Tag Archives: happiness

Dec 11 2012

Talking About The Mask

When I saw Art T today I showed her the mask and said I wasn’t sure if it was right, and of course she said there is no right or wrong. I told her it was creepy, the hair and the eyes. She said I could try to fix it and I said what if it gets worse. She said the cool thing about this is I could just cover it up with another layer. I said what if I keep trying to fix it and it stays bad or gets worse. At least if I don’t try to fix it I could have the hope that it can be fixed. She said that seems like a metaphor. I said yes it does. I said maybe that is why I stayed with J for so long. If I had left and found a therapist that was a better fit for me and I still didn’t get better then I would know I was broken. But staying with him always gave me hope that I could be fixed, just that he wasn’t right for me.

She asked what would make the hair better and I thought maybe brown straight ribbon or yarn, but I bought the curly ribbon because it was already curled and attached to little cardboard squares so I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to attach. She made a comment about how I picked the easy thing, and I said that saying I was looking for a shortcut was somewhat insulting because I spent a lot of time doing this thing, I had to find the materials and cut out all of the words and actually put it together. She said she didn’t mean to be insulting. I told her that J would sometimes say I was looking for a shortcut, and she said “Oh I hit a J sore spot”.

We decided I should take off the ribbons and make the mask bald, and it really did make it better. I also told her that there weren’t enough words for the front, and too many for the inside. We talked about the words on the outside and how that is how people see me.

So about being broken, she said people aren’t born that way. Then she was talking about trauma and I said that I didn’t experience any trauma, and she said she believes that I did. I said that she is watering down the meaning of the word trauma and she said there is Big T trauma and little t trauma, and told me about a study where people who had Big T trauma were compared with those with little t trauma later in life, and they seemed to have the same attachment pattern, which I am assuming is a bad attachment style. She said some of the little t trauma people were even worse because they couldn’t specifically put their finger on what caused their problems.

J was always trying to convince me that my mother is narcissistic, and now Art T is trying to convince me that I had trauma in my childhood, and I don’t think either is true. I know too many people who have experienced trauma, and what I had wasn’t trauma by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, maybe the family was a little messed up because of the illness of my dad and my sister, and maybe because I was different and ugly as a child I got made fun of, and no one ever really understood me, but that is not trauma.

Then we talked about being sensitive and I said how bad it is, but Art T said it is good, and told me that all of the things I’ve done to help people are because I am sensitive. I said being sensitive makes it easy to get hurt, and she said that is a downside. Then I said something about sensitive people getting hurt when they are bullied, and confident children wouldn’t let it bother them, and she said confident people don’t get bullied. Oh.

Art T spent some time reading the inside words and said some of them are things everyone would want – love, living life, connection. We talked about how I am always looking for something that seems missing, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe what I want is something I already have and that is why I can’t find it. I have a good life. She asked me if anyone sees the inside part of me and I said that sometimes people see parts, very few people. But I think maybe I should just accept things the way they are, and I think she said something about how she can see I am looking for something and I should try to find it. I think she said that.

Amazing was a word on the outside and she asked me if I do amazing things and I said I don’t, but people say I do. She asked what would be amazing and we had a talk about how what I consider amazing for other people isn’t amazing for me, like donating a kidney. She asked what would be amazing and I said it would be running in the street to save a child about to be hit by a car or something. J and I had this same discussion. I said that whenever anyone does anything amazing they never say they are amazing, they just say they are doing what anyone would do.

She said I have high expectations of myself, yes, I already know that. J and I had that discussion many times.

I said something about helping people and doing it because it makes me feel good and then I feel guilty. We talked about how doing things for other people intrinsically make us feel good and doesn’t take away from the good we are doing. She said that what would it be like if she felt guilty for everyone that she helped because it makes her feel good. Then something about doing things for others makes some people feel like they have power – doctors sometimes get that way.

Then we talked about happiness. It was getting confusing, I think sometimes an hour session is too long, it gets overwhelming. With J I only had 45 minutes, and it felt too short, but of course, he talked a lot. Art T talks too, but it is more back and forth talking, not me sitting there listening to her talk for minutes on end.

I said that no one can be happy with everything bad going on in the world, and if I have a moment of happiness I feel guilty. That only ignorant people can be happy. She got out the feelings paper to see other words that are like happy, and we talked about “being happy” vs a “feeling of happiness”. I said that when someone has a baby they would be very happy and they shouldn’t feel guilty about that. This whole part was too confusing. I can’t really remember it and I know I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I’m going to have to ask her to cut our sessions shorter, or talk about something less deep for the last 15 minutes, or maybe do art. As long as I don’t feel self conscious about the art it might be relaxing to draw or color for 15 minutes. I love to color in coloring books – that’s so stupid, isn’t it? I’m 52 years old.

It’s amazing to me how much we can talk about in an hour, without talking about my week at all. I never once mentioned anything I did this week, or anything about the stress I am under right now with my marriage and our finances falling apart. And that is fine with me, she is much more into talking about emotions, and deep things. Of course, I cried a little a couple of times. It wouldn’t be therapy with Art T without some tears.

Dec 5 2011

A Good Weekend and a Good Book

Last week at my therapy session I asked J to recommend a family therapist for my husband, son and I. J said sure, no problem, give him a couple of days, and I told him no problem, take as much time as you want. I have never heard back from him. Now I feel bad that I asked him. I know he is very busy and I shouldn’t ask him to do things for me outside of my 45 minutes. I don’t know whether I should bring it up tomorrow or not.

But in the meantime I called my flying therapist, who was my son’s therapist when he a little boy. I left her a message on Friday asking if she could recommend anyone, and she called me first thing this morning and gave me the name of someone she thought would be helpful. I wish I could see my flying therapist for my regular therapy, but for various reasons that wouldn’t work. I really do like her though.

I did plan some things for the weekend – Saturday morning I had running group, in the afternoon I did a couple of errands, in the evening my husband and I went with another couple out to dinner and a hockey game, Sunday my friend’s husband who has cancer called me to see if I wanted to go check out another holiday craft show, so I went with him, then I went to the spa because I had a gift certificate to use up and I had a facial and a massage.

I was thinking of asking someone to go to lunch with me on Sunday, but for some reason I was unable to make a phone call to anyone. I don’t know what stops me from doing that.

Remember the book I wrote about last week? There are some nuggets of wisdom in there. For example:

People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis,” but it’s not. It’s an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.

Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

I kind of hate the whole “mindfulness” movement, I think it encourages us to avoid our feelings and just pay attention to whatever is happening at the moment. But here is finally a definition of mindfulness that makes sense to me:

Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not “over-identify” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.

Wholehearted people vs non wholehearted people:

When we talked about how the non wholehearted people dealt with difficult emotions (such as shame, grief, fear, despair, disappointment, and sadness), I heard over and over about the need to numb and take the edge off of feelings that cause vulnerability, discomfort, and pain.

When I interviewed the participants whom I’d describe as living a Wholehearted life about the same topic, they consistently talked about trying to feel the feelings, staying mindful about numbing behaviors, and trying to lean into the discomfort of hard emotions.

I wonder what leaning into the discomfort means? She uses this phrase often in the book.

And one of my favorite passages, regarding happiness vs joy. For example anyone can lose their wallet and be very unhappy. But a joyful person can still be joyful, losing their wallet won’t take that away. I want my spirit to be joyful.

Happiness is tied to circumstance and joyfulness is tied to spirit and gratitude.

And the last one, something I would like for myself:

I would like to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. I want to go to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

Apr 26 2011

Therapy Recap 4/26/11

I thought J would talk more about the incident two weeks ago when he made me afraid to fly, but he just asked how the flights were and I said they were fine. I didn’t really have much to say, it’s always hard to start when I’ve taken a week off, so he asked me how my trip was and we talked about that a little.

Then I told him that I am no different than I was a year ago, and my problems are all exactly the same and my life is still exactly the same. And that this time a year ago I was suicidal, and at the beginning of this month I made some changes thinking I could avoid the same situation this year. He asked about the changes and I told him that I quit drinking so much (quit drinking totally at home, just a glass of wine when I go out every now and then), I started running, and walking, and cycling, I started eating my crazy healthy food like chia seeds and amazing grass and spinach smoothies, I unsubscribed from a bunch of mental health blogs and stopped reading so much about psychology and I’m trying to read more fitness and health blogs, I’m taking wellbutrin, I emailed an old running buddy to get together for a run, etc.

We talked about why I made the changes, and why I stopped my healthy habits about four months ago. I told him it was because I was stupid and lazy. He asked if I have a feeling of accomplishment for making these changes and I told him that I don’t. These are things that I should be doing. I feel regret for stopping them. He wanted to know why I feel bad when I have these negative behaviors, but I don’t feel good when I have good behaviors, and I told him because this is what I should be doing, it is not something to feel good about. He tried to convince me that quitting the drinking is an accomplishment and I said it doesn’t feel like one because once I made up my mind to do it, it wasn’t hard. He told me that Elton John said his greatest accomplishment was getting off drugs. I said that I admire anyone who can get off drugs, that it is very hard. He said, “But not you?”

Then he said that he does see changes in me since last year, that I am not so introspective and I am more open in therapy. I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with being introspective, as a matter of fact I have been this way my whole life. Lots of people are introspective, I don’t see what the problem with it is. But that was the only change he mentioned.

Then we got onto why I think my life is bad. I told him that I have no reason to get up in the morning, that what is the point of my life? He said that life is the little things, different things that occur. His examples were getting your hair cut and making something new for dinner. I asked if getting my hair cut and making something new for dinner is supposed to make my life better. He said that having something new every day makes life good.

I said I am thinking of the bigger picture, and he said that is the problem, I am thinking of the bigger picture when I should be seeing the little things. I need to be mindful and have gratitude. He said someone else might sit on this couch and describe their life exactly like mine and say it is great. He asked if I don’t get my car washed because it might get dirty again the next day. He said lots of people feel good about the warm weather we are having, and did I notice the tulips are blooming? He said I don’t stop to smell the roses.

I asked if I should just accept and live with my problems instead of trying to fix them. He gave me an example of someone who likes to run, but gets arthritis in their knee. They try a few things to fix it so they can keep running, but it doesn’t work, so they have to accept that they can’t run anymore and find something else to do, like swim. So I asked if I should just accept my marriage the way it is. He said I could see a marriage counselor or give my husband an ultimatum. I said, “So should I do those things?” And he asked if my marriage is important to me and I said it is. But he didn’t say anything else about it.

He asked me what would be good about life as I imagine it and I said I think it is important to keep growing as a person. He said if I was 6 years old that would be true. I said that I disagree, that I think it is important to continue to learn and to be a better person and he said that is why elderly people in nursing homes do sudoku and puzzle games, and there are lots of apps like that for the iphone. I said that I was thinking more like getting a PhD, and he said well, it’s like running a marathon, you can’t just go out and do it, you have to work up to it. So I said sarcastically, “Well I guess I’ll get some apps then.”

I said a few times that I guess I have expectations that are too high. So it seems like if I get my hair cut, smell some tulips, and download some puzzle apps for my phone, I’ll have a complete and happy life.

If that is true, why do I now feel like having a drink, when I haven’t felt that urge in four weeks. And why do I feel like self injuring, when I haven’t done that in months.

I guess if one has a perfect life like my therapist has, it is easy to be happy with hair cuts and tulips.