Giraffe Life? What sort of name is that for a cognitive hypnotherapy and coaching website?
Allow me to explain…
When I moved to Brighton in 2018 it felt like a good time to my give my cognitive hypnotherapy website a makeover.
I’d been writing about intensity in families for a while on my blog Laugh, Love, Learn, and that had connected me with some lovely kindred spirits from around the world. Meanwhile in my work, I was seeing more and more sensitive and intense clients, and I wanted my new website to reflect that.
One day I told a friend I was trying to think of a name that reflected the kind of people I wanted to connect with – 'quirky and playful, but at the same time powerful'.
After listening patiently for a while, my friend lit up.
“Giraffes!” he exclaimed. “They’re vulnerable when they’re young, but by the time it’s fully grown, a giraffe can put a lion in its place!”
The giraffe metaphor fit perfectly with my experience of how people with intensity often struggle when we’re children, but as we grow up we can learn how to harness our intensity to live rich, fulfilling lives.
Over the next few days something else happened that made me fall in love with the giraffe theme.
In my search for companionship in my new city, I’d started hanging out with someone who I was beginning to realise wasn’t quite the friend she'd first seemed. She’d often put me down, and she took from me far more than she gave.
As I reflected on what my friend had told me about giraffes, I was able to effortlessly let that toxic relationship go, with zero drama (in fact, the person in question was so self-absorbed, I’m not sure she even noticed).
As a bonus, I love that giraffe talk is the name of the gentle but powerful way of communicating used in non-violent communication (NVC). NVC creator Marshall Rosenberg called it this because giraffes have enormous hearts and can see across the whole landscape. (Cute!)
Last but not least – how cool is this? The collective noun for a group of giraffes is a tower. What better name for a place for us to come together and celebrate our strengths?
No time to read? Watch me share my story here.