Thursday Therapy

I am doing OK.

I am doing well.

I can feel the wholeness, the healing, after being shattered this summer.

We worked with this physical sense, felt sense, during my session yesterday evening. Why is it so hard for me to admit, acknowledge that i'm fine? Because, i find, there's an advocate for the small frightened child inside me. That advocate doesn't want to disappoint the child: "We're not saying we're well until we know we're definitely well and that we're never going to be not-well again!" That advocate wants to make sure there's no question about being well: "This sense of wellness might just be the prozac holding all that pain away. You might really be in pain, just not feeling it."

But as i sat with my breath -- a breath-flow that ended in my chest and not my belly, a breath-flow that came to mind as flowing into a pottery vase, the black polished pottery[1], fired so it would ring, i became clear that i could be well right now, be well in the moment, and if i was not-well tomorrow, or the next day it didn't diminish the being well of right now. I could, in fact, be well and recognize that i would be not-well in the future and acknowledge the not-well of memory, but stay with the wellness of the moment.

We explored the memory of the not-well of this summer, the sense of shattering worry and panic, and i could acknowledge that but hold that sense of now being whole and solid and protected . I have the understanding now that, "It's not my fault," and i can see where the dysfunction lies: that's my protection from the continued dysfunction.

I'm well even though the dysfunction continues.

I want so much to hold on to this sense of wholeness and being well, to never shatter ever again, but i also heard the clear wisdom that if i'm to grow, i will shatter again, like a seed breaking open.

Being not-well is not a failure, a moral failing, a weakness: it's part of the cycle of transformation and change. Somehow i need to teach that advocate and scared child that, even though it's painful to be not-well, i am learning how to become-well, how to move from not-well to well, and that the importance of transformation and growth overshadows the importance of being a static and protected, constant-well.

At the end of the session we spoke some about the neuropsychology of habituated mental practices, and i'm aware that i do not have practice at being well. I have been suspecting[2] i am more well than i "feel." In the practice of listening deeply, i realize i do *feel* well but that advocate (critic, controlling part) was constantly overriding the felt sense with doubt. My therapist didn't say, "Honey, you are in a fragile spot and still need coaching on being well, so you can chase that advocate away[3]," but i realize that this is a transformation for me that i need to *work* at and assistance will be needed.


[1] Like San Ildefonso pottery or Oaxaca's Barro negro. An earthy black, a surface i know comes from hand polishing, burnishing, with stone. More and more the metaphor of that pottery with its hand made and laborious finish appeals to me.

[2] I'm leaving this tortured verb tense because i think it captures how i am on a cusp of understanding. I'm not quite past suspecting to knowing i am well: i'm still exploring this claim of being well.

[3] For example, at the end of the session i wanted to shoo that advocate voice away. "I've listened to you, it's over, go," but didn't feel i could. N encouraged me to chase the advocate away.