Today I had therapy.
I was in a really great mood so I didn't think I'd have much to say, and planned to use our session to discuss how to make therapy more meaningful. Little did I know how much work can be done in therapy when your whole session doesn't require time spent on the problems and anxieties of the moment. Today we were able to discuss solutions. And I found out how much work there is to be done. Oy.
I talked about going to AZ with my friends, and how good I felt, and how I had achieved healthy attachments with these friends, compared to my roommate, my unhealthy attachment. He said, tell me more about your roommate then. Oookay. So we rehashed the same stuff we'd already discussed. I felt my eyes burning as I could tell this was still a problem for me.
"You need to watch that this person doesn't become your drug. Where you rely on this person to make you happy. Where in your head, she is the only way to escape your isolation, your hopelessness, your pain, your loneliness, your depression, your anxiety, etc."
The healthy way is to not just have one outlet and person, but lots of meaningful places and people, and they become meaningful because I practice vulnerability and closeness with them too. I knew that already. We'd discussed this before. I knew we were just going to repeat ourselves, again, so I changed the pace. I am the pilot of my therapy after all.
As he talked, he said something interesting that I wanted to ask about. "In our many other meaningful places, this includes other friends but it also includes ourselves. And it also includes God. We must learn to drink deeply from other wells, and our own well."
My own well?? I finally asked, "How does one drink deeply from their own well?" (What is there to drink? What do I have to give myself that could be that meaningful?)
He explained, "We are social creatures, we are hard-wired to be with other people. But we're ALSO hard-wired to appreciate ourselves, and enjoy our own company. When we're appreciating ourselves, it means we like who we are, we appreciate our personalities, our sense of humors, how smart we are, we learn things, we seek to do things we enjoy, we create hobbies, we get pedicures and massages, we spend time reading books that we like."
"I'm not very good at that," I admitted. He expressed appreciation for my honesty, and that this recognition is difficult and also a terrific step toward recovery.
He then talked about how if we want to change, there is a 2 PART process. One is identifying what to get rid of (the negative beliefs and behaviors, or the lies we believe from the adversay) and the other is the replacement part. We must replace it with something healthy, something true, so we have something else to do or believe when the bad parts try to come back, "which they always will" he said. He gave me a great hand-out on which I will write down lies I believe, and next to it on the other column I'll write down the replacement truth, then turn to a page and choose from a number of distortions they match up with so I can catch which distortions the adversary is using on me the most. He said if the truths are hard to figure out, which is often the case with his clients, then we can work on them together when I come back next time.
"It's much easier to drink from our own wells and appreciate our own company, if we first dismiss the lies we believe about ourselves, and learn to love who we are."
I told him about how I just graduated from college. How I don't enjoy what I do. I feel stuck in a life/career I'm not thrilled about. But what else is there? I don't enjoy seeking things out to do for myself anyway... I asked if what I need to do is think of something I like, and do it over and over until I start to enjoy, even though at first I have to go through the motions to enjoy. "Not necessarily. If it's something we've already tried and still don't particularly love, doing more of it isn't going to guarantee we'll love it. We can try new things. Find out what kind of things it is you enjoy doing. Are you the type who loves service and making other people happy? Maybe you would love to volunteer at a hospital and hold babies or something."
I was shocked. Helping others have happiness can be a healthy hobby??? Well hip hip horray!
I told him my recent discovery of how I feel shame in service. Without skipping a beat, he said, "Yep. That just means the pendulum has swung too far on the other side, so we need to bring it back and find balance. Service is perfectly fine. It's only unhealthy when we've focused all our energy on one place, one person." Hmmm. So I can go hold babies?? It doesn't mean I'm codependent??? I can find a job/hobby that involves helping people?
He had handed me another handout earlier that I hadn't seen before and suddenly noticed it, so I asked him to tell me about it.
He explained that in order to have the ultimate joy, we MUST take risks that could lead to the ultimate pain. Talk about new understanding to 2nd Nephi 2 - opposition in all things. He said the greater pain we risk, the greater joy we can have. If we're only willing to risk a tiny bit of pain, we'll only experience a tiny bit of joy. Which for many, is not enough to actually detect or feel. Which means, we live numb lives. Like mine. The only way to get out of numb, is to risk pain.
Dang it.
That made me think of something. I told him how I'm in charge of our family reunion this year. I said my fear is that I'm going to go through the motions of this whole event, feeling no excitement, no joy, nothing, and march myself through each hour, making sure everyone else has fun, until it's over and then I can go home. This is exactly how I feel mostly through almost every family event and holiday, and have felt that way for years. I don't feel anything. I don't look forward to anything. I don't enjoy things when they're happening, particularly family events. I just go through the motions of life and I don't know how to change it. Except, looks like now I do.
So for the reunion, he said, "You need to plan things for the reunion that will make you care about it. Put some thought into it, create a theme, invest yourself, plan activities you care about." My original plan was to only plan things I knew for certain that others would enjoy. I at least chose a location that was important to me, and that was a HUGE risk--I was done risking after that. I'd give the rest away to what everyone else wanted to do. But.... if I want to have joy in this reunion, I have to invest myself in this event. And what's even harder, really hard, is that if I want to have joy with the people there (my family) I'm going to have to take risks in my relationships with them.
So, now I have a goal this summer. :) Hi ho hi ho! Off to work recovery I go!
Back to today:
Hi y'all! I've been practicing risk taking since that session, and I can tell you I have felt the most exquisite joys over the past month, stronger than I've felt in what feels like years. My family reunion is this very weekend, and I FEEL legitimately excited about it! I'll keep you posted.
