Thoughts from the Counsellor

Relationships

Relationships are unavoidable in the work-place and if they’re going well, they’ll be contributing to our every-day contentment.  In fact, good ones are probably essential to our good health. 

As we all know, they don’t always go well.  Relationships with our managers, our colleagues, our neighbours’ children or anyone else we see regularly, are all potential triggers for our anxiety.

Mild annoyance is common place and we all have our own ways of managing it.  Some of us can say “we need to talk about this, don’t we”, while others quietly keep their annoyance to themselves and look for better relationships elsewhere.  Some of us might pray for guidance.  There’s no right or wrong way and it’s the way that feels comfortable for us that we usually adopt.

But there will always be times when out best efforts, whether it’s trying to talk or trying to forget, just don’t work and we find ourselves in a nasty stuck place.  Again, there are different responses; some act out and become prickly customers, others act in and become depressed.

This is where we at the Workplace Chaplaincy believe we can help.  For a start, we’re here to listen.  It’s a funny thing, but when we put a voice to our thoughts and feelings, our thoughts and feelings can change.  It’s as if when we talk to someone, we hear ourselves differently or we think of something we haven’t thought of before.  There’s also the possibility that another person can see something we can’t see when we’re so close to the pain and worry.

When we’re in the thick of our emotional pain, be it grief, anger, disgust, shame…the last thing we want to do is to consider the other party.  After all, it was what they did or didn’t do, or said or didn’t say, that got us into this relationship mess in the first place!

And if I were to say to you, have you tried forgiving the other person (and yourself, if that’s where you’re stuck), you may well say, absolutely not; why should I?  Or you’d avoid me and look for someone more sensible to talk to!

But Jesus was a first rate psychologist.  He knew, two thousand years ago, that at times of conflict we need another person to help us change our minds about the “reality” or truth of out perception.  I’d like to think that this is what he meant by “when two or more are gathered together, here am I”?  That would make him the first counsellor, wouldn’t it?

No-one in this world escapes fear, but with help we can all re-consider its causes, re-evaluate our personal take on the situation and find peace and mutual respect.

We invite you to do that with us.