My hatred for math and my sensitive conscience appeared in grade one. I cheated on a math test and then confessed to my teacher. In grade two, I cheated on a math test again and rode my bike back to school to apologize. Fast forward to high school…

Math 10 - failed, took a less difficult Math 13, and passed.
Math 20 - failed, took a less difficult Math 23, and passed.
Math 30 - failed, took a less difficult Math 33, and passed again.

That’s SIX math courses in high school, which could be seen as commendable, but . . . it just shows how challenging it was for me. I could blame it on my teacher but it wasn’t him. He was a good teacher. I can still hear his LOUD voice, “Heatherrrrrrrr!” he’d yell as he waited at the doorway for his classroom to fill up with students. If he spotted me coming down the hallway, he would say, “Are you coming to class todayyyyy?” By the time I reached his doorway, my face was red from embarrassment because his voice carried the entire length of the most intimidating hallway as I walked past everyone staring at me.

Now, that I’m working on a master’s degree in psychology, I assumed it would be courses about human biology and pathology and psychopharmacology…and it is, but it also has courses on statistics and research, assessment, and diagnosis which involves MATH!

One of my goals for this degree is that I wanted to be transparent and vulnerable, qualities I want to have and should have if I want to be an authentic counselor. So, to build those muscles, if I don’t understand a concept, I admit that to my professor and ask for help. However, something else is happening. I am learning to see the value in math. (If my teacher could see me know he would yell, “Heatherrrrrr, well done!”) 😊

When you think about it, math is everywhere. If I want to buy new clothes, I’ll subtract money from my wallet to add clothes to my closet. If I want to increase understanding in my relationship with my husband, I’ll add more listening and subtract assumptions. If I want to add muscle to my body, I’ll subtract time on the couch and add squats and weights during my study breaks, multiplying repetitions and sets as I get stronger. If I want to add wholeness then I will increase time spent with God, embracing His loving opinion about me, and decreasing time worrying about what others think. It is all math!

For the past year and a half, I’ve been going for monthly counseling sessions. I need to, as part of the requirements for my psychology degree. They want me to experience being a client, but I also decided to not just fulfill the requirements but do some serious heart and mind housecleaning, really go all in!

One of the analogies my professor uses is that being a counselor is like holding a water hose, lightly and loosely so that water can flow freely. As people share their stories, a counselor facilitates the process for them of that flow in a safe and empathetic environment. If we, as counselors have personal things that we have not dealt with, then as the client shares, we might begin to feel anxiety and start to tighten our grip on that water hose, inhibiting the free flow for the client. It then becomes more about us and our issues than the client and their healing process. Dealing with our own internal lives, as counselors, allows us to hold that free-flow space for others without our stuff getting in the way.

So, in the math analogy, I subtracted every buried story, fear and secret from my heart and mind and let it go through the process of counseling (the water hose). The experience has been incredible. Scary at first but then so amazing. I’ve had a recurrent, fearful dream since I was very young that is finally and completely gone! I’m sleeping like a baby (a sleepy baby!) My counselor received my stories with compassion, understanding, a gentle curiousity and wisdom. There is an expression that grief needs a witness and so there is something incredibly healing about being able to share about the losses, disappointments and hurts of life and be met with such grace and care. The more that I subtracted from my heart and mind, and shared with a trusted professional, the more my body felt an improvement too. It relaxed, my alert/alarm system turned off and a calm, a sustainable, peaceful calm, is the sum of it all. I guess you could say that I’m a believer in math and counseling!!

If you’re feeling stuck, it could be that there are some equations out of place in your life too. Maybe you’ve experience losses like trauma or betrayal and you find that it shows up all the time or in the strangest places and it’s hard for you to relax or sleep or laugh and play. I encourage you to take some inventory of your internal life. Choose freedom, choose health, choose to become someone who can be able to hold space for others by taking care of your own business. Math is so fact based. There can be no denial that an equation of 2+2=4. It just is. That’s the fact. And maybe, you’re living in denial about some facts in your own life, some relationships or hurts that have been covered up out of fear. It’s easy to do. Truth is hard to face.

I encourage you to go for counseling with a professional in your area. There are lots of online counselors as well that make it alot easier. I’ve done that too and it can be just as effective. It may mean just a few sessions to get you back on track or months or years. I’ll go back to counseling, whenever I feel that I need an adjustment, like a physio treatement. Our hearts and minds get tensed up too. We can care for ourselves and come to understand our value as we trust our secrets with a safe, skilled person who can help. I hope you feel some encouragement that none of us are alone in this. It takes great courage to go for help, and it’s hard work, but the benefits are incredible and I wish that for you as well!

The Value of Math