The Good and The Human

Welcome

I think it would  be best to start off with a big warm welcome, I'm glad you've stumbled across/found this blog post and find it useful for you or someone you love in some way or another.

I'd like to kick things off with explaining the reasoning behing the name of this blog and my personal philosophy surrounding it. 

The Good and The Human is a modification on the well known saying "the good and the bad." At the moment  I am a trainee Counsellor and in just a few more practical hours, I will be a qualified Counsellor. During a group supervision/reflection session, I heard another counsellor use the phrase "the good and the bad" in the context of suggesting that the client needed to accept the good and bad parts of themselves. I remember feeling agitated by this and thinking 'well no, the client needs to accept/embrace the good and come to peace with the experiences they have had in their life that have created these complications for them now. The client needs to accept the good and the human.'

I spent some time with this idea, I wrote it down in my notebook as soon as I thought it and tried to work out why did I become annoyed with the other Counsellor in my group for calling parts of her client bad?  Maybe because we're all just human beings inevitably becoming products of our own upbringings that we A. didn't ask for and B. probably didn't have much control over? I felt judged by the statement, I felt judgement was being passed onto the client. 

The answer to this for me personally is still a little unclear and I'm still trying to work with that for myself, but, something shifted within me when I had this thought . We are all just the good and the human. Why do we tell ourselves if we makes mistakes we're bad? Why do we punish ourselves for feeling inadequate? Why do we berate ourselves for having feelings that could be deemed as negative? Why do we always give ourselves such a hard time? 

What if 

We started cutting ourselves some slack? Giving ourselves a break? Giving ourselves a day off from the critical analysis we always seem to offer ourselves. What if one day instead of telling ourselves off for not being what is expected of us, we tell ourselves that everything's alright, I'm a human and this experience doesn't suggest otherwise. How freeing would that be? How good would it feel to be just be?

This shift in thought for me has been a biggy. I am flawed, I am not perfect, I have issues I like to work on but those aspects don't make me bad they make me human. I'm a human in progress, in a race with no one, in a competition with no one, spending my time getting to know myself and hopefully helping others to do the same. I myself am working on this whole attitude of the good with the human. 

Throughout this week if you find yourself being hard on yourself for whatever reason, try practicing the whole "well its okay, I'm human - not bad." See how it feels for you, how it sits with you and if it makes any difference to you. This will  help you learn about yourself and become more in tuned to yourself. 

Id love to know your thoughts on this idea/approach/philosophy and if you think it is something that could work for you?

So yes, I hope this explains the name behind this whole blog and the direction in which I'll be coming from. I hope to mainly share my ideas surrounding mental health and general well-being. If you have any q's please let me know :) 

Thank you for reading and I hope you stick around for more

Lots of Love

x

(Side note - I'd like to point out that there are many actions and behaviors that cannot be condoned under this way of thinking. Actions of a criminal nature or actions that are done deliberately to directly cause harm to others is absolutely not condoned by me and I'd seriously recommenced you seek professional help if you feel you fall into this category.)