I took a Level 1 counselling course because I was genuinely interested in learning how to listen properly, support people and not immediately jump in with my own thoughts.
Which, as it turns out, is harder than it sounds.
Part of the course involved doing a practice counselling session. We had to sit opposite another person, listen carefully, avoid interrupting and, most importantly, remain completely non-judgemental.
I thought I was doing brilliantly.
Apparently, my eyebrows had other plans.
My Mouth Was Professional. My Face Was Freelancing.
After the practice session, I was told I had done very well.
Lovely listening. Good responses. Calm manner.
Then came the slight problem.
My eyebrows.
Apparently, at certain questionable moments in the conversation, they were going up. And down. And doing all sorts of little movements that I had absolutely no knowledge of.
I was sitting there thinking I looked calm, warm and neutral.
Meanwhile my eyebrows were apparently shouting:
“YOU DID WHAT?”
Non-Judgemental, Apart From the Forehead
This is one of the strange things about counselling.
You can control your words. You can choose your tone. You can remind yourself to listen instead of fixing.
But your face has been communicating for decades without asking permission.
And mine, apparently, had developed its own counselling style.
The person opposite me could say something outrageous and my mouth would calmly respond:
“That sounds like it was difficult for you.”
While my eyebrows were halfway up my forehead filing a formal complaint.
And That Is Where the Idea Started
That little moment stayed with me because it was funny, but also because it made me think about what counselling actually feels like from both sides.
The therapist is trying to listen properly.
The person talking is trying to work out whether they are being judged.
And somewhere in the middle are all those tiny human things nobody teaches you about properly.
Body language. Facial expressions. Awkward silences. Saying the wrong thing. Trying again.
It made therapists feel much more human to me.
And eventually those thoughts grew into a book.
Think someone could use this?
If this made you think of someone, share it with them. Sometimes the right words find people at exactly the right time.
The resulting book
My Mouth Is Qualified, My Eyebrows Are Not
A sharp, sweary and wickedly funny therapist diary about clients, chaos and the thoughts a trained mouth knows better than to say aloud.
So technically, I suppose I wrote the therapist book.
But I think we all know who deserves some of the credit.
My eyebrows.
They had been working on it for years.