When you've spent a long time focused on children, family, work and everything that needs to be done, it can be easy to lose touch with yourself along the way.
You may have become so used to thinking about what everybody else needs that you're not really sure what you need anymore. Perhaps your children are becoming more independent and you finally have more time to think about yourself, but you don't know what you want or what gives you enjoyment. Or maybe family life is still incredibly busy, but you're beginning to realise that you can't keep putting yourself last.
Feeling more connected can start with understanding yourself again. What matters to you? What do you need? What do you want to be different? What parts of yourself have been pushed aside while you've been taking care of everybody else?
It's about remembering that you're more than a parent, while still recognising how important being a parent is to you.
FEELING MORE CONNECTED
In your relationships
Connection can also mean feeling closer to the people who matter to you.
With your children, you might want less conflict and more enjoyable time together, rather than family life always being about schedules, washing, rules and everyday tasks. You may want to understand your child better, communicate differently and feel more confident in how you respond when things are difficult.
Within your relationship, you may want to feel like a couple again rather than simply co-parents managing family life. That could mean being able to talk more openly about what you need, sharing more of the parenting load, making time for each other or rebuilding some of the friendship, intimacy and connection that has been lost along the way.
Sometimes relationships don't work out as you'd hoped. You might be going through a separation, finding your feet as a single parent or working through the challenges of co-parenting, while also trying to support your children through the changes.
And connection can extend beyond your immediate family too. You may want more time for friendships, adult companionship and the people and parts of life that matter to you.
Working out what matters to you
Counselling isn't about me deciding what your life, parenting or relationship should look like.
My role is to help you understand what's happening, recognise patterns that may be keeping you stuck and reconnect with what matters to you. You may not know exactly what needs to change yet. That's okay.
As things become clearer, you can begin to feel more confident expressing what matters to you, setting boundaries, asking other people to contribute and making decisions about what you want next.
Ultimately, I want counselling to help you feel more connected to yourself and the people who matter to you. To feel more confident in your own decisions and better able to move through changes as they come.
Not by putting yourself ahead of everybody else, but by making room for yourself too.
You can care deeply about your family and still have needs, relationships, interests and hopes and dreams of your own.