During my secondary school days, one extra curriculum activity that stood out and which I enjoyed the most was merging students together. By merging I mean bring a male and female student together to form a relationship. I do this because it place me in a position of power among the students which I enjoy secretly and It also give me access to a lot of information and gist, as it is only normal to be the one to settle fights and issues when the relationship strive since I’m the one that did the introduction at first.
I know you are thinking, who is this weird guy. Through settling issues and discourse, I learnt a lot about how humans react and I also improve my skills in communication and also as a counsellor.
Even though as at then, I didn’t know what skills I was sharpening, I only learnt this during a moment of reflection years later.
As a person, i sometimes observe people, how they talk, the tone and words used, the body language and also how to react to things. From this observation of mine, it becomes easy to access people and also appeal to them a lot when we stay in contact.
I also notice, people find it easy to open up to me about what they are going through, their emotions and feelings and also their deepest secrets. I once ask someone why she finds it easy to open up to me, she said I do know how to ask the right questions.
This skill of being a good communicator is what I bring to the table when I meet people. That’s how I offer values to people. I love reading and I have in my own little way suck up a lot of knowledge about different topics. So when I communicate with people, I offer what I know to help. You’d be surprised with a lot of person that need just a person to talk to.
Even though sometimes people don’t appreciate this since it’s free, they’d rather pay a huge amount of money to therapists or counsellors and sit through hours of different sessions. it makes me want to drop doing it but that’s something about natural skills, you can’t help it.
When I talk to people, I advice them on life challenging issues like relationships, marriage, family issues and also business, since they aren’t paying for such, they tend to take it for granted.
Some will only chat me up when they need someone to talk to. Since they know I’m good in that area and personally I enjoy it, they just zoom in, feed on the energy and zoom out, it sometimes make me feel used. That’s one of the challenges I face with the skills.
Another challenge is that, I don’t have anyone to talk to. People see me as their guidance and counsellor, except that I don’t have my own person, someone to guide me and counsel me.
It’s always funny that I could be going through a particular situation and someone will chat me up to give advice on that particular issue. Generally speaking, this is one of the major challenges therapists and counsellors go through in their daily life. It has happened to me times without numbers.
It’s a situation of being sick and still giving people medicine to their own sickness but I can’t heal myself.
Recently I love to see myself as into guidance and counselling, because of the value I offer to people around me. I’m also thinking of getting certification on it, so I can proudly exchange this value for money without being scared of getting arrested. I think it’s a great offensive to do that without any certification.
This is my entry to this week #hivenaija prompt.
Thanks for reading through.