To Each Their Own

Therapy is a unique relationship. Meaning it is about you and for you. I collaborate with you. I’m not the focus. I don’t direct. I walk alongside. I may guide for a bit. But you do the work. You’re in my office for 50 minutes each week. You are out in the world for the remaining (however many) minutes (I don’t care to do the math.).

Sometimes your work on the outside means:

-Clinging tight to the truth of who you are when it’s hard to believe.

-Holding on to hope and believing you will heal.

-Releasing yourself from old patterns.

-Surrender to the reality you cannot change others but you can change yourself.

-Developing and keeping healthy boundaries (knowing where you begin and end and where another begins and ends, separating yourself from unsafe and toxic people).

-Tearing down walls that prevent intimacy and being seen and known.

What is the work you’re doing? Might I be able to join you?

A Blessing, No Ordinary People

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-there are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit-immortals horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. WE must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
— C.S. Lewis

Inner Circles

Most of our relational discomfort, conflict and unhealthy patterns stem from poor boundaries (see: You Do You) When I feel responsible for you or that you’re responsible for me, it is no longer a relationship. You are there to serve me, to emotionally care take and regulate my distress. It is transactional. This is often an area of focus for me with my clients: learning what is within your jurisdiction and what is not.

Another area that we discuss is determining your concentric circles of intimacy. I often find that people think others are due/owed information. Emotional, internal boundaries are misconstrued for “closed off”. (There are certainly people who are closed off and that is where the boundary is too rigid. Boundaries can be too loose or rigid. We’re going for “just right”.) Because they don’t want to be viewed or judged as closed off for not sharing parts of themselves, they may extend those parts to others who are not worthy, are not safe.

I share with clients they have their own concentric circles of intimacy and people they get to assign to a particular circle only have access to what that level of intimacy indicates. No more and no less. Others have to earn the right to be invited to a more intimate circle. It is a privilege to have access to our most vulnerable parts. And we need to protect ourselves by knowing who is allowed what.

Do you know who is in your circles?

Bittersweet Goodbyes

I’m in the business of goodbyes. My (and every counselor’s) job is to work myself out of a job. I know I’m meant to journey for a season, the length of that varies, but it will come to an end. And that means I say goodbye. And those are hard. They are hard because I have walked alongside someone through very intimate and significant moments. I’ve been invited into a very precious part of their life and given the honor to see them and hold their tears and join in their laughter. So when they’ve done the restorative work they set out to do and we know the season of working together has concluded, it also means our relationship ends. It’s a unique relationship for sure but a relationship nonetheless. And that makes the goodbye a hard one.

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Cancel Celine

“You know, we have pieces of the people that have cared about us all through our lives, and they’re all part of us now. And so each one of us represents so many investments from others. No one of us is a lone.”

No disrespect to the reigning Canadian pop queen. We’ve all sung her ballad “All By Myself” for karaoke or ironically. I do think a lot of the time we do think we are all by ourselves. Being by myself (without any emotional support or nurture) is very different than the feeling of being lonely. I want to address the feeling. It’s valid. Full stop. AND we can also self-soothe that ache by identifying our connection to parts of others that are comforting, protective, nurturing, loving, kind, compassionate, supportive.

When I work with clients, sometimes I will ask them to identify people (or animals/pets) that represent for them nurture, protection, and wisdom, so that they can draw from them when they need to feel loved, safe and protected and direction and guidance. The people or pets can be real or imagined. You may have met them or may only know them from afar. For example, I’ve had clients choose characters from Harry Potter. Other therapists have told me people have used Oprah or Michelle Obama as nurturing figures even though they never met them. I personally use Aslan. It’s so powerful what happens when we connect to parts of others (real or imagined) that can be so reassuring. The amazing thing is that we carry that representation within us. We are doing the reassurance by receiving from ourselves what we need and want and providing it through the connections we created.

We are your figures? Who are the people who you reach for in moments of pain and hurt?

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#nofilter

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I was thinking about various messages we lives our lives by. We are meaning makers by nature. That’s how our brain works. It creates schemas to help us process things fast and make an assessment about whether we are safe or not. Did you know that is your brain’s #1 priority? To determine whether you are safe and determine the degree of threat….0 to get the hell out. And sometimes because of passed painful experiences and trauma, our brain can be rewired to see threat where there isn’t one. Now we have this threat filter (“people are dangerous…stay safe…isolate…numb” or “attack…defend at all costs”). Those filters shape how we see others and how we see ourselves and how others see us. And a narrative is formed…this schema. It’s our brain’s shortcut and shortcuts can be efficient but they can also miss out on very important data.

Do you know what your natural filters are? If we are unconscious and unaware of them, we will live our lives looking through a lens that may not reflect reality and can have us miss out on true connection to others and within.

So let’s begin by looking at events that shaped us and see how those filters were meant to protect but when it’s used on everything, life becomes very limited. Identifying the filter is the first step. Next, learning to slow down to name the filter and its purpose. As I slow down, I can see more of the present moment and take it all in and can use that data to make meaning of that moment.