We’re nearly four weeks into lockdown 3 with a potential further three months of being tethered to the home post and I am wondering how others might be feeling. Many people continue to leave their home each day for work which perhaps brings a relief for some and induces an utter dread for others. For me there’s a nerviness about the anticipation of being plunged into a state of dependency at being stranded at home along with a sense of safety, security and sanctuary. Perhaps the perceived hostility of the outside world and the need to be safe at home, reactivates old scenarios from the past evoking an uneasiness with those familiar feelings of emotional restraint and confinement. Curiously, the first lockdown felt liberating for me, unleashing a freedom from the very constraints which it now seems to generate.

In therapy with clients, we have been thinking about the meaning of being ‘locked down’ emotionally and physically and the origins of this often excruciating experience. For others, it can mean a release of the burdens of responsibility that are experienced as part of ‘being’ in the world and an opportunity to escape from the expectations and judgements which are felt to be impossible to meet and unbearable to tolerate.

Understanding the meaning of lockdown to each of us and gaining valuable insight into the powerful feelings and memories it can activate, can feel a huge relief and help us to manage those feelings more effectively.

If therapy is something you are considering, perhaps experiencing an initial therapy session could help you to begin to unlock some of those deep seated and entrenched feelings and thoughts that you have struggled to understand within yourself and yet which continue to engulf you in such pain, bringing about a greater awareness of how your earliest experiences continue to influence not only your view of yourself, your life and the world but also the life paths you choose, the decisions you make and the relationships you are in.

So, is it time to take a risk and test the water… you might be about to embark on an amazing journey of self discovery….