Dear reader,

today is exactly one year since I formally left Slovenia, cancelled all my papers, accounts, insurances and moved to London with a one-way ticket, no work contract and no place to live. Looking back over the past year, I think it was the best decision I ever made but not because London would have been so spectacular or I wanted to escape something. Neither, really. It is more an analogy with our working with clients when at the beginning of our work, some would have it difficult describing what is it they are hoping for and even more difficult describing what that might look like. I did feel a bit doubtful and scared at the beginning, but also trusting that life will present itself to me best it could. And it did.

We live our lives the best we can in given circumstances. And many times we think we are giving all we can. And other times there is so much more to discover, but we do not give ourselves a chance or simply overlook that we might have extra resources, some of which we have long forgotten about or some we thought we never had. Yet they surface, when we need them.

And they surface when you do things you’ve never done before, in places you’re not used to. Easy roads do not make skilled drivers, but skilled drivers often don’t consider themselves as such once they master the skill. In Solution Focused Brief Therapy or Coaching we however do. Looking for hidden gems is exactly what us as practitioners are curious about – the resources people have and demonstrate every single day, but might not be aware of or the circumstances around them don’t recognise it as such. As was with me – now looking back moving to London doesn’t seem such a big thing, but thinking about it on this special day, my life has changed dramatically since then. Travelling loads, I always had a sense that I need to pack many things “just in case”. Whenever I moved in to a new place I wanted to make it a “home”. In the past year I learned that the more I drag around, the more I enhance my sense of vulnerability. I am totally comfortable with uncomfortable now and pack extremely light. Feel totally stable with unstable world. And those are actually skills – I know that everywhere I’ll go and anything I’ll do in the future, I’ll not only manage, but also enjoy the journey. I don’t need stable, predictable or safe anymore. It’s an illusion anyway. Life is a constant-changing process and stability is rather our enormous skills of survival and thriving disguised. So glad to be a Londoner now. Feels good to be here and I think I might stay another year. UK is a great country and I feel good in it. For now (and asking about Brexit – if UK government doesn’t know what to say, how would I?)

As for you, never underestimate your skills. Rather than looking how far you still need to go, how about turning back and celebrate how far you’ve come?

Biba

Look forward, but don’t forget that you’ve got a rucksack full of resources with you. That’s the only baggage you’ll ever need.