Before a Session Begins
I don’t expect you to walk into the room and immediately share the most vulnerable parts of your life with me.
And I don’t expect you to trust me simply because you booked a session.
So before asking you to tell me your story, I will usually share something of my own that relates to what brought you there. Not because your experience needs to resemble mine, and not to make the conversation about me, but because I believe that if I invite you to be vulnerable, I should be willing to take the first step.
It gives you the opportunity to experience who you are sitting with before deciding whether you feel comfortable enough to open up.
There is no fixed amount of time for this first meeting. It may take five minutes, ten minutes, or a little longer.
The session begins when you feel safe enough to share something about yourself, because you choose to.
That is also when the paid session time begins.
And if that moment doesn’t come, that is okay too. Perhaps I am simply not the right person for you. We can leave it there. Nothing needs to be forced, and there is no session to pay for.
Trust is not something I expect you to bring into the room.
It is something we first have to discover whether we can build.
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