Here at Counselling Connections this week we are looking forward with anticipation to the solstice next Tuesday. The longest night of the year is the culmination of an increasing darkness that has been building for months. When the sun appears on the horizon the following morning it is greeted and celebrated as representing the longer, warmer days to come. Its appearance on this day means we are putting the dark days behind us and looking forward to better, more abundant times ahead.
At least, that is what it used to mean to the people who lived in these parts in ancient times. A small number still gather on the nearby Hill of Tara to celebrate the solstice sunrise and a good deal of attention is focused on Newgrange where the passage and chamber of the megalithic tomb is still illuminated by the solstice sunrise just like it was when it was built over five thousand years ago.
In pre-Christian times there would have been a week of celebrations at this time of the year. To those ancient people, our ancestors, the weather and the seasons mattered greatly. They relied on a bountiful harvest to see them over the lean winter months. Even though this coming week represented the very middle of those dark months, it pointed none the less to brighter days ahead.
We have electric light now and central heating and well insulated homes. We get our food by and large from supermarkets, it is brought to us. We are less tuned in to the turn of the seasons than our ancestors were. They celebrated the promise of more light to come for very practical reasons but they also understood the spiritual aspect of it: the idea of renewal.
As we lift our heads from the daily rush at this time of year we can look to the solstice sunrise in the week ahead and allow ourselves some hope for better times ahead. The dark days may not be finished with completely but there is hope for renewal and brighter times. Just as our ancestors had studied the seasons and the movements of the earth we can look back to previous cycles in the economic life of the country and the world and see that bad times passed and were followed by better ones. We can be sure of that. Maybe what we need to learn then is to store up some of the abundance we create for like the turn of the seasons we can bet that there will be bad times again. And so it goes.
So, here’s to the last of the dark days; to the promise of brighter days ahead and to renewal.
Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections we have been carefully watching the weather this week like everybody else. We have seen record low temperatures for November and significant falls of snow. It makes life difficult; for a start it’s very cold, then there’s the difficulty getting around and anxiety about the state of the roads and of missing important appointments. We nearly fell into the trap of concentrating only on the bad news aspects of the weather but we were reminded to lift our heads and look around by a remark by a television weather lady.
We were attentively listening to the weather forecast on Sunday night when the presenter informed us to pay particular attention to the sky. Because of the northerly airflows over the country the air we are getting is pure, unpolluted arctic air. Watch out for the sky she told us and you’ll see.
Well, we went straight outdoors and looked up and sure enough there was a beauty to the clear blueness of the sky that is beyond words. We’ve been watching out for it all week, it makes for beautiful early evening sunsets and clear views of the surrounding countryside. Monaghan’s drumlins are crisp, clear and cosy looking and the Cooley Mountains are resplendent in their winter coats with the backdrop of the clear blue arctic sky.
When you meet someone on your travels and the talk is of traffic chaos and disruption to business and you reply by asking if they’ve noticed the sky you might get a funny look. It is not part of normal discourse to point out something beautiful in the midst of the day to day busyness of life. We get very caught up in being busy. A good deal of psychotherapy is about remembering and working through the problems of the past. We can become preoccupied and even stuck on certain things. It is important work and it helps us to clear things up and invite in to our selves a clarity similar to that provided by the pure arctic air this week.
Once everything has been analysed and, if you like, picked apart its time then to begin to join things back together again. Its time too to let go of the dark clouds of the past and get in touch with an aesthetic, with the beauty of ordinary, everyday simple things. This beauty can be found in loving relations with others and with an appreciation for the beauty of nature which is all around us, even in town. It can be found in our selves too, in a non-competitive, non-defensive generosity and inquisitiveness for the world around us. And in taking responsibility for our own lives and actions in an independent, grown up way.
So, that’s a lot I suppose to draw from the simple beauty of a clear blue sky . . . but it is worth taking a look. Maybe it will help us step out of our over reliance on being busy and distracted and have a look at some other aspects of life which we may find rewarding.
Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Ghosts, Skeletons, False Faces & Halloween . . .

It’s that time of year again when the clocks go back and the evenings are darker earlier, marked by Halloween. It can bring back good memories of bobbin apples in dishes of water, apple tarts with money in and barmbrack with a gold ring that usually wasn’t a full circle and certainly wasn’t gold (always found in the adults piece of brack!). And Pumpkins…..something rare here in the past and only associated with America but now they’re in every supermarket in town. My sister even grows them in her garden!. No more painstaking hours of scooping out a turnip! ( I don’t know how my Mother did that every year).

There’s lots of fun to be had for kids of all ages as they dress up as witches, skeletons, ghosts and ghouls to knock on doors of neighbours and strangers in search of treats. Trick or treating has evolved as a regular event at dusk on Halloween. Creating positive memories for children at these significant times in the year is really important and something they will carry with them as adults and pass down the line to their children.

It got me thinking about good and bad memories we attach to momentous events and what we carry in our memory store. What ghosts from the past do we carry with us on a daily basis, not just reserved for one day of the year….what skeletons are ‘in the closet’ so to speak that we are reluctant to look at and get rid of once and for all….what masks do we hide behind as we go about our daily business, revealing our true selves to few, if any, if even to ourselves? Donald Winnicott, a British Psychoanalyst and Paediatrician (1896-1971) talks of the ‘true self’ and the ‘false self’. As babies if we are responded to by our mothers we can develop our true selves. The false self is something we build up in response to social expectations and others. It’s a mask behind which our true self is hidden and where we are tuned into the needs of others so much that we act outside of ourselves. There can be a sense of not living your truth and fundamental unhappiness despite “having it all” in society’s opinion. We can become very skilled at this and seem to be able to get by until painful experiences in life force us to examine what are lives are really like.

The ‘bad stuff’ can take up so much room in the ‘closet’ of our minds. We can give enormous energy to these old ghosts, even at an unconscious level (so we don’t even realise), causing disharmony and unhappiness. Getting rid of psychological baggage, while difficult, can really free us up to enjoy living, to get into the spirit of things, like the children who will come knocking on your door, hoping to be met with kindness and loads of goodies!

MMG