Month: March 2020

I curled up on my husband’s lap after bedtime tonight like a small child, and that’s how I felt – small. Small in the midst of a global pandemic. Small in the midst of the greatness of need in my own home from three little people seeking a new sense of normal. Small in the midst of the gnawing grief of cancelled plans, disappointment, and other losses that stack up every day. Small under the weight of my own empathy, and the way I carry all of this sadness in my body.

When feeling small and vulnerable, my brain body system jumps back to the way it has navigated smallness before, as a child. I look to those around me for the rules, for the expectations, for the people who I respect to give me some sense of certainty in the midst of so much haze. I am looking for rules, for black and white answers, for guidance.

The guidance abounds. Social distancing, stay six feet apart, hole up in your home, do your e-learning, stay in some sort of routine, stay grounded for your kids so they don’t become anxious, soak up all this time with your family, don’t worry too much about e-learning because you are making precious memories, don’t go to the grocery store, stop eating your feelings, get outside, get some exercise, support local businesses buy ordering food, check in on your friends and neighbors…there is a list a mile long of all the “should’s” – some complimentary, some contradictory, some probably healthier and more helpful than others, but a lot none the less.

And in this looking out, I forget to look in. I forget that I am not a small, helpless child but a full grown woman. I can look outside for all the guidance in the world, but then I get to experience the beautiful magic of internalizing what I have learned, what I know, what I believe, and deciding then, for myself, what is best in this moment.

How can you take a moment to listen to your own voice today? We are a social species, and seeking acceptance and belonging is deep in our bones – but we are also an embodied creation. Your body, if you listen to her, will tell you where to go. Your body may need a nap. She may need you to let the kids play a little longer with their iPad or video game so that she can breathe for a moment. She may need you to cry, or to eat a little extra food. She is, in fact, in the midst of global trauma. She may need to sit and experience the sadness she is feeling or rail at the decisions of our leaders. She may need to take a break from trying to be productive and be a good “at-home” worker to have a dance party with her kiddos. She may need you to bundle up and sit outside in the rain just so you remember that life extends beyond the walls of your home. She may need to do something with all of her grief – make masks, or donate milk, or give blood. She may just need for you to be still for a moment, even if that means locking yourself in the bathroom away from the chaos of beautiful children. There is a Divine voice in there whispering, embedded in each breath. You have listened to her before – you know when she is hungry and you choose to feed her. You can hear when she is tired and needs to rest. You can feel when she needs to curl up on the lap of someone she loves so she can feel closeness and safety.

What do you need today? What sensations do you notice in your body when you try to sit in stillness for a moment? Or are you in a place where you are keeping so busy, so distracted, that you have a hard time even deciphering the sensations your body is experiencing right now? That is a normal and adaptive trauma response…it’s like an internal “flight” response. Just notice that – notice it and go with that.

Sending love and a reminder that no matter how many “should’s” you have piled on you right now, you are ultimately the one who decides which of those stay and which go. You are allowed to need what you need today, and you are free to be exactly where you are.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Baby girl sits about 10 feet away from me and screams. She reaches and points and uses everything in her pre-linguistic communication arsenal to get her message across. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to stay in this position. There is something or someone over there that I want.” As her mom, I want nothing more than to swoop in and pick her up “solve the problem.” I want to take her where she wants to go, move her to a different position or circumstance, and being into reach whatever she is currently seeking. Sometimes, I feel like I am being cold or uncaring by not moving her.

I feel this way as a therapist sometimes too. Sitting across from people who are suffering or stuck or lonely. They don’t want to be where they are – that’s why they are in my office. Their position or way of being in the world has become uncomfortable or untenable, or they can see something good just outside of their reach and they want to get to it. It is so hard for me to not want to grab them up in my empathetic arms and to try and guide them somewhere new…but that’s not my job, and for me to do so would not be serving them. So I let them feel what they are feeling, explore what it is that they are missing or wanting, wonder and discover what it is that keeps them stuck, and support them in the process. I get insecure, though, if I don’t feel like I am “doing enough,” for them. Sometimes, I think clients (and probably baby girl) think this too, and wish that I would just fix it already.

This, however, is not how therapy works. El’s physical therapist pushes her and challenges her, and because she is a baby, she cries. Being in positions she is not used to, moving in new directions, and using her body in a different way is uncomfortable for a while. The therapist, however, reminded me this week that El’s biggest struggle is remembering that she can move. She has done a lot of work and she is so strong. The muscles are there, and toned, and they know how to do it- she just forgets that she knows how to move…and so I stay where I am when she cries, and I get down towards the floor and encourage her to come. I clap and cheer as she starts to take some tentative crawling steps forward, and I get to enjoy her smiles and glee as she realizes that she was able to propel herself.

This is true in psychotherapy as well, my friends. It’s not my job to pick my clients up and move them, it is my job to encourage them and remind them that they can move. We can talk about how to move, plan for movement, strengthen muscles and try out new positions, but the goal is not for them to get from point A to point B, but rather for them to learn how to move when they want to. It would be so disempowering for me to try and do the work for them, and it may even communicate that I don’t believe they can do it – that I don’t know they can move or trust that they have what it takes.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded that we can move. To friends like me working through stuff in their own therapy, I hope you have a clinician who cheers you on and helps you to remember that you have agency. To my friends who are feeling stuck or hurting or out of reach from the thing that they desperately want to hold on to, I hope that you find someone to scream yay as you take each little tiny baby step. To those who experience this with friends and family, who you want to pick up and move or fix or remove their suffering…maybe let’s think together about how we can instead help our loved ones find their own strength and remind them they have what it takes to keep moving  💕

 

Photo by Jordan Christian on Unsplash