Tell Your Truth

I am looking at an amazing array of taupes, browns, blues, and white. Half is brightly illuminated by the rising sun, the remaining still in shadow. At about 100 yards there is a teepee shaped tangle of bramble, vines and fallen trees. This is where the cardinals gather. I’m thinking it’s their synagogue. Or

maybe a rec center. Whatever it is, there’s often eight or nine of the red birds pausing there. My woods. My eye-candy. I know this view will change. Soon, almost undetectably, green will emerge. Soon, the white winter cover will be only a memory.

Today the winterscape is lovely. A year ago I was on the Siberian tundra, enduring the long, dark days. So too, in therapy. T
My therapist keeps saying things can be different. They are different. I am wondering if this new work with this new T is to be my shift. The imperceptible, undeniable, glacial movement of change. I am wondering if the dynamics between us will slide into the anti-functional. If our discourse will become toxic repartee. If my past will again become my present.

I am noticing differences. T wants me to be honest. She wants to know when I think she doesn’t understand. When I am distressed by something she says – or doesn’t say. When I feel sad or hurt or needy. These are the voices of my inner child. T doesn’t take offense, doesn’t defend herself. Instead she shows a compassion that asks what these feelings tell us about my wounded inner child.

Perhaps I feel frustrated with T for not understanding. I can stew and fuss. I may feel sure that if T truly cared, she would know how much I hurt or how angry I am. I can minimize my feelings, let it ride or wait for T to figure out what is bothering me. All the while this misunderstanding becomes a wedge that could become a rupture. Thus far, the onus truly is on me; T hasn’t done anything wrong. A misunderstanding is not wrong. All along it has been my responsibility to tell T I didn’t feel understood. This is my first job: to express my truth. What T does with the information is how/when/where I discover if T is ineffective, harmful or helpful. If T takes it personally, she’s ineffective. If she blames me for it, she’s harmful. If she tries to understand and uses the process of detangling to learn my wounds and teach self-care, she is helpful.

When I finally integrate the self-care into my everyday routine, it is summer. And I am grateful for the comforting warmth and light-filled days.

And so, it is not astonishing that, though the patient enters therapy insisting that he wants to change, more often than not, what he really wants is to remain the same and to get the therapist to make him feel better.  - Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage Of Psychotherapy Patients

Tell your truth –