Clients often come to my office with issues they can't solve.
If I haven't met them I spend a few minutes getting acquainted. How long have you been with us? Where are you from? How many times have you been to treatment? What's your drug of choice?
While my questions are more of a way to get them to relax, I also learn enough to maybe help them with their issue or issues.
But most of the help I give them is about changing their perspective. I can't remember a client coming to me with a problem that could be resolved in the present moment.
That is, whatever is going on with them has something to do with the past or the future – not this moment.
"I have to go to court when I get home because I have a warrant."
"My family is rejecting me because I can't quit using heroin."
"I think my wife is divorcing me over my drug use."
The way to feel better when thinking about what might happen or what has already happened, is to learn to live in the moment. Because if we look around us at the now, everything is okay.
But if we're in a far off future, or if we're mucking around in the past, it's easy to feel bad about our lives.
When Mark Twain was at the end of his life he said "I'm an old man and I've been through many terrible things in my life. And some of them actually happened."
If we can adapt this viewpoint for ourselves we might find more acceptance and joy in our days. Less fretting about the future or the past.
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