– I wake today on the day I usually write my blog, with the heaviness of a therapist taking a moment to have the melancholy musings of just another human being. So I beg your indulgence and the indulgence of those who are tempted to pull out their text books as I really am aware that what I’m about to write has some very valid theoretical responses. I guess I just want to be Karina for a moment and talk about how it can sometimes feel for therapists under our professional guise, as we watch patients/clients give up.
I think it important to say up front, that our practice doesn’t run groups for those with psychiatric illnesses. We run groups for the ‘worried well’. For those who have found their life strategies no longer work for them in the face of a curve-ball life has thrown them; and also those who have lived a life-long game of ‘pretend’ happy, but in fact are on an endless search to find some balm for a festering internal sore; or simply those in search of meaningful human connection. Some come covered in labels as if to bandage themselves in explanations for their ache, but these are mostly just groped-for reasons to hopefully explain their discomfort.
And so I begin…..
Groups are an amazing place. They bring with them humanity at its rawest and a magnifying glass onto all the tricks, ducks and weaves we have honed over our lives to avoid. It’s an incredible place. Heavy with expectancy from those attending, rawly engrossing and humbling to us facilitating.
I spent 7 years as a participant in Group and now have spent some years facilitating, so I know both sides of this truly life-altering place. It is a passion of mine. I hold it as a deeply rooted belief that it is a place where miracles happen. Where people come face to face with themselves, sometimes for the very first time. They get a chance to hold their own hand and to nurture that part of themselves that they have attempted to nurture by getting others to do the loving and holding, this only culminating in an endless and fruitless search.
In Group, they learn to be whole by knowing that they are already whole. And by learning to accept their humanity, they grow and become something bigger – something more meaningful for themselves and the world at large.
I have met many such people on the way, and when I meet those who walk away, I am always struck by the question “Why do they run?” That’s not to say I don’t really understand why some Group members want to run when they come to the nub of what it is for them – that scary place that has stifled, paralyzed or rendered them unable to manage up to that point, and that has brought them in search of change.
I do.
I know why they want to. What my soul wants to know is why they do?
As I have said, this is not a theoretical exploration. This is a heart response. It’s really a rhetorical question. Of course I know why. It’s painful, it’s terrifying and it’s raw. In my role as a therapist watching them ‘run’ by way of excuses, avoidance and sometimes just disappearance, I grieve for how hard it is for some; as a human being, I grieve for a lost opportunity for a more meaningful life. It is painfully apparent that at these moments, to accept the untenable is favorable to facing the unfamiliar.
A touching quote from Thích Nhất Hạnh speaks to this very idea:
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
I’ve been asked before why I capitalize the word Group. Partially because I view it as another modality like Person Centred therapy, Gestalt therapy etc.; and partially and probably primarily out of reverence. So strongly do I feel about this process, that I feel it deserves a capital for no other reason.
Let me speak about my experience where life felt hollow, and lacking the meaning I needed. The hollowness resided inside me and it followed me and accompanied me into every joyful part of my life and amplified itself in the painful times. Even though I didn’t know it at the time, I was neither sick nor broken and was functional in the world at large. But my soul missed a connection to myself. I was confused and searching for what I couldn’t find on my own when Group happened to me.
How it happened, was the stripping away of the excuses, the stories and the hiding places. Writing it now, I remember vividly as each of these was surrendered, how naked I felt, and the urge to run was overwhelming at times. Falling back into old ways lured me and felt so much safer and so much less threatening. It almost felt at times like I bled inside – it was so hard. But one thing I always remember saying was “I want a life that means something”. I would tell my therapist this over and over again. I want something different, I want better:
I watch now as these processes repeat themselves with others and when they run, I hurt for them. They come thinking they are broken, and I want to tell them it is their pure ‘unbrokenness’ that has alerted them to the fact that something could be different. They are just human beings struggling with something that is out of place or wanting attention inside them. It seems so much easier for them to feel broken and unable to change, than to feel well but challenged – just like every other human being. Labels fly, so they can carry them in their backpack of reasons. But these are mostly just another hiding place.
As I said when I opened, I’m feeling melancholy today and I guess I’m reflecting on the loss of some who were so close to ‘getting it’. Therapist I may be, but human being also. Outside the stoic but hopefully understanding face I show when I hear the pattern of withdrawal begin, I’m sad. I want more for them, just as they did when they first began the journey. Many of course get there and it is such a joy to see them unshackled.
Tomorrow as is the way with emotions, I will have a new feeling, maybe harsher, maybe lighter. Today I can only write from within the emotion I now sit. That’s the wonderful thing about feelings, they come, and they visit and alert us to something inside and leave. It’s a gift that we as human beings share. Sadly when we try to push them away, they become a curse and worst of all, we miss their message. A beautiful poem called The Guesthouse, taught me how important each and every one is.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
-Rumi
To finish, I share what I said to my very dear and wonderful therapist after one of his shows of humanity, “I would much rather have a therapist who knows what it is to be a human being, than to have one who wants to list the ways in which I’m broken in order to remove himself from his own humanity”
Karina Stell – January 2015
