“I think I can help,” he says, “but maybe not in the way you imagine. I can’t bring your boyfriend back, and I can’t give you a redo. And now you’re in this book situation and you want me to save you from that too. And I can’t do that either.”
I let out a snort at how preposterous this is. “I don’t want you to save me,” I say. “I’m a head of household, not a damsel in distress.”
He locks his eyes on mine. I look away.
“Nobody is going to save you,” he says quietly.
“But I don’t want to be saved!” I insist, though this time part of me wonders, Wait, do I? On some level, don’t we all? I think about how people come to therapy expecting to feel better, but what does better really mean?
There’s a magnet that somebody stuck on the refrigerator in our office’s kitchen: PEACE. IT DOES NOT MEAN TO BE IN A PLACE WHERE THERE IS NO NOISE, TROUBLE, OR HARD WORK. IT MEANS TO BE IN THE MIDST OF THOSE THINGS AND STILL BE CALM IN YOUR HEART. We can help patients find peace, but maybe a different kind than they imagined they’d find when they started treatment. As the late psychotherapist John Weakland famously said, “Before successful therapy, it’s the same damn thing over and over. After successful therapy, it’s one damn thing after another.”
I know that therapy won’t make all my problems disappear, prevent new ones from developing, or ensure that I’ll always act from a place of enlightenment. Therapists don’t perform personality transplants; they just help to take the sharp edges off. A patient may become less reactive or critical, more open and able to let people in. In other words, therapy is about understanding the self that you are. But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.
But how to help people do this is another matter.
I go through the problem again in my mind. Must write book to have roof over head. Turned down opportunity to write book that would have put roof over head for years to come. Can’t seem to write stupid book about stupid topic that’s making me miserable. Will force myself to write stupid miserable happiness book. Have tried to force myself to write stupid miserable happiness book but end up on Facebook, feeling envious of all the people who manage to have their shit together.
I remember a quote from Einstein: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” I’ve always felt that made sense, but, like most of us, I also believe that I should be able to think my way out of my problem by going over and over how I thought myself into it.
“I just see no way out of this,” I say. “And I don’t just mean the book. I mean the whole this—everything that’s happened.”
Wendell leans back, uncrosses and recrosses his legs, then closes his eyes, something he does when he seems to be gathering his thoughts.
When he opens his eyes again, we sit there for a while, saying nothing, two therapists comfortable together in a long silence. I lean back and luxuriate in it, and I think about how I wish everyone could do this more in daily life, simply be together with no phones, laptops, TVs, or idle chitchat. Just presence. Sitting like this makes me feel relaxed and energized at the same time.
Finally, Wendell speaks up.
“I’m reminded,” he begins, “of a famous cartoon. It’s of a prisoner, shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out—but to his right and left, it’s open, no bars.”
He pauses, allowing the image to sink in.
“All the prisoner has to do is walk around. But still, he frantically shakes the bars. That’s most of us. We feel completely stuck, trapped in our emotional cells, but there’s a way out—as long as we’re willing to see it.”
He lets that last part linger between us. As long as we’re willing to see it. He gestures to an imaginary prison cell with his hand, inviting me to see it.
I look away, but I feel Wendell’s eyes on me.
I sigh. Okay.
I close my eyes and take a breath. I start by picturing the prison, a tiny cell with drab beige walls. I picture the metal bars, thick and gray and rusty. I picture myself in an orange jumpsuit, furiously shaking those bars, pleading for release. I picture my life in this tiny cell with nothing but the pungent smell of urine and the prospect of a dismal, constrained future. I imagine screaming, “Get me out of here! Save me!” I envision myself frantically looking to my right, then to my left, then doing one hell of a double take. I notice my whole body respond; I feel lighter, like a thousand-pound weight has been lifted, as the realization hits me: You are your own jailer.
I open my eyes and glance at Wendell. He raises his right eyebrow as if to say, I know—you see. I saw you see.
“Keep looking,” he whispers.
I close my eyes again. Now I’m walking around the bars and heading toward the exit, moving tentatively at first, but as I get closer to it, I start to run. Outside, I can feel my feet on the ground, the breeze on my skin, the sun’s warmth on my face. I’m free! I run as fast as I can, then after a while I slow down and check behind me. No prison guards are giving chase. It occurs to me that there were no prison guards to begin with. Of course!
Most of us come to therapy feeling trapped—imprisoned by our thoughts, behaviors, marriages, jobs, fears, or past. Sometimes we imprison ourselves with a narrative of self-punishment. If we have a choice between believing one of two things, both of which we have evidence for—I’m unlovable, I’m lovable—often we choose the one that makes us feel bad. Why do we keep our radios tuned to the same static-ridden stations (the everyone’s-life-is-better-than-mine station, the I-can’t-trust-people station, the nothing-works-out-for-me station) instead of moving the dial up or down? Change the station. Walk around the bars. Who’s stopping us but ourselves?
There is a way out—as long as we’re willing to see it. A cartoon, of all things, has taught me the secret of life.
I open my eyes and smile, and Wendell smiles back. It’s a conspiratorial smile, one that says, Don’t be fooled. It may seem as though you’ve had an earth-shattering breakthrough, but this is just the beginning. I know full well what challenges lie ahead, and Wendell knows that I know, because we both know something else: freedom involves responsibility, and there’s a part of most of us that finds responsibility frightening.
Might it feel safer to stay in jail? I picture the bars and the open sides again. A part of me lobbies to stay, another to go. I choose to go. But walking around the bars in my mind is different from walking around them in real life.
“Insight is the booby prize of therapy” is my favorite maxim of the trade, meaning that you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don’t change when you’re out in the world, the insight—and the therapy—is worthless. Insight allows you to ask yourself, Is this something that’s being done to me or am I doing it to myself? The answer gives you choices, but it’s up to you to make them.
“Are you ready to start talking about the fight you’re in?” Wendell asks.
“You mean the fight with Boyfriend?” I begin. “Or with myself—”