‘Free up Some Memory, Mum’

My son departed for Singapore last week, but, before he went, he did me an enormous favour.

I had been aware for quite some time that my computer was running slow. I would press various relevant buttons and sit and watch the annoying egg timer on screen while the machine struggled to keep up with my commands. Things were still getting done, but I knew this was not as efficient as it could be.

‘You’ve got to free up some memory.’ My son explained. ‘Look at your desktop. It’s covered with bits of this and bits of that. Let’s get organised and put them in folders.’

He ran some kind of cleaning devise as well. I don’t need to know the details, just like I don’t need to know how my car works to drive it or how the magical radio waves get into transistor when I turn the dial.

But I was all too aware of the effect. My computer is running faster and more efficiently and I am…….calmer as a result. Now I press buttons and the screen is responsive. I simply get more done. I had started to think I needed a new computer, that my current one was old and past its sell by date.

It occurred to me that in 2011, a parallel process had been going on for me as I struggled to keep up with various commitments. I had cultivated a ‘yes’ mind set over many which meant I had a towards attitude that carried me into new projects, plans and adventures. And this was a good thing, except now I found I had little spare capacity and my internal landscape, just like my computer desk top, was full of ‘bits of this and bits of that’ as I struggled to make real progress in any one area.

Just like my old computer, I began to think my brain could not keep up with my ambitions, but thankfully I was wrong.

I simply needed to’ defragment’. I had to stop for a while and take a step back from all of my commitments and get a wider view, noticing of course, my choices. In doing so, I realised that too many ideas and projects had captured my attention and were preventing me from really focusing on something which now needed spare capacity.

The concept of therapeutic coaching, the combining of the two previously separate worlds of counselling and coaching, led me to co found the charity Reclaim Life.  I have since trained many volunteers to coach therapeutically and holistically, in a prescriptive 5 session format which now challenges the notion of how much training and financial investment it takes to have a ‘therapeutic conversation.’

That organisation is now flourishing and helping many people in the community, staffed and supported by some wonderful and caring volunteers.

Now it is time to take the next step, a leap of faith which will further challenge current thinking about what is useful in promoting emotional health and well being.

My spare capacity and freed up memory have been put to good use in now establishing the accreditation of my brief and intensive training programme by the National College of Further Education. See http://www.fusion-coach.com/ for details.

Having cleared my internal desktop from distracting clutter, I can start to focus on this new project and feel reassured that my brain had not reached capacity as I had feared, but simply needed reorganising to be faster and more efficient.

I am certainly in new territory again now and it feels a bit scary. Mistakes may be made but as I say to clients….’I can recommend a book  which I think you will find helpful called Feel the Fear and Do it Any way. You don’t even need to read it because the complete message is in the title!’

‘Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm’ Winston Churchill