The Ripple Effect Process

I used to find life hard. For too many years I'd tried to get it right, but I just kept on tripping myself up and falling into the gaps that existed in my own life. I'd climb back out, dust myself down, pretend I didn't feel ashamed, paint on my confident face and set out again, only to keep repeating the same process. I just didn't have the map which would show me how to reach a happy and worthwhile life; but I did have an inkling that such a map existed, at least metaphorically, although I suspected that it was only available to people who'd had a much different background to me, and that if by chance I ever did get to see such a map then I wouldn't be able to understand it, let alone use it properly anyway. This book illuminates and reflects my own arduous trek to create such a map which shows the way towards a better life - for those of us who need a bit of help and guidance along the way. A map which can be used by anyone willing to get their sturdy boots on and undertake the journey to a life without the big gaps into which they have also been falling.
I will begin by explaining the 'why and what' reasons for my writing this book. The 'why' stems from my growing awareness of a need for something new which can fill in the gaps – more gaps! - that still exist in current therapeutic services and in what they have to offer to the public. The 'what' is an introduction to 'The Ripple Effect' Process, a programme of psycho-emotional-education which I have created as a new approach to overall emotional and psychological well-being. I don't intend this book to just be a marketing tool – that would be selfish, inconsiderate and arrogant of me to say the least - and so I have been sure to include insights, tips, expanded information, and even a few poems and visualisations which I hope will make the whole book more comprehensive, informative, relevant and attractive to you. I want it to be the sort of book that you will happily pass on to someone else, or even encourage them to have their own copy to use and refer to themselves.
Over recent years the phrase 'ripple effect' frequently arose in my work as a psychotherapist. I would often hear myself use the term to describe the effects that even a simple change in ourselves can have upon the wider world. We are all energy in a bigger field of energy, and everything has an effect upon everything else. I know first-hand that significant personal change is possible as I myself have changed considerably since being the angry, aggressive and neurotic young woman that I once was. My own life path has meandered along with its own twists and turns, steep climbs and sharp drops, and I can hardly recognise the person I used to be - although I do feel sympathy for her struggle, and gratitude for her persistence. My own path to growth and change has had a ripple effect upon my relationships with my daughter and grandson; and with my more recent choice of friends, as well as with the clients I have had the privilege of working with over the last 17 years. I have often seen this ripple effect of change in my clients' daily lives too, and in the ways in which they have improved their own relationships, particularly with their partners and children, and most importantly with themselves. The name for this new form of therapeutic help therefore had to be 'The Ripple Effect'!
The ripple is a symbol of growth, sharing, hope, and change. We are all energy and as such we all affect one another in many unseen ways. When we refine and clarify what we intend to project out into the world we give the best of ourselves for others, who are in turn affected by that and undergo changes in themselves too.
I am someone who never believed that she could write a book – but here I am on an incongruously snowy day in April starting to do just that! I have changed so much myself, and I now know that great change is possible given the right opportunity, guidance, direction, and support. I sincerely hope that the modules of 'The Ripple Effect' Process will provide these conditions for your own growth and change, so that you can fill in and heal the gaps that have been tripping you up and getting in the way of you being all that you deserve to be.