Kicking Ass and Taking Names

I go to therapy every Thursday. I have named it, “Therapy Thursday” and as soon as I walk through his door, my therapist and I say, “Therapy Thursday”.

I sit/sink into the couch there and untwist all the knots, tightening, restrictions, disappointments, sadnesses, and also my triumphs.

Now I have been to my share (and beyond) of therapists at different times over the past 40 years. (Damn, that’s a long time!)

None of them “got me”. I must admit, I did not show them all of “me” for fear of what they’d think, of what I would think of myself, and how I would feel their reaction even if they said nothing. Such is the curse of the empath/people reader.

I found my recent therapist by searching pages and pages on the Gold Standard site of vetted therapists. I read bios, searched their professional websites, and also looked at their posted photos. I researched deeply as I was on a hunt for the one person who could bring the “me” back in me.

I have protected people from “me” to protect myself from their reactions. A slight twist of their mouth, a squint of the eye, a crossing of the arms, a glance at their phone as we are conversing and many other “tells” alarm me to the core. Those movements, which they are probably unaware of doing, inform me deeply of how vested they are in me and what I am saying/doing.

It ain’t easy being me. It never has been. But I will tell you, over the past year and a half, in our therapeutic space, I have released events, conversations, reactions, non-reactions, and regrets that I thought I had put behind me long ago. I hadn’t. 

I’m not “done” in therapy. As I unlayer more and more, I don’t want to stop until there is either no more left to uncover, or I have built the skills of brain, mind, and body healing so well, that I can travel the rest of the Healing Path on my own.

The other day, my therapist leaned back in his chair and said, “You know I’m from Texas and we have a saying that I think fits where you are. Damn, you are kicking ass and taking names”.

We both laughed the deepest of laughs. Little Mary Sunshine has on her steel-toed boots and is whooping it up in the delight of release and response.

Some people don’t like the “new me” (which as it turns out was the old me all along-only I was the only one who knew me). Some have: Unfriended me on Facebook, denied all communication, and some have shared their disappointments with the “me” I am.

And it’s okay. I’m okay. There’s more to learn, there’s more work to do on “me” and for the first time in my life, I honestly feel like “I got this”. I do not have all the answers, and my life is nowhere near picture-perfect but I like “me”.

Drop me a comment below. Tell me a story of finding “you”.