Tell me what you want …

What you really, really want …

No one does the Spice Girls better than Adele and James Cordon on Carpool Karaoke. It is fun, joyful, connected, surprisingly fresh and playful. There is serious sh** going on in the world. A lot of it. Even in the most privileged places.

Suffering on every street corner– in the exponentially proliferating variations of not enough. Inside the buttoned-up coats of all good– humans glitching out. People who look together and are falling apart.

Confusion at every door– about who we are and what we want. Overwhelm– about what we are doing, what we aren’t and how much more we can squeeze onto our plate even though we promised ourselves we’d take stuff off.

And then there’s Adele with her down-to-earth admissions and impossibly long eye lashes … and James’s with his child-like enthusiasm and scrumptiously executed harmonies… and at the song’s end, the sense that perhaps silliness is not a frivolous irresponsible waste of time. Maybe if we loosen our grip a little, the world won’tall come crashing down around us.

They sing, Now, don’t go wastin’ my precious time, and I’m all IN.  

Two weeks ago, I did something bold, bodacious, idiosyncratically brilliant and impossibly disorienting. I released my therapist. Best to wait to write about these things until they have settled into something remotely useful.

After five months of mostly insightful and often eye-opening sessions, we had a session in which he was not present. He phoned it in. I left much worse off than I came in. It took several days to digest what had even happened because I couldn’t reconcile him not being there during an especially vulnerable session.

I sent a respectful email asking what had happened.

He apologized profusely, kindly. Said it was unacceptable that I did not feel heard, that it was his responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen. And he admitted that, in fact, there was a personal matter that may have impacted his ability to be present. But he would very much like for us to create ‘a corrective emotional experience’. And he was deeply sorry.

I was so relieved. And promptly responded that I completely understood. Despite his being a wizard, he was also human. So, I replied with gratitude and then asked, if given the circumstances, he would consider waiving his fee (of $250 ) for our next session for us to have that ‘corrective emotional experience’.

His next email stated very professionally and with none of the previous warmth, that “a corrective emotional experience’ cannot be translated into a specific amount of time or money”and that he does “not believe ‘making reparations’ is a model that works as a measure of healthy interpersonal dynamics.”

I responded that I agreed completely.

It is not possible to quantify a corrective emotional experience, but that the last very counterproductive session I had with him did have a very exact amount of time and money associated with it and that I felt uncomfortable with the idea that it would be my responsibility to correct that simply because the nature of the business allows for allcircumstances to provide a corrective emotional experience.

I added, that in my business, which is also subjective, if a long-standing client who has been very happy with my work feels that I have delivered something subpar, regardless of the circumstantial details, I do not give them a refund. But I will absolutely give them an hour of my creative time gratis to help them ‘feel heard’ and ‘not dismissed’. For me, this is not a matter of ‘making reparations’ but preserving the integrity of the relationship.

I ended my note with gratitude and caring. I did not expect him to change his mind. But, given how much I thought he cared, I did think he might wish me luck.

It can be one of the inherent flaws of therapy that you pay someone to care about you.

Despite repeatedly communicating how important and vital the trust and connection between us was, he was able, in a single email, to write it off. Despite the incredible obviousness of this completely consensual business agreement, it is still somehow shocking. And then crushing.

My most beloved therapist, who I saw when I lived in Chicago twenty-five years ago, did not subscribe to this model. For him, healthy interpersonal dynamics was more of an adaptable, customized per person, intuitively guided experience. He saw my challenges more as opportunities for personal organic evolution.

I think the word “corrective” would have had too much red ink in it for him.

He subscribed more to native Indian American wisdom and Greek mythology. He gave me the feeling, that although he was in it with me all the way, my well-being was not tied to him. And there were multiple paths he could suggest for where we wanted to go.

Less absolute rules. More case by case assessment. Flexible in terms of time, fees and creative resources. To this day if I send an email to him, he responds with warmth.

So, in this recent situation, was Iright? Was he?

I got very hung up on this question thinking… if I am right,then is everything he said about believing in me, simply therapeutic rhetoric? And if he is right, then is my sense of intuition and integrity completely off?

I alternated between self-righteous indignation, crushing sadness, waves of grief, doubt and questioning whether I had missed something vital. I felt rejected, abandoned, out-of-control, unheard and small. My friend Nathalie summed it up brilliantly.

She said, “your integrity’s writing checks your sensitivity can’t cash.”  

Genius. What I love most about this, is that my integrity has finally leapfrogged over my fear. And even though, part of me was like, what the hell are you doing right now, my greater self was finally willing to override it. There’s a new boss in town.

Don’t get me wrong, my sensitive-selfhas had many break-downs and my take-charge,fix-it self has forced me to watch WAY too many Anthony Robbins and Jon Assaroff videos with a decided Richard Simmonslet’s throw on some leg warmers and work this thing out vibe.

What I’ve come to realize is, he was right. And so was I.

We were each being true to ourselves.

Quite ironically, one of the things he helped me with, was trusting my intuition. When I got a bad feeling about someone or something, not to just override it and begin making excuses for why it was okay. To take care of myself. To believe that I am worthy of standing up for. And not to compromise my integrity– for anyone.

He helped me learn how to tolerate cognitive dissonance, which I assure this situation has required in spades. So, although I ended my last email to him with gratitude, I had no idea the many different ways I would mean that.

He didn’t have the answers. And neither do I.

I like answers. A real lot. I was sure he had the answers and would be divulging them very, very, soon. So, when this fully sunk in, it made me want to go on a full sprint scavenger hunt for a new and improved guru or emotional cruise directors. That, or get a guided psychedelic drug tour of the inner workings of my mind or even better, attend a sweat lodge to facilitate my miraculous breakthrough.

If none of that worked, I figured I could succumb to pedestrian anti-depressants, get eyelid surgery and start a PhD program. But I really don’twantto do anyof that.

What I reallywant, is to be less like a Jack Russell on amphetamines.

To not feel like that everything I need is somehow outside of me. To trust myself again.

To be the curious pilgrim I already am. To see through my fragmented disillusioned states, splintered psyche and easily overwhelmed nature into the parallel (and way more empowering) truth that I am a multi-sensory, multi-directional, associatively gathering, imagination-driven, firefly energy that needs to refuel frequently.

That refueling part is like spiritual oxygen and emotional hydration.

Without it, we don’t die, on the outside. But everything inside withers away.

As a compulsive doer, the idea that I would need to stop for refueling seems silly. A waste of time. That’s what sleep and meals are for. And yet unintentionally, this ‘break-up’ has given me the opportunity to reassess what kind of fuel I need.

I had been subscribing to a steady diet of introspection and self- analysis. It did provide transformational awareness of unconscious personal biases but is monumentally exhausting. Unfun. Horribly stressful and frequently debilitating.

It’s not always possible to jump right out of a black hole into the car with James, Adele and the Spice Girls. But it is possible, to ease your way out with David Sedaris’s observationally hilarious commentary on the human condition.

What I have discovered in shopping through our bookshelves, is that between the audacious adventures of  Eloise in the Plaza, the meandering truths of David Sedaris, the brilliant insights of Calvin and Hobbes and the grace-centered, soul-centered wisdom of Thomas , my DIY therapy program is all set. Three-parts irony and humor. One-part organic spiritual love. And, I get Wednesdays mornings from nine to ten to turn myself out, like they do with horses.

Wander the fields of my imagination and see what comes to visit.