Thirty-something-Geoff represents a number of clients that I have sat with over the last couple of years. He was really frustrated, and depressed at the same time. As he recounted where he was at 2 years ago, it was a familiar tale. His marriage was shaky at best with a young child they were ’staying together for’, his friends were always busy with their own lives and his job was ‘just a job’. Nothing exciting; he’d fought his way into a half decent position even though he still thought he deserved better.

Skip ahead to a ‘downturn in the economy’ and a restructuring meeting that resulted in a pink slip meaning he was out of the unrewarding job.

He thought he was going to find his footing in a new business venture after being downsized from a corporate job. After all, he had always wanted to have his own company and this seemed like the perfect time to jump in. His wife was as supportive as she could be - what with a 4 year old and now a 9 month old baby at home with her. But she was tired of trying to stay positive, and of course, she was worried about their future too. They were still just keeping it together as a couple, but there certainly wasn’t any fun in this thing called marriage. Geoff was admittedly not as ‘present’ a father as he could be, and yet he just didn’t seem to have the patience or desire to connect with the family that was depending on him. He stated that he ‘just wanted to get away, to have some me time’ which to an outsider may have seemed like the most irresponsible thing he could do in these troubled times.

Geoff’s new business wasn’t going well, and he was finding that he would get angry at the slightest comments people would say. Client’s were ‘idiots’ and his wife was ‘demanding’. His kids ‘wore on his patience’ and he didn’t know why he was bothering to stick around. He caught himself ‘flipping out’ when the kids would get upset and he was very shut down from his wife.

Every direction he looked he saw failure.

When Geoff came to see me he said "I just don’t know what to do anymore. I know I have to do something but I have no idea what it is, and if I don’t figure it out I’m going to lose everything."

We got to work in that very first session. Geoff explored the "it" that he ‘needed to figure out’ and got clearer about what was important to him. I walked him though a very powerful process that enabled him to take responsibility for his choices and his lack of commitment where his family was concerned. He quickly realized that his desire to push his wife and kids away was a pattern that was really intended to fulfill a deep need for connection and peace inside himself; something that he needed to choose rather than earn, or get from the world around him. Geoff’s ‘a-ha’ moment came once he learned to identify with some of his own core values rather than what he thought he ’should’ be doing with his life. This in turn impacted his reactive anger which, according to him, ‘dissolved away as if it was a sandstone carving in a warm pool of water’.

That was a memorable description indeed.