SOMEBODY I DIDN’T LIKE

There was a person that I didn’t like at all even before I met him. I had all kinds of stories and I was ready not to like him.

And my new training gave me the opportunity to confront this person. Deeply and honestly - it was not pretty. And it was risky and honest.

This person withstood my rage.

And let me find the hurt beneath it.

I’m still grappling with the hurt.

What I have to do.

What he can’t do for me.

We don’t often get the opportunity to express our feelings deeply.

When I was angry all I could see were his flaws. Deep, deep ugly flaws that seemed as clear to me as anything I had ever known.

And now that the rage has moved through me I can see that he didn’t leave.

And honestly, I probably would have. The context was intense.

And while there are still some questions in my mind and the work is not “done” my rage has morphed.

I got the opportunity to see that what he can’t do is not all of him.

It feels really raw and precious and tender and a description of something that happened inside rather than some kind of conceptual framework.

Which makes it vulnerable and I am considering starting over again this week. Rewriting. Something that feels safer.

But I’m choosing to write it.

Because in therapy it is a kind of mantra that we should feel our feelings.

I do it naturally in every session - looking for the feelings that might need expression.

And what happened this week was so much more than rote technique.

I experienced, from the inside, what can happen when we allow ourselves and are allowed the fullest expression of our feelings.

We are so afraid of them but they really are just energy.

They can move and evolve and the direction in which they move when met with a lot of support and over time - well the direction that they move is love.

The direction that our feelings move is love.

That’s not psychoanalytic theory.

That’s hard-won insight from the inside.