the other pda.....public displays of acceptance

i've made the decision to go public, and you, lucky-tuesday-reader, are first in line to receive this information. i've been seeing a therapist, every single week, since october of 2008. in private, i refer to him as my mental sensei, because though i have never been trained in the martial arts (shocking, i know), i see some similarities between what he has been teaching me about my own mind and what mr. miyagi tried to drill into the karate kid. how to respond to stressors and challenges (karate chop those negative thoughts!), how to accept people and situations i cannot control or change (roundhouse kick, bad coping skills!), and how to find, instill, maintain, nurture, and protect peace in my own life, which is the most important and fundamental type of self defense that i can think of.

i made the decision to go public with my experiences in therapy because i'm sick of the negative stigma associated with it. "you mean, you want to sit down with someone every week and try and improve your life, your interactions, your functioning and your mental health? well obviously thats crazy." get over yourselves, therapy-bashers! nobody is perfect. i'm done with the judgements. i applaud anyone who makes the effort to continue to evolve and improve their existence. i applaud myself.

and what a hypocrite i would be if i didn't publicly acknowledge the efficacy of therapy and my own positive experiences with it. i firmly and resolutely believe in what therapy has to offer and the power of putting your struggles, issues, goals, wishes, hopes, dreams, thoughts, actions, beliefs, etc out there into the world, with the help of a compassionate, empathetic, trained professional, whose sole purpose for that entire hour is to help you. an entire hour when all you have to concentrate on is improving yourself. woohoo! the only better way that i can think of to spend an hour would involve a jacuzzi tub, bubbles, red wine and a sookie stackhouse novel, but therapy comes in at a very close second.

so today was my last session with mental sensei. unfortunately, he is unwilling to relocate with me to new mexico (no, i did not actually request him to do so, but he is such an awesome therapist, i really thought about it for a minute) and i am challenged today by something that mental sensei put out there to me. he said that it's important to honor and process and sit with my grief and sadness of leaving li while also acknowleding that i am looking forward to moving to new mexico and starting my life there. you see, tuesday-readers, old andie would have felt the pain and sadness, spiraled down into the black hole of panic, overwhelming grief and ultimately given in to the urge to flee, therefore avoiding the situation and never attaining closure. "new" andie (quite a misnomer, actually, because i don't feel new, maybe just improved? evolved? more experienced? i'll settle on an accurate adjective someday) has the urge to push it away, tell myself i'm fine and that i have great things to look forward to.

and mental sensei, in this very nonchalant way that he has, said to me "well andie, it's a continuum, and the goal is to be somewhere in the middle; being able to recognize and sit with this pain, and with it comes closure, acceptance, but also being able to move past it into the future." well thank you. let me just go ahead and do that. is there anyone who is actually able to do that, except for jesus, mother teresa, gandhi, bono, you get the idea? i cannot think of a more difficult task to put to my overworked and exhausted emotional system. "ok, guys, be sad and process the sadness, but also remind yourself we're gonna be ok." my heart (emotionally) is ready to stage a walk-out, or a sit-in or a march or some other form of non violent protest against my overachieving brain. this is hard. really hard. and all the tools, techniques, theories, etc that i have learned in the past two years from mental sensei is stretched to the limit and starting to fray at the edges.  

but then again, thats when the growth happens, isn't it? isn't that how the super muscular men that i sometimes lust after (sorry mike) build their physique? the tiny tears in the muscle are created and when the muscle repairs itself, it becomes stronger, larger, more durable than it previously was. i guess in some ways, i'm aspiring to become an emotional body-builder, able to withstand, lift, endure and effectively cope with all that life can throw at me. look out world, i'm ready to pump you up.

be thankful,
andie.