Celebrating #2

The second class in this course was held on Wednesday, September 26, 2007. Last week I was not in the ‘mood’ for celebrating and vowed to work on shifting my perspective over the week. I was able to really focus on the good things or the blessings of my life rather than the frustrations. Every time I started to feel defeated or frustrated about the things that just weren’t quite going the way I thought they should I reminded myself that my family is healthy and happy, that certainly things could be much, much worse and ‘coached’ myself back into moving forward rather than focusing on those things that drag me down.

As it turns out this week I feel quite celebratory. There have been some things this week that have occurred in my family that are quite the cause for celebration. I have found that in spite of the frustrations of our cross-country move my children are incredibly well-adjusted and actually happier than I have seen them in years. My husband is more relaxed and happy with the change that has occurred in his work as a result of our move. So even though some of the practical ‘settling in’ things aren’t coming together my family is happy and united and that is the most important thing to me.

The class today was around how we will celebrate with our clients. Karen did some ‘role plays’ that would help us to know how to celebrate with our clients when they have successes. Ask the clients “How can we celebrate this accomplishment?” If the client has something tangible ask them to send it, share it…a picture, a writing that they have done or an invitation to an ‘opening’.

The second role play was a situation that the client didn’t accomplish what it was that they set out to accomplish. Celebration is always in order. How do we celebrate with a client who hasn’t reached the ‘goal’? We celebrate the effort, the values, the showing up just to say that they didn’t accomplish the goal. We need to look for the things that can be acknowledged and celebrated at every session. It is empowering and encouraging for the client when they can focus on what they have done rather than where they failed.

I think I used acknowledgement a lot in my sessions. I’m going to work at taking that to the next level and actually turning that acknowledgement into a form of celebration with my clients.