It is a lovely springtime evening and as I settle down to write this blog post I am counting my blessings. Next week is half term and I am in the final few weeks of the penultimate year of my psychotherapy diploma, which finishes at the end of June. Come September I will have begun the very final year of my training and by this time next year I should hopefully be making preparations to take on a new role as a qualified psychotherapy counsellor.
It's an exciting prospect and sometimes it still feels very surreal. Just three years ago I had only just thought about doing an academic night class - and now here I am, in the last stretch of this semester and looking towards my final year of training. I am also looking forward to the end of studying for a time - it is possible that I will resume further training a year or so after qualification, but I do feel that I need to take some time out for myself before I embark on further study. By then I will have been studying for four years, so I will have earned the break.
It is a strange thing, reinventing yourself...it can be fun and exciting, but there are also moments of doubt and wondering if what you have embarked upon is really going to be worth it in the end. I have had quite a few of these doubts over the last three years and it hasn't always been easy to trust that the universe has my back covered. But its the little things that tend to prove we are on the right path and there have been many instances of serendipity that have helped to smooth out the path before me.
As an example; by the next academic year, the course I am currently studying will no longer be offered as a night class in my home town. It will be amalgamated with higher levels and offered as a part time 3 days a week study course. When I started at level 1, the level 4 I'm now on wasn't offered locally at all and I was faced with having to take a train out to Leeds or Manchester to complete the diploma. Level 4 was only offered as a local night class from last September, right when I was ready for it, having passed my level 3 last summer - which means that I have been very, very lucky...I have fallen through a window of opportunity which has only been open for a very brief time; just long enough for me to enroll and qualify, in fact. I feel extremely grateful for this twist of fate, which has certainly been in my favour. That's serendipity for you.
In addition, as part of our course we have to undertake so many hours of personal counselling, which is expensive and costs hundreds of pounds. But almost as soon as I had arranged my first private counselling session, I received a commission to write a new feature from an editor who had put a freeze on all commissions for the past two years. Yet suddenly she was back in a position to offer me writing work, which helps to pay for the extra training expenses. Serendipity again. Take the leap of faith and trust the universe to provide.
Other things have also made me think that I was meant to do this course. The lovely counsellor I am seeing is a subscriber to Spirit&Destiny magazine and she is familiar with my column and books etc, though we didn't know that when I first booked a session. The building where she has based her practice is now the local village business center, but it used to be my step-dad's pub and my mum's old kitchen is now the therapy room! Its uncanny!
It's a building where I have lots of history and a place in which I feel completely at home. Even better, I have recently been offered rental space there should I choose to set up my own private psychotherapy practice once I'm qualified! Again, its a fortunate twist of fate and serendipity at work...opening the door and giving me a glimpse into my future as a private psychotherapist with my very own practice.
In my final year I have to go out on placement for one half day a week and I had been told how difficult it is to find one, but the very first organisation I contacted has said I can start with them as soon as I feel ready. So I could well be on placement with SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) come September, helping soldiers and working with the Military as I planned. I am also looking for a second placement in a more general setting and I have no doubt that I will find something local and suitable, without too many problems.
Oh, and the new feature commissions that have recently been rolling in - they are of a self-help psychotherapy nature in content, so my training is feeding my writing, which in turn feeds my training expenses, just as I hoped it would back in 2013 when I started Level 1. The seeds I planted back then are starting to bear fruit and I am enjoying the abundance.
It is all being presented to me on a silver platter... like magic. All I have to do, is show up and be ready to receive with an attitude of gratitude. The Serendipity Fairy is casting her wand over my life and I could not be happier with how things are going right now. My writing career is enhanced by my new academic knowledge and is funding the psychotherapy training; my editors are loving this new string to my writer's bow and I am enjoy the challenge of writing something totally different, fresh and exciting. It has been a series of magical moments; of becoming more aware of those convenient coincidences and being grateful for them.
I hope this post has helped you to become more aware of serendipity at work in your own life...because giving thanks for magical moments of fate as you go about your day will in turn give you more blessings to count each night. Whatever career path you are on, or wish to be on, have faith and trust that it will work out for you... Blessed be.
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