Rhi Axtell – Writer

One year ago, I finished my level 2 in Counselling Skills course. Tomorrow, I begin my level 2 in Counselling Skills course.

Huh? What? You just said…

Yes, you read that correctly. Tomorrow I begin the course again, but this time it is:

1. In-person

2. Not a scam online course

Consider this a warning to all fair readers of the dangers of online learning. Make sure you fully research your course credentials before paying for anything. I made this mistake, so you could learn.

(You’re welcome.)

It wasn’t fun to learn that the course I had spent two and half years on was not recognised by official regulatory bodies.

It wasn’t fun to finding out that I had spent £500 on what ended up being a useless piece of paper.

And the following shame spiral of feeling inadequate, feeling I had wasted time and money, and feeling that I was stupid for not noticing that the online course was fake was incredibly not fun.

I almost gave up completely. I almost decided it wasn’t for me. Maybe I wasn’t worthy of becoming a counsellor. Maybe the universe was sending me a message that I had made the wrong choice.

It took me half a year, and a long meditation/nap, to realise that perhaps this didn’t have anything to do with the universe sending me a message. Maybe I wasn’t the failure/idiot/loser that I kept telling myself that I was.

Maybe it was just some people online being shitty.

And it took all my resilience and all my go-get ‘em attitude to sign up to a new, completely recognised, counselling course. Because I want to be a counsellor. I want to help people. The road might be hard and littered with scammers, but I’m going to walk it.

(But I’ll bring a map this time).

So I finish this blog post with some wise words said to me when I was at my lowest:

Not everything is a message from the universe, Richard.