The hamster wakes up sips its water and jumps in its wheel. It runs and runs as the wheel spins and spins. It does this until it’s dead tired or right when it starts asking the question: why am I doing this? What have I been doing this for?
Counselling is all about adjustments and change.
The hamster has worked and worked; it wants more in its life but the wheel whom it serves doesn’t owe it anything. Counselling is all about being free from that wheel.
People come for counselling because they had enough of their current (and recurrent) situation. These human beings just want to proceed to the next stage of their lives. We look at our hamster wheel in contempt, in disappointment, and most of the time in fear.
I’ve personally been in that wheel (several of them in fact), I’ve ran and ran the rat race to the point that I believed that the wheel is the only reality there is. The tracks were laid infront of me and those were all I was seeing. I didn’t realize that there is a bigger life out there and that I could have easily step aside and be free from my situation.
It doesn’t matter what your cycle of traps are. You are stuck in an unfulfilling relationship, you are autopiloting your way through your work week, you call yourself a lazy bum for always procrastinating and waking up at 10am. Whatever it is, if you are stuck in your very own hamster wheel and you want out, then counselling is for you.
In reference to the imagery of the hamster wheel, here are 4 types of people who come for counselling:
- People who don’t know they can move away from their wheel (denial and blind spots).
- People who dont know how to move away from their cycles (lack of information).
- People who can’t push themselves to move away (motivation).
- People who keep turning back (relapse).
Life is all about moving forward to the next stage of development. We can’t stay in primary school forever. The single guy/girl will have to prepare for married life. The newly weds will have to move on to having children. The manager will have to look forward to becoming the vice-president. And the list goes on…
This is not about greed or about not being contented in life. This is about growth, maturity, and self improvement. This about helping yourself so you stop becoming a burden others; counselling is about improving yourself so that you, in turn, become a blessing to others.
If you find yourself stuck in a stage in your life (or worse, going back to an earlier stage in life), if you feel like the hamster which we’ve been picking on, then it is time to consult your counsellor. Check out some blind spots that you may have and deal with the fears and motivational issues that are pulling yourself down from soaring to the next stage of your success.
This is how we help people in Christian Counselling. This is how we are of value to our clients in Grace Counselling Centre. People are empowered with the truth of Jesus Christ, and this courage leads them to live the full life of progression and success free from the weight of fear and anxieties.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1