Who is the healer and who is the healed?
Here I am.
6:11pm on a Tuesday in late October. Hearing the sound of little Miles downstairs, the comforting voice of Sarah. I’m sitting on our bed upstairs in our little house on Deely Street. Our first Pittsburgh winter approaches.
It’s been over three weeks now since I said goodbye to my day job. That safe buoy of a reliable number that hits your checking account every 14 days. It’s now in the rearview as I have somehow built a private therapy practice with a full caseload of clients. As I type these words, a part of my mind tells me impatiently to be grateful for this. To give myself credit and not get fixated on the uncertainties and the worries. I take a breath and invite this part of my mind to make a little space. As a client mentioned to me last night, what happens if we don’t dismiss our feelings, but listen to them instead?
There’s been a mantra that’s provided me solace and comfort in the unknown waters of self-employment.
“Life is on my side.”
I don’t know if this is true, at least not from the neck-up, as I often refer to the rational mind. And yet, from the neck-down, in the body, in the heart space - this mantra lands like a warm hug from a trusted friend.
In EMDR therapy, I help clients with putting words on the negative beliefs they carry about themselves. Beliefs that are linked to painful memories. Losses. Disappointments. Moments of disconnection. Maybe, along the way, many of us learn false lessons about our basic goodness. Beliefs like “I need to be pleasing to be loved” or “I need to control everything if I want to feel safe.” Maybe for myself, there is a quiet belief that “I am alone in this world.” So, when I hear the words “Life is on my side”, a part of my heart gladdens and feels less alone. These words offer a different type of knowing that can be strengthened and which offer a different perspective on myself and how I move through the world.
I offered this mantra to myself last night, as I rocked myself, sitting cross-legged on the bed, a candle burning on the table beside me. I put a hand over my heart, which I often encourage clients to do, and I simply let myself feel the feelings.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and similarly in mindful self-compassion (MSC), we are guided on how to be WITH our feelings, like a benevolent, loving friend who is here to offer ourselves support. This feels different than just letting a feeling “take us over”. There is the loving space between the pain itself and the kind Self who holds the pain with compassion and tenderness. How this looks for me is by talking to myself with a kind tone of voice, either out loud or internally.
“You’re really struggling right now. And it’s OK buddy boy. I’ve got your back. You’re not alone.”
I say these words to myself. And somehow the sad, scared part of myself hears them, like a child being noticed by a loving, patient parent. This hurting part of me softens with the soothing touch and the growing awareness that I am not alone, I am here for myself. And there is a relief as more tears fall because it feels safe to let the feelings flow like water down the river.
Later in the evening, I am doing more therapy sessions and I find myself moved by the words and wisdom of a client. He’s living a creative life on the west coast, and as someone who’s been there myself, it can be a roller-coaster existence. Today my client is feeling a moment of peace, reflecting on all the other lives he could have lived in perhaps safer, more stabler settings - corporate jobs or just working at a bookstore in his hometown. He laughs, admitting that there would be less fears and less worries and more stability in these alternate lives, and yet, those are not the life he has chosen. He reflected on resting in the trust of his decision to live a life which ignites his passions and feels authentic to him, despite the sacrifice of predictable income and riding the daily waves of emotion inherent to many in pursuit of a creative existence.
I listened to my client’s words and was moved by them, as I am by many folks who I share an hour with each week. It’s almost surreal hearing the commonalities of the human experiences emanating from so many people from different backgrounds and struggling with seemingly different issues. And yet here are the themes of life - a desire to feel connected and accepted, to do things that feel meaningful, to provide for those we love, to give ourselves permission to be imperfect. To be a beautiful hot mess. To be so touched by the shared human experience that happens in the therapy hour is hard to describe. I could say it’s a blessing. Who else gets to see such a cross section of the human soul? My belief that “I am alone in this world” doesn’t feel so true right now.
Who is the healer and who is the healed in these moments of connection?
John is a therapist, musician, and owner of Pivot Point Therapy - a private practice offering affordable individual and couples therapy for folks in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and California. Reach out for a free consultation using this link or drop him an email at john@pivotpointtherapy.com