One of the things I’ve been discussing in my counselling sessions recently is learning not to open too many doors. Simply put that means that rather than thinking about all the what ifs (opening all the doors) that you stop and think to yourself “What can I do about the situation” before you open that first door because if you rush in and open all of the doors right away you’ve then got to go back and close them all again which can be emotionally exhausting. If you find there is something you can control about the situation you find yourself in then you open the first door and complete the steps behind that door before moving on to the next door if you need to. If you find there’s nothing you can do about the situation right at that moment and find yourself worrying about having to make that phone call or write that email and constantly worrying about what to say or write, then again it’s time to pause and think. Write down what you want to say, what questions you think you may be asked and what you think your responses to those questions will be and also schedule a time to write the email or make that phone call. You can either use a hand written schedule sheet or diary or what I’ve found works best for me is to use the calendar on my computer and set a reminder, so that way I know in my mind that I need to write that email/make that phone call and that I’ve set time aside to do so.

I hope I’ve explained the above so that it can be understood by others and I will admit it’s not always easy to not go rushing through all those doors one after the other. Take this week for example, we’ve had to have a handyman come in to do a few odd jobs around the house that we are unable to do ourselves, so with covid numbers rapidly rising in our area it’s been hard to not think about all of the what ifs constantly and then go charging through all of those doors.

Below I’ve included a gallery of useful resources.