Bluebirds

When I turned 13, I was given a Bluebird of Happiness ring for my birthday. It’s supposed to symbolize happiness and prosperity and when given traditionally, is an offering of best wishes for a young girl entering her teens and on her way to being an adult – or at the very least, no longer a young child.

I was rapt.  I’d never owned a real ring.  Only those cheap plastic ones for kids.  This was a piece of real “grown up” jewellery.  Of course, the first thing I did was put it on.  Within about 60 seconds, my mother, brother and sister (Dad was at work) all decided it was too big for my hand and needed to be put away for “safe keeping”.  It was taken away immediately and I never saw it again.  It’s the shortest I’ve ever owned any type of gift.  I think my family actually set a Guinness record there!

Anyway, I never forgot it and often wished for it back.  Decades later, I figured what was I waiting for and why not give this back to myself – to hell with my family.  Just because it wasn’t the original ring didn’t make any less important to me.  So, I tracked one down and bought it.  Ah, the satisfaction of opening that box!

Sometimes I wear it.  But I also got a lovely pair of silver Bluebird of Happiness earrings and I wear those absolutely every day.  I adore them! 

For those wondering, I got mine from The Jewel Shop in Belmont (Geelong) but since they do online, they are available everywhere!  In my case, I have back a part of my life that was taken and I couldn’t be more delighted.

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Try Outs

Lunch time in our new tea room is proving to be quite entertaining.  Topics vary and while some aren’t to my taste, others are endlessly amusing.  Today, it was all sports talk.  Normally, I’ll just tune it out but this topic was about tryouts for teams for kids and how that unfolded.

While I sat listening to what worked, what didn’t, why it didn’t, what the coaches were looking for and why it was wrong, how unfair it was to the kids, etc, I was brought to mind of the closest I’ve ever come to a sporting tryout in my life

I was in Grade 4 so I was about 9 or 10.  My catholic primary school had a ‘league’ of sorts with other catholic primary schools in the area, and we competed against each other.  As I recall, the boys played Cricket and the girls played Netball.

It was getting on for Summer and these mothers turned up in our Grade 4 classroom one day to explain Netball to us and teach us the rules.  Not one word of it made the slightest bit of sense to me.  Normally, ‘d say it hit my head and bounced right off.  This lot didn’t even come within cooee of my head.  It all just merrily slid right over the top and went splat into the wall.

They spent ages explaining it to us.  What each position was.  What they did.  Where they could and couldn’t go on the court.  Rules you couldn’t break.  Bllah blah blah.  I was never so bored in my life.

Then they dragged us outside and onto the Netball court and we had to show them what we had.  Could we catch?  Could we throw?  Was anyone especially good at landing that ball through the hoop?  They were looking for the best to fill out the three teams – 4A, 4B and 4C.

If you were really good, you were in group A.  Mediocre landed you in group B.  The more hopeless among us landed at the bottom of the heap in group C.

For my own part, I was out there with the others.  I still had no clue where I was and wasn’t allowed to go on the court so I just went wherever I felt like it and trotted all over and into places that were totally out of bounds for me and damn the consequences.

I dropped the ball far more than I ever caught it.  I couldn’t throw to save my life.  And when I did have the ball, I would invertedly move my feet, known as stepping, and a huge no-no which brought the game to a halt, and had the ball given to the other team.  That didn’t exactly win friends and influence people.

When the day finally arrived, the den mothers gathered us back into the classroom and read out our team assignments.  It was no surprise to me that I’d been relegated to the bottom of the heap and allocated to 4C. 

When we went to our first game, I found out exactly what the den mothers had thought of my skills.  I was so good at the game, I was awarded the lofty role of ‘reserve’ – meaning I sat on a bench for 3 years cooling my heels while everyone else played. 

It wasn’t all bad.  I got to read a lot of good books and I can tell you, I enjoyed those far more than I would ever enjoy chasing a ball around a court in the hope of scoring a point.  I’m just not competitive like that. 

If I’d known how to knit at the time and owned needles and wool, I would have brought along a project and happily sat there churning out scarves, hats, and only god knows what else.  Sadly, woolly creations were still years away.

Of course, my parents forced me to go to the award presentations each year and I sat there watching nearly everyone else get a medal or trophy, while I sat there knowing that if you don’t play, you get zip.  It was the only part of the whole thing that upset me. 

It wasn’t MY fault that our coach had decided to sideline me for the entire season and not even give me a chance to set so much as one toe on the court.  If they won’t give you a chance (however bad you are) you cannot be in the running for any kind of acknowledgement.

It’s not the indulgent world of today where every kid who so much as breathes gets an award of some kind.  Nope, the lesson was clear.  Only the best get rewarded.  The rest, get dissed.

This whole Netball thing was run each year for those in Grades 4, 5 and 6.  It really got on my wick come the finish.

In the third year, when I was in Grade 6, I decided to blow off the award night.  I never got anything, so why bother wasting my time turning up?  If you have no expectation of any accolade, the whole thing is just deathly dull and I could think of a million better ways to spend an evening.  So, I blew it off.

The next morning, there was a school assembly.  They were held infrequently when there were announcements or something so although one being held was a bit out of the ordinary, it wasn’t totally rare or unheard of.  I just stood there in the mob and waited for it to be over.

Then I heard my name being called out and did a double take.  Huh?  What?  Me?  Surely not.  But yeah, I was being called forth in front of the entire school.  I didn’t know what I might have done to deserve it but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted the entire school body as a witness to whatever was coming.

The Principal handed me a card with two small ribbons tied together in one corner and a bronze medal hanging from it.  I’d won the medal for consistent effort or some such BS.

The only thing better than being handed an award in front of all the Grade 4 – 6 girls was having it handed to me in front of the entire school.  For a while, I dared to be a little pleased and happy about it. 

Of course, that didn’t last.  And it didn’t last, because I had an older sister who despised my guts and constantly found new and cruel ways to tear me down and stomp me into the ground.

On this occasion, she airily informed me that every third year, everyone on all the teams gets a medal so they all come away with something.  It doesn’t mean a thing except that the den mothers and school was trying to be polite and keep the parents on side.

From that second, the medal meant nothing.  The whole possession of it was a reminder that I was so much a hopeless nothing that I didn’t even rate a chance to put a toe on the court.  My sister stalked away smirking proudly and ever so pleased with her handiwork.

And that might have been it, except, perhaps I didn’t fully believe her.  Today, some 50 odd years later, I still have the card with it’s still sky blue and maroon ribbons (the school colours) from which dangles a bronze medal which has never been engraved.

Every now and again, I come across it and take it out and finger it.  It was the closest thing I ever came to being on a team of any kind.  In all other games in the schoolyard, I was that kid who was either last chosen or not chosen.  This time I actually MADE it onto a team, albeit only as a bench warmer.

And these days when I finger the medal, I still hear my sister’s long dead voice taunting me into insignificance, but I don’t pay it much mind anymore.  She was just being exceptionally vile, nasty and mean.  Growing up in that sour house, how could she be anything but?

I’ve had a lot of years to put things into perspective and honestly, that medial is just a token memento of something I once did.  It doesn’t mean anything else for better or worse.  I has only the meaning I choose to accredit it with, nothing more.  It’s my movie and I call the shots.  If I choose to rewrite the narrative, I can and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

And perhaps having found a place where I can stand in my power and decide how I want to be in the world, then go ahead and live that, is the greatest award of all.  Lucky me, I have a small bronze medal to remind me of that any time I might need a refresher.  I’ll take it.

It’s A Long Way To Truro

I had to read this book in Year 9.  Of course, I’d heard all about the Truro murders in South Australia.  7 girls went missing and their remains were later found in scrubland.  The images of the 7 of them were plastered all over the news and papers forever.  The book, was something else entirely.

It was written by Anne Marie Mykyta who’s 15 yo daughter, Julie, was one of the victims.  It is the harrowing tale of the long wait for her to com e home and the pain of finding out the truth.  Julie (beloe) is second from left on the top row and she was a stunningly beautiful young lady. 

Told entirely from the perspective of the family, it is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read and honestly, should be mandatory reading for every teenager and parent.  I would love to get my hands on a copy of this book, but sadly, it still eludes me.

It is right up there with Go Ask Alice and Christiane F.  Some lessons should be learned via the page, rather than in person once it’s too late.

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Qualifications

Call me old fashioned, but I fail to see how people who’ve done just 3 DAYS of a course with Tad James can seriously call themselves a qualified hypnotherapist.  It appals me that people think themselves ready to see clients after the most shallow and basic of training which seems best suited for self-hypnosis and not client work.

Don’t get me wrong.  He’s good at what he does.  He just didn’t learn it in 24 accrued hours.  What he’s really good is marketing.  He wants to sell his product and have people sign up for his courses, and they do.  Doesn’t give them a professional qualification.  Never will.

I did a year training on a well-structured course which contained assignments, practical assessments and 40 hours of clinical practice before I could get my Cert IV Certificate and it’s a nationally recognised qualification.  I then went on to do my Diploma which is another year of advanced training and each one cost over $7k. 

Tad James’ website makes it sound like you can learn it all and be ready to set up shop after just 3 days – which you can’t.  It’s like someone thinking they can work as a surgeon in a hospital after doing a first aid course.  The skills take time to learn and feedback is essential to best practice.

I sincerely doubt that Tad (or any of his staff) are going to teach about micro signals to identify when you’ve triggered an issue in your client, let alone how to handle it to not just manage the crisis but work with it to a good outcome. 

His website talks about Time Line Therapy and NLP.  Well, great.  Both are very helpful tools to have in your kit.  However, I’ve found Ego State Therapy to be massively more effective and even woven both Time Line and Ego State into a combination of my own making to achieve a better resolution for my client.

And what happens when your client is resistant to classic hypnosis?  What is the recommended solution for that according to Tad?  To address such things, you need a vast array of techniques to fall back on and experience in using them in order to move seamlessly through your session.  You may be paddling like crazy underneath the waterline, but the therapist must always remain calm and in control above it.

And what about confidentiality and ethics?  What training is there in these things?  Or are they too busy teaching just 2 techniques to touch on such a crucial element?  What if a client is disclosing something deeply personal such as child sexual abuse?  What are your legal obligations?  What is the best form of therapy to address it?

And how old should a client be before you agree to work with them?  If they’re underage and want help with focus to study, what are your legal requirements?  Is it appropriate to work with a child the way you would an adult?  What are the boundaries you need to set in place and ensure are observed to make the session safe for everyone?

It seems to the height of hubris for people to seriously think that because they did a paltry 3-day course, that they are ethically and legally qualified to hang out a shingle.  In my opinion, they are without a doubt, dangerous. 

It’s all very well to suggest that you tell someone they can float high in the sky above their time line until they find the first time the issue occurred.  And if you didn’t ask the right questions up front, you could be sending them into a panic attack if they have a fear of heights.

And isn’t it lovely that in most cases, when a client abreacts, it is recommended to tell them to float above the feeling so they can observe it but not be touched by it.  Marvelous when you’re telling them to float was what set it off in the first place.  How do you respond when you’re in a bad situation that you created and you have to fix on the fly?

Is there any guidance offered about identifying a medical history to determine if the client may have issues you need to deal with during a session such as shortness of breath?  And what if your client is on anti-depressants or anti-psychotics and has an unexpected reaction?  If you don’t know to ask all that stuff up front BEFORE you start induction, you could be asking for a massive amount of trouble and it’ll be the client that wears it.

I also find myself wondering if there is any mention of memberships to industry Associations or the need for Liability Insurance.  In three days, with a huge amount to cover, I doubt it.  Would any Association or Insurer agree to cover anyone with such limited training?  I doubt that also.

If you don’t understand the triggers and reasons behind a pathology, how can you hope to address it, let alone resolve it?  Would you seriously let someone work on a wound you have with a scalpel when they’re not a doctor and have no comprehensive and legally recognised training?  I wouldn’t.  Not in a pink fit.

And yet, there are those who have the hubris to give themselves the ‘el cheapo’ training and think they’re ready to mess with people’s mental and emotional wellbeing.  I find that highly disturbing at best and terrifying at worst.

If you’re that serious about being a hypnotherapist, forget the quick fix cheap courses and invest in some bona fide training that will give you a proper qualification and one which is reputable.   Sure, it costs more, but if that’s your goal, why not give yourself the best opportunity for success? 

Save the 3-day courses for learning a hobby.  When you are trying to learn a whole occupation, that takes time and ongoing effort.  Even when you accept a new job, there’s a training period and 3-month probation to see how you do before they agree to keep you, and nobody thinks that’s stupid or unreasonable.

If it’s fine for all other occupations, why should it be any different for this?  Training.  Effort.  Documented clinical hours.  Written assignments and practical exams.   These things matter.

And nobody gets all that in just 3 days.  Ever.