Same same.

“My child is struggling. I need help”
“I am struggling with my child’s struggle”
It’s the same situation, it’s a different take.

It took me a long time to make the shift but when I did we were able to start the process of healing and begin to move forward again.

When I came to realise that there were two people and two struggles at the heart of our challenging situation. When I saw that seeking help and addressing either one without the other would only get us so far. When I experienced how powerful working in the space between us could be.

There was no going back.

By the time I said “My child is struggling, I need help”- even before the shift – so much had happened.

We, as humans, are incredibly good at adapting without even knowing we are. We are built and wired for it on micro and macro levels. We are always looking for safety and balance, homeostasis, and adjusting to move towards it. Sometimes that subconscious adapting takes us in directions that we would never have chosen to go.

By the time my child showed me he was struggling, he had been trying to manage and adapt for a while. By the time I asked for help, I had been trying for some time to work it out and manage it all on my own.

So much to go back and look at, so much to unravel that had come from automatic, subconscious attempts to be ok for as long as possible. To not admit something was wrong. To not need, to not bother anyone.

That’s where the layers come from, those are the parts of the story that are most important when we get to the healing part and often by that point we are looking at healing an entire family.

You as the parent in the story, you were there for all of it, you were in it. You know all about the layers and how they built up, even if you haven’t consciously acknowledged that. You are one part of the complex system that is your child and you. You are in and of that ‘space between’ where we want and need to work.

You know the answers. You know the way through. You are the help you are looking for and even if you don’t know that yet, I do.

When I work with parents like you, it’s my job to create and hold the space required to acknowledge this knowing. It’s my job to support and guide them through the unravelling of where they have been until they can see it and be with it and eventually focus back on where they want to be going, for themselves and for their children.

Every path is different. I focus on you and yours. I follow you, where you need to go, with the kind of support that feels best to you. I do the adjusting and adapting so that you can stop for the time we are together and just be.