Therapeutic Seasons...

I’m a firm believer in seasons of life. While much of it is messy and overlapping, if I step back and sort of relax my eyes a little, I can see lots of time periods that for me have been about focusing on specific themes: learning big lessons, meeting special friends, passing milestones, or whatever. I tend to think of seasons in terms of places we’ve lived, so we have our Ohio season, Massachusetts season, and so on. Our pastor in Wyoming would always talk about God’s ‘assignments’ for us, meaning whatever He had for us where we were, no matter how strange or un-fun it seemed in the moment. As time goes on and we move to each new place, I've come to wonder what is in store for me there, what assignments God has for me, and what chapters that new place will write in my life story.

Most recently I’d been in a season of baby-rearing and back-healing/strengthening, and while I sensed I maybe needed a little help emotionally, I wasn’t in crisis enough to spend the time, money, & effort needed to do counseling/therapy properly, which is to say actually show up regularly and engage, and not blow off the homework.

Well, I factored all the factors and was able to tie up some loose ends, and decided that this is a good season to jump in and do some self-work in the form of counseling. I may have phrased it differently and implied that certain unnamed partners maybe could use some guidance as well…to the extent that such is true of all of us…but certain unnamed partners instead chose things like work, and parenting, and would-rather-an-icepick-to-the-eye-than-therapy-except-in-a-crisis, and we aren't in crisis, so I had to respect that choice.

Besides, within a couple sessions, my therapist and I determined that I had plenty of issues of my own to work on without bringing certain partners into things, anyway. And I may have had to apologize to certain partners for projecting my own issues and putting undue pressure on certain marriages. Or something. Because what I discovered was that, even with meds and healthy habits and stuff, it turns out that I still carry around a great deal of anxiety.

I know. I’ll wait while you sit down and absorb the shock.

Moving forward, instead of “The Cat Daddy needs to be nicer to Skerrib” (which I still contend is a valid and useful life goal), we have steered the focus more toward “Skerrib is a nervous-type and a perfectionist, but there are tools to help with those.”  

Thus I'm expanding my toolkit a little and learning a TON about feelings and stuff that I already like learning about, so it's working out well. As with most things in life, while I've come a long way in a lot of areas, I still have blind spots and/or areas where I'm in denial or fooling myself. So, you know, it's helpful (though not always pleasant of course) to have someone to help me sort thru it all. 

As with any season this too will come to a close in time, but for now I kind of want to go to therapy forever...