About
My own story...
My name is Cheryl Webster, I am The Art Mumma and this is how I came to Holistic Counselling.
Like many people in my neighbourhood in the seventies, I grew up in a toxic environment with abuse and domestic violence, both my parents were alcoholics and there was no real healthy role modelling. I married young and despite my efforts to find a non-drinker, I repeated the same family system that I grew up in, marrying a man with mental illness and domestic violence was normal.
After having my children, I found the courage to separate from my husband. Not long after, my eldest son Tom, at 6yrs old was diagnosed ADD. Tom was by this time, self-harming, refusing to eat, running away from home, and hiding under the desk at school all day. He actually has autism but living in the bush with all of the drama surrounding, you get what you are given and I spent years trying to work out how I was going to teach my young boy basic skills & education.
After exhausting mainstream resources, I found a Steiner School with multi-sensory education and thought that this was going to be the answer to all my problems, and I enrolled all three of my boys. Tom started being picked on- like kids do- because he was different, but there was a real bullying problem at the school and my son was a victim coming home with massive bruises down his back. This made me incredibly angry and incredibly sad. I caused a huge ruckus as to what the school was going to do about it…. Nothing! they did not have the resources. So now I also felt like a victim too. Someone needed to pay for this!
Then one of the other mothers suggested that we get a counsellor in to talk to all the parents and that’s when I was introduced to holistic counselling. Trish Sherwood the founder of Sophia College, dressed in a striking red suit introduced herself & drew two simple stick figures on the board- they were the two postures of the bully & victim.
The two shapes fit perfectly into one another like a Yin & Yang. You cannot have a victim without a bully. The two are so intrinsically connected because they are both extremes and actually need each other to balance out- so they attract one other.
This was my epiphany! My turning point! Hmmmm! This was not just about my son anymore. Well this is awkward. And it meant that I could no longer blame someone else for how I felt. I needed to take some responsibility for being a victim. But this was all I knew how to be.
I was hooked and had to know more. I booked some holistic counselling sessions for myself and the following year enrolled to become a counsellor. Every single thing that we learnt to apply to a client, we had to apply to ourselves first and I was able to understand why I quite often felt the way I did and how to overcome it. And also understand the way family dynamics can impact on your life & what to do about it.
I could not be more grateful for how this model changed my life for the better. Some years later after graduating I created a counselling practice and worked for Sophia college teaching Holistic Counselling. My son is an adult now and despite a shaky beginning, he has grown into a confident amazing human being.
Cheryl Webster, Holistic Counsellor Art Therapist
