Reflections to indulge in as a Helping Professional 

As learners and professionals embarking on the helping journey, we will often find our beliefs, perspectives and experiences evolving in resonation to the spectrum of cases that we come across. Albeit the challenges, we find that these personal narrations navigate the path towards a self-fulfilling journey as a helping professional. It is pertinent that whilst rendering assistance and support to those in need through collective expertise and knowledge, helping professionals take the opportunity to engage in the much-needed self-reflection and to do some soul-searching that would provide them with new insights and make profound discoveries about one’s own limitations and strengths. It is in these reflections that one may find clarity for a difficult decision to make or endorsement of a shared view or practice.

We would like to invite those intending to or already serving in the helping profession to ponder on these reflective themes that endeavours to strengthen the learning journey.

Ambition and Happiness

A desire to get ahead seems natural. We want to be famous or rich or powerful or popular. We would rather that others envy us than we envy others.

But ambition can cause us to focus so much on the goal ahead that we forget to enjoy what we have got right now. Maybe we are not the richest people we know, but we live pretty well. Maybe we are not the most popular person in the world, but we have friends who delight and support us.

I will do what I can to achieve my goals, but I won’t let my ambition keep me from recognising the good things I have in my life right now.

Trust

We worry about being taken advantage of, so we keep our guard up. We protect ourselves. We’re suspicious of people we don’t know very well.

It’s good to be careful. There are people who would cheat us if they could. But being cheated is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Worse would be to let our mistrust make us bitter, cold, and withdrawn.

I am smart about protecting myself, but I want to be open to people and experiences as well.

Changing our lives

Some call it visioning. Others call it dreaming, reframing, visualisation, positive thinking, or cognitive therapy and still others just do it and don’t call it anything. It’s the art of deliberately picturing something that we desire – a behaviour, goal or outcome – so that it’s more likely to come about.

Thinking alone isn’t going to make something happen, of course. But once we have a vision, we can begin to act in ways that will make the vision become real.

I have a picture of how I want my life to go. What do I need to do to make it happen?

Wanting more

How many things do we need to make us happy? Fewer than we think. In fact, doesn’t it sometimes seem like the more “stuff” we have, the less happy we feel? More stuff means more that we have to take care of, more that can suddenly go wrong on us, more clutter around us.

We can’t get everything we think we want, but we can readjust our thinking to find happiness in the riches we already have.

It’s a good day to count my blessings, rather than the number of blessings I wish I had.