approaching therapy

If my mind doesn’t go out to disturb the noise, the noise won’t disturb me.

– Ajahn Chah, from A Heart Full of Peace, by Joseph Goldstein

Paul: “I guess what I’m trying to say is that – these people come to me – they want me to fix their problems. And the truth is, I think all I can do is just – walk with them for a while, keep them company during a rough patch. I don’t think anybody’s life can be figured out. But it is in our nature to keep – to keep trying to make sense of it. And sometimes we can use help. That’s when if we’re lucky, there’s someone in the room who can – who can listen. It doesn’t have to be somebody perfect – somebody sufficiently screwed up, to actually get what we might be going through.”

– From In Treatment, Season 2: Week 7, episode with Gina

Paul: “I’m sorry I let you down.
I wish I could solve all your problems, Oliver. But I just – I can’t.
But one thing I can do, is–is–is talk with you, about everything that’s going on.”

Oliver: “So what?”

Paul: “But one thing maybe it will help you feel less, alone.”

– From In Treatment, Season 2: Week 7, episode with Oliver

That’s the title of a book by Kelly Bryson. I really do admire his work and perspective.

And then I read this quote in Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, by Richard Bach. New York: Dell Publishing, 1977, p. 59:

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

But I like to question things.
So I ask, “really?”

Is that true for you?
If you can’t speak your truth, would you rather be dead?
Live free or die?

For you, are there some needs which may be more important than authenticity?
How about safety? A roof over your head?
Would you choose to hold your tongue in exchange for what scraps you do get in your relationship with your partner?

It’s easy for therapists to exhort people to “be authentic” and to suggest to them that they aren’t responsible for someone else’s reactions.

But just b/c you aren’t responsible for someone else’s experience doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with that other person’s reactions. It’s what my teacher Judye Hesse calls the game of “truth AND consequences.”

What if you tell your partner that you love him and then he withdraws because he’s afraid to allow himself to receive love for fear that if he allows himself to receive, then he’ll also allow the possibility of loss, and now he’s admitted vulnerability, and that’s not a position he wants to put himself in. Or what if he yells at you back and tells you to stop taking care of him, and gives you the icy shoulder for three days?

Or what if you tell your partner you are disappointed that you didn’t get to spend some time with him this weekend and he just turns it back on you and gets on your case for the time you went out with a friend of yours two months ago, and he won’t stop yelling at you until he’s had the last word. Is it worth it to say anything?

Would you stay in this relationship? Would you rather be alone?

Sure, you can take responsibility for your own experience — you can try and manage what comes up in you in the face of your partner’s reactive display and soothe yourself. But how much tension and coldness can you stand?
And sure, you can always heed Jim Morrison’s advice and just “walk out of town.”

Today I cracked open the cookie and read these words:

A good laugh and a good cry
both cleanse the mind

The back says: “LEARN CHINESE – ” and the word is:

Today

and the Chinese characters follow underneath.

So there you have it, the answer to my pondering about whether to indulge the cry, or to just deal with it.
I was thinking that life calls for a little of both.
Cry, and then wipe your eyes so you can see reality, and move forward from there.
It’s a version of Leonard Jacobson’s teachings about presence.

No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need
– Rolling Stones, 1969 album Let It Bleed. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

When I hear people who are distressed because they aren’t getting what they want, I think of Viktor Frankl. How would it be if you were in a situation where it was clear that you weren’t going to get what you wanted? And if it was clear that you might not get your needs met as fully as you would like? Would it be easier to step out of that illusion of thinking others should somehow be different than how they actually are? And step out of the paradigm of blaming and power struggles?

Viktor Frankl survived living in a concentration camp. His book is aptly titled From Death-Camp to Existentialism. He survived. How about you. Will you survive or at least get by if your needs aren’t met? What would you live for? What would keep you going? Hope is what helped Frankl, even if it turned out there was nothing at the end of the road.

I also return to some words I overheard a Czech restaurateur named Vladimir say to some elderly patrons. They had driven all the way from Santa Rosa to Inverness, CA. The roast duck is always on the menu, but that night – I think it was a Sunday night – it was not available. The man was obviously angry as evidenced by the tautness and redness in his face. To which Vladimir responded with this inculcation: You can’t alvays get vat you vant all of zee time.

I think that no matter what we do or don’t do, change will happen. In the direction of something positive. Maybe it won’t look like that on the micro level, but I think that’s just where things want to go. I’m not talking about entropy. I’m talking about awareness and lessons and change and moving closer to the light.

A bunch of years ago, probably around 2001, I attended a meeting in Berkeley that was open to the public during which a woman channeled a being whose name was Amaritha. It’s just about the same truth we can all access anytime. You know what I mean. As in, “Remember the love. And if you can’t remember the love, remember the possibility of there being love.” So this is what she said that’s relevant to what I’m saying about change,

We are all on our own paths to our own salvation.

So keep that in mind when you see someone struggling with what looks like some sort of self-destructive addiction. Who are we to know what part of what picture this is about? I like the humbleness in that vantage point.

A good friend once said defiantly, “they’re my issues. I don’t have to work on them if I don’t want to!” I was thrown off by the concept but I thought she had a great point. It’s so true. It’s your life. You can do whatever you want with it.

And I think of those old soul types who have been around the sun so many times they have stopped striving for enlightenment and have just settled in with their cigarettes or other choice of comfort. They’re wise indeed but also a little sad and bitter. I don’t want to lose my hope and my idealism. Or if I get around to being realistic, I also want to be happy at the same time.

The only God in Buddhism is Change.
Things come. And things go away.
And thank G-d when they do.