A small brown bird with a yellow beak, a frequent visitor to the garden, has begun imitating the sound of the clicker. This has resulted in great confusion for the new puppy and for me. The housemate thinks this hilariously funny. The same clever little bird can also imitate the sound of a cellphone and the shrill of a car alarm.
This week I have been thinking about the language of the heart and that softening which comes from letting go of the need to control oneself and others in a harsh, compulsive manner. This is something I first began learning about in therapy.
These days most psychotherapists have learned to redirect their attention from gathering information about the client to attending to the client’s actual experiencing in the living moment. The idea was that my therapist and myself were going on a journey together and would try to explore issues and difficulties together with as little defensiveness as possible. To imagine myself being heard rather than judged was a great leap of faith for me.
In our sessions together this meant that I would mention something that made me feel bad. Unhappy. Uncomfortable. Angry.
The therapist would then say: ”So let’s just sit here with that feeling of discomfort, and see what comes up.”
Then we would sit there in silence, and eventually I would say something else. She would say, “So how does it feel to say that?”
After a while, stumbling and reluctant, I would say, “Well, it feels really horrible.”
She would say, “So, can you tell me what feels horrible about it?”
And so on. Trying and failing and trying again. Saying the hard stuff and staying with the feelings that came up. Not covering up, not pretending, not denying how horrible it felt for me right then and there. It was really about myself and her finding just a way to explore what I was feeling. Her job was to stay out of the way and provide a space for me to explore the feelings.
Once in a while she would provide some guidance when I was blocked, but normally she would just let me explore what I was feeling, and would always encourage me to “Hang in there with that feeling for as long as you can, to see what it tells you.”
And little by little (painfully slow, painfully hard work) I began listening to myself beyond the criticising and hating and self-loathing, without dismissing, trying to justify or excuse or prop myself up. Because of that I found after a while that I could hear people differently, without blame or praise or fault-finding. I could just listen and hear what it was like to for them, how it felt to be them.
Kindness doesn’t happen overnight. Compassion can’t flower in an arid desert. There has to be groundwork and deep attending to what happens in any human life, what is being said and left unsaid, the richness and beauty and anguish of another’s life. And the freedom to pay attention to our own suppressed voices within, the longings, the dread, the dreams.
Therapy is fast becoming a lost art in the USA. I’m sure you have heard of the “new wave” where talk psychiatry is given over to the 15 minute med check because of insurance re reimbursement (or lack there of for traditional psychotherapy). My son has this. He waits for 5 minutes, talks and receives an Rx for psych meds for 5 minutes, and then schedules his next appointment and makes small talk with the receptionist for 5 minutes. Walla! Insurance has just paid $100 for his 15 minute “therapy”.
It’s all very discouraging.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/health/policy/06doctors.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
That makes for terrible reading Lou. If health authorities want to do cost-cutting at the expense of therapeutic support thhen they should stop calling it ‘therapy’ and simply streamline the handover of meds for pharmaceutically managed distress without any pretence at creating relationship. The chemical cosh without any connectedness — no, terrible to think of this.
Having spent most of my life running, dipping, dodging and denying…I can sure relate to having to learn new behaviors. My first sponsor was a 2nd grade teacher who used to speak to me in soft reassuring tones and say many of these same things…helping me learn to live with my feelings, no matter how scary they looked to me.
I still have to consciously tell myself, some days, –just sit with it for a minute. Look at it, hold it, and respect it.
The other thing that brilliant (lol) woman taught me was that “feelings aren’t necessarily facts”…something I would never have known, since I never spent enough time getting to know what they were about, on my way out the door. lol
Annie it is so hard to stay with the hard feelings especially anxiety or despondency, but it is what we need to learn. I’d run away if I could –
Sounds like your therapy sessions were learning to stay in the present.
I sit with myself in mediation practice and watch the mind jump around like a crazy monkey all the while counting my breathe. This simple act gives me great relief.
Thanks to recovery I can learn to sit with myself and not run from everything that comes my way.
Hi Diane
Very much to do with staying in the present but there is a danger that ‘mindfulness’ approaches become a cliche. We need to come to terms with the past and to look realitically towards the future.
I also find breathwork helpful –
yes well put. kindness is everything. it is the foundation for acceptance to happen.
the process you describe with a therapist mirrors my experience of what happens when I listen to newcomers and get them to disclose what they are feeling. some cannot tell what they are feeling and draw a blank, but by and large they get much better at saying whatever it is they happen to be feeling. its no big deal anymore.
also it reminds me of the ? ‘moral courage’ needed to tell the truth on any given day. courage is essential. telling the truth can be very frightening. AA taught me to go to ‘any lengths’ and thats how i learned to overcome the DREAD that shows up when I am grasping for the truth. that any lengths instruction has really helped me go beyond what is comfortable and familiar. A great blessing from AA that they told us that.
Thanks for sharing
I’m so with you on that courage and learning courageous responses as a way of life –
Owning feelings is so important but it takes time to even realize what feelings one has besides anger and fear. I am still learning and being aware. I am glad to not be a vast void of blankness anymore.
Hi Syd — I remember so well how numb and unfeeling I was in early sobriety because I had relied on alcohol for so long to make me feel –
“…I could just listen and hear what it was like to for them, how it felt to be them.”
Such beautiful wisdom.
Good to hear from you again Steve, love to Prayer Girl.
Sunshine & Happiness, my partner, tells me “Breathe out, blow out” when I am stifling an uncomfortable emotion. I tend to either hold my breath or breathe in too quickly when I’m feeling an emotion I want to run from. This keeps my anxiety, anger & fear stuck down in my chest and throat. Inevitably if I stay with my breath, being sure to breathe out, the tears come and my pent up emotion is released. Staying in the present moment is hard work and takes practice but I find it to be well worth the effort.