A Little About Me and How I Work

I want to tell you about how and why I do what I do, but it's one of those things that hides from words. I know that whatever I put down here won't measure up. It's my hope that you will be able to bring it to life in a way that my words cannot. Maybe if we work together we can get close to it. Most people find me gentle, and caring and open, probably about what you would, and perhaps should, expect from a therapist. I can also be sarcastic, and even irreverent at times. I'm not everyone's cup of tea, but who is? I do bring all of me into the room when I work, and most people seem to like that. The feedback I get around that is that this is what makes my style of therapy work. This post might give you a little more of a sense of how I can show up for you.

I don't have a "professional persona" that I put on when a client walks into the room. To be clear, I am professional. I have a very high level of personal and professional integrity that protects both me and my clients. I also tend towards colorful language, and I may kick my shoes off and curl up in my chair while we are working. I don't own a tie.

I cannot expect you to be real with me if I am pretending to be someone I am not. So, you get all of me. 

Keeping in mind that every session is different, and every client is coming from a slightly different place, most folks come in because there are things they want to look at that they don't feel comfortable sharing with others in their life. Other times they just need some guidance or some different tools to work with what's showing up. I work with lots of both, but this post focuses more on the former...

It's an honor for me to hear people's stories, to learn about where they've been, how they got to this place, what's working for them, and what's not. What wakes them up at night, and what keeps them up. (not always the same thing). The stories don't tumble out in our first session, it takes time, they need to trust the space that we create together. It's always on your time frame, and it usually doesn't take long.

I get to sit and hear about what's really going on. We don't do small talk, we don't chat about the weather. I say "I get to", not because it's easy, but because it's an honor. Because it humbles me every time. The courage my clients show when they risk enough to speak their truth is a gift. The gift is mostly to themselves, because of the freedom they find hidden in it, but it's also a gift to me, because these are their jewels, their treasure, that they are sharing with me.

Good therapy isn't just about listening to secrets, although I do believe there is a great value in just that simple, yet impossibly brave act of giving voice to the unspeakable. Good therapy is about being able to speak directly to whomever is showing up to tell that story. When we tell those hard secrets, we speak from that moment in time. There's an opportunity in those moments to directly address that person at the moment of the event. Maybe it was last week, maybe it was 40 years ago, it's all equally valuable.

Sometimes they just need to hear that I believe them, that it wasn't their fault. Sometimes they need to see that I can hear about something they did that was hurtful or harmful to another person, or to themselves, and that I'm still here with them. I'm not disgusted, I'm not angry, I'm not scared. I'm just here and holding that and I still see all of them, the good, the bad, and everything in between.

It's not the sharing that we fear, it's the reaction.

It's the fear of rejection, fear that we will see them the way they too often see themselves, fear that the worst of what they think of themselves is true.

Sometimes, in the space between the roaring in their ears when they share something scary, and the silence of the space between us that can hold it, something shifts for them. Just a little wedge of light that whispers to them that

Maybe you are not just this thing that happened.

It does not need to define you.

It is a part of a whole.

It's OK to let it be there, you are not alone with it. 

This is a slice of what might unfold in my office, other days it's a recap of the week and an exploration of what worked (AKA, that was a good move) and what didn't (AKA that was a bad move). I tend to move back and forth from diving deep and holding space for the hard stuff, to "how was your week?". Then we get to see if we can connect the dots.

I've written other posts about therapy and group work, please check them out if you're interested and get in touch if you would like to schedule a session.

All the Difference

There are times when I am touched by what I read. It doesn't happen often enough, perhaps I don't read enough of what touches me. As a graduate student, the opportunity to read what comes to hand and catches my eye is rare. Over the past few days I have been blessed again and again by a book. When Women Were Birds is exquisite. For a man who cherishes the relationships that women have with one another, it is a gift. I have often romanticized women's connections with one another. I freely admit it. Although, in my process of putting those relationships on pedestals, I have come to understand what I idealize, what I find sacred and essential. I know that women can be mean and petty and shallow and manipulative in their dealings with one another, just as men can be. I also know that men can be tender and supportive, and love one another in a deep and profound way. I have been blessed to have some women in my life who have let me in. Who have allowed me to be in relationship with them in ways that most men are not allowed. We have done a great disservice to intimacy in our culture by sexualizing it. Sex can be intimate, without a doubt, and hopefully is often. But there are many paths to intimacy, and I believe the gate that guards the door is not sex, but vulnerability. This is why I feel there is a gender gap when it comes to true relationship. Most men often don't do intimacy well, especially with other men, but too often even with their female partners.

It's too scary. It's too...vulnerable. 

One of the most powerful things about my work is the opportunity to model vulnerability, especially with male clients. It's hard to nail down what this means, exactly. I know what it's not. It's not weakness, it's not submissive, it's not disingenuous. It is perhaps simply the absence of a mask. The moment when you leave it all out there, and you're ok with the result, whatever that looks like. It's easier for me with some men than others, and sometimes we never get there, but that's the goal.

Intimacy is often one of the bravest things two humans can do together. 

There's something about the therapeutic environment that allows this, maybe even demands it. Most men struggle with this, especially with other men, because we have been taught that it's not safe, and often it's not. What this means however, is that we have generations of men who have never been fully seen. Hundreds of millions of individuals who have never gotten feedback on who they truly are, because it's too scary to really put it out there. The result is a nation of men who are uncertain about themselves. Men who, when they feel "less than", put on more masks, get more violent, more angry, more abusive in a desperate attempt to prove that they are ok. All the while, they slip further from their goal.

Terry Tempest Williams' book brought all this around for me. Her writing woke voices I haven't heard in a while. Whispered between her words, were the voices of the women in my own life who made an impact. some by their kindness, some with their humor, some with their judgment. Voices of women that have loved me, supported me, been disappointed in me, and at times likely hated me.

But they all saw me.

And as Thoreau once famously wrote, that has made all the difference. 

The Edge

  In bodywork we often refer to "the edge". It's that place where you start to come up against resistance. We also refer to "the wall", which is the place where no further movement is possible. In massage the edge is where we do most of our work. I've been reflecting lately on what other places in our lives we find this place, and the short answer is...

Everywhere

In our workouts, in our relationships, in our work, in whatever we do for personal growth. It's the edges that we need to find to enact a change. Sometimes they're sharp and we come up on them abruptly, causing us to shrink back and wonder what just happened.  Others are more familiar and are worn smooth by repeated visits.

Sometimes it feels good to work with these places, challenging ourselves, pushing that boundary ever closer to the wall. (of course, the wall moves too, but that's another story)

At other times that edge is so sharp and so scary that we just can't work with it at that time. Sometimes just taking a seat a little ways off and acknowledging it's presence is enough for now. Sometimes the awareness is all it takes to begin the work.

No matter where you find yourself as you approach these places, be gentle. Knowing when to stretch just a little further and knowing when you've reached that place where enough is enough is important.

I tend to go through spurts in my life where I take on lots of edges at once (so many of them are connected), and then I take a break, I coast for awhile, and I let all that work settle in and integrate. Then I'm off again throwing myself at those places that scare me, challenge me, or confuse me.

Admittedly it may not be the best way to get things done, but It's what I do. From the outside I'm not sure how it looks. I guess it looks like a lot of different careers, a lot of moves geographically, lots of varied interests, a lack of financial stability.  I've found that this is impressive or disappointing in varied degrees depending on where someone is in their own life and what their relationship to me is.

I'm just starting grad school, I'm an intern at a college counseling center, everywhere I look I see edges, and more than a few walls. I like this place. It feels alive. I know some of those edges will cut me. I also have my eye on a few that have got me in the past, I still have the scars.

I'm ready for them this time.