How good it feels to be grateful for practical friends. I am 'lucky' enough to have many people who continue to be supportive in the bad as well as in the good times. They are not just fair-weather friends but those types of friends who stick closer than a brother or sister.

Over the positive years, I was one of those trainers who dished out platitudes without proper sensitivity towards other people's pain. Now that I have experienced more of the difficult side of life, I'm in a better position to realise trite words are sometimes unhelpful.

One such platitude is changing the word "Impossible," into the two words, "I'm possible," transforming the meaning though the insertion of a gap and an apostrophe. It's very clever, and I think it even inspired me the first time I saw it. It represents a breakthrough to action – moving from the seemingly impossible to the personal responsibility that says, "Hey, I can do something at least!" Why would I then accuse this of being a platitude?

I accuse it in those situations where it doesn't work. I've been faced with what seems like impossible messes to sort out (they aren't but they seem that way). Jumping to the "I'm possible," frame really hasn't worked for me in this situation. In fact, over time, I've moved from, "I'm possible," to "Impossible"!

Yesterday, however, I came to an awareness of a third option – one that I'd been in receipt of all the time but hadn't recognised the full power of it. It is, "We're possible."

I've got a "Pete" in my life. A really practical, no-nonsense guy. Pete gets stuff done. He came to help me with some of my mess. My point is that there was no way I could do some of the things we achieved on my own. It was genuinely impossible. No amount of psychological mind games of seeing myself as "I'm possible," would have changed it either. No, it was impossible until I got help. I got help, and the impossible became possible.

The messes remain, but some of them were sorted, and I realised like never before that we are not supposed to do everything in a self-sufficient way. "We're possible," is better than "I'm possible," any day.

Today, then, I'm going to suggest we share and celebrate those people in our lives who move us from, "Impossible," to, "We're possible." My thanks go to Pete for starters!

Lex

A Moodscope member.