some people to move forward. 

Rose O’Brien had read lots of self-help books including Louise Hay’s ‘You Can Heal your Life’, Dr Susan Jeffers’s ‘Feel the Fear…and Do It Anyway’, Tony Robbins’s ‘Awaken the Giant Within’, and ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, by Stephen R. Covey. She also attended motivational seminars and even went to counselling. Why? Because she wanted to change her career. The counselling sessions were free as her employer had a scheme called Staff Care and you were allowed to have six free ones. Rose’s counsellor was a bright dynamic person and she could not believe how supportive she was. She had a friend who had studied for a Diploma in Counselling and she would tell Rose about some of the key concepts of modern therapy. Her friend Nora said, ‘it’s all about non-directive counselling these days. The counsellor is only there to create a space for clients to find their own answers to their problems’. Rose thought that a counsellor should give you guidance and help you to resolve your problems. And she was glad when her counsellor gave her such good advice. She basically told Rose that in her opinion she was in a rut and that she needed to think about applying for a new job.  

She wondered if her counsellor was following proper protocols by giving her such direct advice and if she was in fact properly qualified. Perhaps she didn’t agree with non-directive counselling or any of the new methodologies. But whatever the reason, Rose was glad because the advice she imparted was the best guidance she had ever been given.

Rose was amazed that there were people in the world who had the skills to help you reinvent yourself. She wanted to make a difference to people’s lives and for a while she toyed with the idea of becoming a counsellor herself and she did a few introductory courses. One of the courses was a certificate in Gestalt counselling and she found it very interesting. It was all about living in the present moment and acknowledging what is actually going on in your life. There were some challenging techniques, for example the ‘empty chair technique’. The client imagines that the person they are in conflict with, is sitting in the empty chair and then they start voicing their concerns to the ‘empty chair’. There was an emphasis on reclaiming and reintegrating the disowned, unlived parts of yourself in order to live a more fulfilling life. Fritz Perls, founded the Gestalt school of therapy and his aim was to enable people to free themselves from the unfinished business which was causing them to lead unfulfilling lives.

Rose knew there were things in her traumatic childhood which she had not come to terms with and the Gestalt course gave her the tools to look at these past wounds, acknowledge them and then move on. She had stayed in this boring, repetitive job because she felt a measure of security. It would be risky leaving a permanent position. It was like stepping out into the unknown and she knew that there would be challenges ahead. She had read the ‘feel the fear, but do it anyway’ type of books but acting on them was quite another matter. When the die was cast and she had handed in her notice, she knew there was no turning back.

Lao Tzu, the famous sixth century Chinese philosopher said that ‘the longest journey begins with a single step’ and in Rose’s case her first step was made in fear and trembling.   

It was quite a journey before Rose had put the finishing touches to her new career of teaching which she had always felt drawn towards. Changing careers is not as simple as getting your house repainted or getting your car resprayed. Rose had to obtain her teaching qualification and then find a teaching post. Her first post was in a training branch and basically she was teaching young students who had either dropped out of the educational system or left at 16 without having obtained any qualifications. Rose could not believe these young people had spent all those years in education without having gained any qualifications whatsoever. They had difficulty in grasping even the most basic mathematical concepts and their writing and spelling skills were very poor. On the other and they excelled in being disruptive and their language was atrocious. It was ‘f’ this and ‘f’ that and Rose was appalled. She was totally unprepared for this level of unruly behaviour.  The German field marshal, Moltke said ‘no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy’. And Rose found out that her lesson plans would have to be scrapped until she gained some kind of classroom environment where learning could take place. Rose realised that these young people came from broken homes and she felt compassion for them. The training branch was in a fashionable area of the city and one day during a cultural event, there was outdoor piano playing. The young people complained about the noise and it almost seemed to upset them.  

In her famous novel, Wuthering Heights, a character called Heathcliff said to Hareton:

‘Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!’ Somehow Rose felt that these young people had not been able to develop and grow into healthy well-adjusted teenagers because of their upbringing. After six months, she did make a few breakthroughs and although some days she felt like running away, she kept her cool and showed a degree of patience that was exemplary. The class began to make some progress and their language became more temperate.  Rose was satisfied that she had helped these young students gain some basic qualifications in literacy and numeracy and as a result they were able to leave their old lives behind and succeed in finding employment and being able to contribute to society.