I have decided to dedicate a post on Thursday to therapy, and offer you the many tips I have learned on the couch. They will be a good reminder for me, as well, of something small I can concentrate on. Many of them are published in my book, “The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit.”
The other day my husband, Eric, caught me cleaning our bathroom sink with the same sponge I used on our toilets. He took the sponge out of my hand and said, “We do not cross-contaminate in this house.”
I didn’t think it mattered one iota since I had loaded the thing with bacteria killers. But then it made me think of the comment by one of my readers: “Their boo-boos are not your boo-boos.” And I understood the deeper philosophy of the sponges.
When I try to console a friend of mine who is having marital problems, I don’t have to absorb her troubles and start doubting my own marriage. Our worlds are separate. Just as I don’t have to absorb all of my son’s hurt when he has a bad day at school or someone was mean to him at lacrosse practice. Although I know I’ll always ache when my kids suffer–or when a friend is going through a rough patch in her marriage–I can use different sponges. In fact, it’s best if I don’t cross-contaminate.

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