Endings, Beginnings, and Ferris Bueller

People who know me well know why I haven't been blogging this year.  And several people have been asking me for several months to start writing again.  As for me, I've wanted to, but also haven't until now, felt that I was ready.  I guess I'm ready as I'll ever be, but I am feeling  trepidation.  I'm nervous for both personal and professional reasons - personally, I've always used my own life experience to weave into whatever it is I'm blogging or writing about.  I got divorced this year.  The pain of that, the nuances of the end of a marriage, and the deep changes that take place in a family are vulnerable not just for me, but for others in my family.  If I choose to write about these things, it is my intention to do so in a way that is respectful of their sense of privacy and their healing.

Professionally, I have trepidation, too.  There is an idea in theater of the "fourth wall" - breaking the fourth wall is when the character on stage speaks directly to the audience.  I think of Ferris Bueller turning to the camera and saying to the audience, "How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?"  As a therapist, there is a fourth wall, too.  Most therapists don't tend to share much about their personal experience and there is an idea that the less a client knows about their therapist personally, the more effective the therapeutic relationship might be because the client will project their own issues on the therapist and through that projection can work through and heal from childhood wounds.  So, by writing about my personal experience, I run the risk of my clients who might read this, feeling that they know too much about me.

I am a therapist, but I write this blog because I am also a writer, poet, and storyteller.  I hope that sharing my experiences, thoughts, struggles, wonders, hopes, will help the world (and me) in some way - to help people understand one another better.  To help us feel connected to one another and ourselves.  And to offer courage.  One thing I've learned about myself is just how anti-authoritarian I am.  I don't believe that the therapist is this all-knowing wise person with ANSWERS.  Maybe some therapists have some answers, but I believe one of the purposes of my profession is to help people find their own answers.  Each person is the ultimate authority in his/her own life.

So, thank you for bearing with me through that long-winded introduction.

I got divorced this year.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, you would not wish divorce on your worst enemy.  In a generic way: 1) the legal process is nauseating - breaking a family down into measurable days and dollars, 2) there is the end of the hopes and dreams of two people who came together in a hopeful way to get married in the first place - the grief of letting go, 3) the changes to the greater family tradition/structure - holidays, birthdays, the annual camping trip to the lake, or whatever...all of that which impacts not just the two people who are divorced, but the whole family.

And I feel like I must share this to go on blogging/writing, because it will deeply influence my writing - what I write about and the lens through which I look at our human experience.

Many, many people express to me that they are happy this year is over.  The election process was an excruciating one in our country, regardless of how you feel about the outcome.  As a country, we are looking at many cracks in our social and political fabric that need healing.  As a world community, it feels like there is more distrust and fear than ever.  And that is not to mention the personal struggles that each of us face.

In my last blog that I posted, January 2016, I asked:"how will you show up for the year?"  2016 didn't give me too many choices...life happened and it happened fast.  So, my answer to the question in looking back over the year is that overall, I showed up awestruck - in Webster's that means, "filled with a feeling of fear and wonder."  With the wind knocked out of me, I was vulnerable in ways I'd never been before.  I felt great pain, but I also received great help.

When I wrote in my journal this morning, I thought about what I want for 2017 and maybe this is what I want for my whole life - and that is to live free.  What I most mean by that is to speak my truth - sometimes my truth is telling my story, sometimes my truth is sharing my hope and strength, sometimes it is saying 'no' even if someone else doesn't like it.  Sometimes, it is playing hooky from school.

As hard as this year was for me, I can't say that I wish it away or regret it.  This for each of us, is our one precious life.  Each hour, each day, each year adds up.  Maybe it will give you courage to know that I went through horrendous grief and I am okay.  I love this life.  And, as Ferris Bueller says, "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Onward, Friends.  I'll see you in 2017.

2016...How will you show up?

Last week was a long week.  With my husband out of town on a work trip, I had my hands full with work, kids, house, year-end paperwork, aging pets (who poop on the floor right as I am walking out the door to get to work), and whatever else comes up.  I often feel like a drill sergeant:  Did you pack your homework?  Do you have your Girl Scout sash?  Brush your hair.  Wear some deodorant.  Have you done our thank you notes from Christmas yet?  I get sick of myself.  We needed some fun, but fun that didn't take too much energy.  At least, that's what I needed.

So last night, we watched School of Rock, with Jack Black - a movie none of us had ever seen before. It was the perfect mix of silliness, personal catharsis, and rock and roll.  But it also happened to fit perfectly into this blog, which I'd been working on earlier about HOW WE SHOW UP.  Here's Jack Black showing up hungover to his first day substitute teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbF4qz_-PCM

Another interesting story about 'showing up' comes from The Moth Radio Hour's most recent, https://beta.prx.org/stories/167147, which includes a funny and good story from Nadia Bolz-Weber (a Lutheran minister), who tells about how she tends to show up to large gatherings of Lutherans (and plane flights) and how she 'showed up' anxious and panicky to a precarious, international tourist bus trip down a mountain pass.  It's worth listening to.

In my private practice, I'm paying attention to how people show up. I don't mean if they are wearing sweatpants or a business suit, but how they show up mentally.  Most people show up in consistent ways, mentally/emotionally.  Here are some I've noticed:  'prepared', with notes, questions, writings; vulnerable, ready to be open; passive, with the idea that something I do or say is the answer to all their problems; like a student, wanting to learn something; full of stories, longing to just talk out and tell the story of what's happened in their life since the last time I saw them; skeptical or defended, uncommitted, wanting to feel better, but not sure they want to go too deep.

There is no right way or wrong way to show up to therapy.  Or life.  But many days we don't even ask ourselves how we want to show up.  To our day, our work, our family, a holiday party.  We show up in the same old ways we always show up.  We are irritable, we are hopeful, we are suspicious, we are exhausted, we are angry, we are playful, we are naive, we are curious, we are know-it-alls.

A dynamo woman I know introduced me to a wonderful poem a few years ago, and I know I've written about it before - Summons, by Robert Francis.  She and her husband used it as a reading at their wedding and I love it in part because it reminds me that showing up the same way is a way of sleeping through life.  And being willing to see everyday things like the moon with fresh eyes is a choice that makes my life more rich and full.  Here it is:

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.

When we just show up without choosing how we want to show up, we are asleep to our own life (or like Jack Black, hungover).  We always have a choice to wake up and show up.  We have a whole new year ahead of us.  2016.  It's the morning of January 11.  How will you show up today?