The title says it.  So I’m not going there.

We Brits are usually consumed with talking about the weather.

We are also good at talking about all the minutiae of life that fill our days and our minds as we process all the events we experience, all our emotions and relationships.

Obviously right now, we have things on our minds other than the weather – nice and sunny as it is as I write this.

It happens within therapy rooms as well of course.

A client will talk about anything and everything in their life.

When I was in training, we started our training days with a group session talking about our week, catching up with our work and lives.  There was no limit to what we discussed or brought into the room.

And I remember starting my input often with “what’s occupying my mind right now is.....”

At that particular period in my life, it became rather repetitive I’m afraid as I processed some extremely difficult issues in a relationship.  At times, I remember the tutor commenting that it felt like the other person was also in the room with me.

I did eventually leave – the relationship that is.

Generally, though we can also be very good at not talking about something, particularly if it’s a very emotional, challenging or difficult issue or process.

And clients will also do that within the therapy room as well.  Then it can become “the elephant in the room”.

I remember a client who talked about everyone in her family except her father.

Another client who talked about a lot of difficult processes but absolutely not about the fact that her son had just left home for university.

And at points in my own therapy I struggled to talk about my mother.

There are times when not talking about something is a short-term positive support to get us through a difficult time while we focus on something else – a breathing space.

There are also times when that positive support becomes a longer-term, negative and limiting defence mechanism – the elephant in the room.

So I’ve not gone there today.

But you have to decide for yourself whether the decision to not talk about the thing you are not talking about is a positive breathing space, or a negative, limiting defence and the elephant in the room.

Only you know that.

As for “you know what”....well it’s a big part of our lives and will continue to be.  But just every so often a breathing space away from it is fine by me.