Counselling truly is your journey of a lifetime, your magical mystery tour. You may come to counselling feeling cornered, restricted and encumbered, trussed up in chicken wire, strapped into a strait jacket or tangled up in swaddling. Maybe you feel as if you are living inside a glass bubble. You can see the world outside it but seem unable to communicate in the way you or others want, or to feel what you or others want you to feel about people and things outside your bubble. You may feel your head is full of sticky black cobwebs, rendering your brain unable to move at the normal pace.

Did you see the film, The Mission? Do you remember the burden the protagonist had to try to rid himself of, in order to live? Do you remember how he doggedly persisted in trying to get to the top of the waterfall, dragging his burden, increasingly heavy with rain and rust, determined not to let go of it, unable to realise that to move forward he had just to cut it free, let it drop and watch it roll away from him forever. Do you feel like that - weighed down by the burdens accumulated through past experiences and life? Do you want to be able to let go of all that stuff - to feel light and unencumbered, free?

Counselling can achieve that. Yes, it can feel a terrifyingly risky first step. Yes, it can be painful - sometimes very painful, but there is laughter and humour too - and growth - oh yes, growth, along the way. Given time, patience, and above all courage and trust in yourself, your counsellor and the partnership between you, you really can achieve that.