6 Things I Learned in Therapy

I’ve spent more time in therapy than I care to think about. More hours on that bloody couch than I’ve spent in the shower, brushing my teeth, or on the phone with telemarketers, because let’s face it, when I’m home, there really are no decision makers at my house. If I calculate one hour a week for 12 years, that’s 600 hours, which is 25 DAYS. What do I have to show for it? Lots of wisdom and advice. Journals and journals of it. But for your sake, I’ll just list six. And after you get done reading my shrink insights, I want you to tell me yours, because I’m compiling such pearls for a writing project.

1. Know your triggers.

From the first year of therapy: know your triggers. If a conversation about global warming, consumerism, or the trash crisis in the U.S. is overwhelming you, simply excuse yourself. If you’re noise-sensitive and the scene at Toys-R-Us makes you want to throw whistling Elmo and his buddies across the store, tell your kids you need a time-out. (Bring along your husband or a friend so you can leave them safely, if need be.) For me it’s best if I don’t hang out in a bar with a crowd of drinkers, you know, if I don’t want to drink myself.

2. Count to four.

I can’t remember if I learned this pearl in therapy or in first grade. All I know is that breathing is the foundation of sanity, because it is the way we provide our brain and every other vital organ in our body with the oxygen needed for us to survive. Breathing also eliminates toxins from our systems.
Years ago, I learned the “Four Square” method of breathing to reduce anxiety:

* Breathe in slowly to a count of four.?

* Hold the breath for a count of four.?

* Exhale slowly through pursed lips to a count of four.?

* Rest for a count of four (without taking any breaths).?

* Take two normal breaths.?

* Start over again with number one.

3. Hunt down unrealistic expectations.

Yep, I identify those bad boys every week. I record them on a sheet of paper or (on a good day) in my head and then revise them about 2,035 times during the day. Cataloged are things like: “penning a New York Times bestseller in my half-hour of free time in the evening,” “being homeroom mom to 31 kids and chaperoning every field trip,” and “training for a triathlon with a busted hip.” Listing the more realistic possibilities of actions I can take to inch toward my broad goals (being a good mom, an adequate blogger, and a healthy person) can be extremely liberating.

4. Celebrate your mistakes.

Alright, celebrate is an awfully strong word. Start, then, with accept your mistakes. But I do think each big blunder deserves a round of toasts. Because almost all of them teach us precious, rare lessons that can’t be acquired by success. Nope, the embarrassment, humiliation, self-disgust … all those are tools with which to unearth the gold. Just like Leonard Cohen writes in his song, “Anthem” that a friend of mine tapes to his computer as a reminder to ignore the perfectionist in him:

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.

5. Add some color.

My therapist often points out that I am color blind. I see the world in black and white. Example: either I am the best blogger in the entire blogosphere or I should throw my iMac into the Chesapeake Bay and become a water taxi driver. Either I am the most involved mom in David’s school or I am a slacker parent who should let a more capable mom adopt her son. Does this kind of thinking sound familiar? In order to get a pair of glasses on my inner zebra, then, my therapist helps me add a few hues to every relationship, event, and goal so that I become a tad more tolerant of life’s messiness, unresolved issues, and complicated situations that can’t be neatly boxed up.

6. Believe in redemption.

Redemption is an odd thing. Because identifying the broken places in your heart and in your life can be one of the scariest exercises you ever do, and yet only then can you recognize the grace that comes buried with every hole. If the journey to the Black Hole of despair and back has taught me anything, it’s this: everything is made whole in time … if you can just hang on to the faith, hope, and love in the people and places around you long enough to see the sun rise yourself. Absolutely nothing is forsaken, not even those relationships and memories and persons that you think are lost forever. Most things are made right in time. So you don’t always have to get it right on the first try.

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