When you say, ‘I’m ready’, watch out; be readier than ever

There are years in all our lives that end up being pivotal. 2012 started as a sleeper of a year. Neither did I have any concept of what would be demanded of me, nor did I recognise what God was already doing.

I entered a postgraduate counselling program at the beginning of the year, and I can remember sitting in orientation thinking, “What on earth am I doing here?” Entering a master’s program, embarking on the very first day, I wasn’t so much daunted by the challenges ahead as I was about the massive journey of time involved and the amount of assessments I would need to do. I was pretty sure I had what it took to succeed. And, as I look back, I did. But I had a blind spot I naturally wasn’t aware of. That would need to be dealt with. I had no idea. And this was the year!

I commenced lectures in counselling adults, art therapy, and also did units in counselling children and couples. In a cohort of 23, me being one of only three men, I found myself well accepted and liked. But you never realise when you embark upon a journey like this how even one moment, literally a few seconds in the scheme of things, within an entire year, can set up the entire year’s learning. This is how it was for me.

A very scary thing happened. In the group therapy context, one that I’ve always struggled in, I made a remark and the facilitator, being diligent, pounced on it. I knew immediately that I had said the wrong thing. I can’t recall what I said, but I endeavoured to hurry the process along, which revealed an anxiety within me that I was unconscious of, yet needed to be dealt with. I’ll never forget the facilitator’s look. It was like the penny dropped for her. In any and every counselling program there are these tests that await all of us, and we can either shrink with shame when the chink in our armour is revealed or we can accept it and move with it. I did both. I guess I sweated on the feedback I got; an assessment around that time. But I was determined to keep going; not avoid the pain, but travel through it.

As it turned out, I could not avoid undergoing a rigorous program of counselling treatment myself. It was suggested I undergo some psychoanalysis. I went with my facilitators hunch to go to a psychoanalyst who appeared aloof at first. He was hand-picked for me and my issue. We worked on my dreams—the stuff of my nightly subconscious escapades, not the other fluffier kind! For the first and only time in my life, over a two-month period, I ‘banked’ recall of the dreams I had in all their technicolour weirdness. I don’t ordinarily recall dreams, but during this period I saw my dreams vividly.

I journaled in essay-like detail the particulars of several fascinating dreams, and through the course of my weekly sessions with ‘Ken’ we picked through the themes in these dreams. First there was a psychoanalytic identification phase, then psychoanalysis, before a conclusion was made. The prescription was a book—a secular sociology book, and not a new one.

Within this book’s pages, I learned something about being a man that was hard to face. I had to face an inbuilt fear that I’d had all my life; something I’d avoided and what had held me back without my even knowing it. I learned about something in most if not all men since the industrial revolution. It made me feel pity for myself and other men. It gave me empathy for men and an interest in getting to know them. Until this point I had very little interest talking to men about boring men stuff. But the fact was there is always much deeper below every man, and suddenly with my own fear of men checked, together with my newfound interest in men, I suddenly was much better placed to enter ministry.

The key here, though, was the fact that I had to face the fears I would’ve avoided if I could have. As I said, the year started as a sleeper, and I didn’t know what was ahead, but looking back, despite its hairy moments and deep challenge to my identity, I’m so glad for what happened.