Something has really struck me recently in reading so many of the threads on the forum which is how often everyone beats themself up for their feelings, especially as it pertains to needing their T, contacting their T, etc. First, I want to be clear that I understand all those feelings and I have struggled with them. I especially understand all the shame and anguish surrounding our needs and the guilt if we actually do things to get them met, such as calling or texting our Ts, or asking for extra sessions.
I want to suggest something that my T often said to me, which was instead of hating yourself for having your feelings, why not look at them instead to see what they're saying about you.
Feelings just are. We don't control them. We spend a lot of time trying to to, but we really don't. What we control is what we do with and about our feelings. Feelings are important information. Having them is essential to a human being living a full life BECAUSE they're good information. Feelings inform us of how we're doing, and how we're reacting. They can be a guide to our behavior, but they won't be the only guide. We have our reason and our values. But paying attention to our feelings is vital to us living in a way that is authentic and true to who we are.
Dan Seigal writes about a mindfulness method called COAL. Curiosity, openness, acceptance and love. Have you ever thought about how you react to other people's feelings on the forum? If they say they want to contact their T are you thinking "you pathetic whiney thing, how can you be so horribly needy? What the hell's wrong with you?" I would bet large sums of money that no one thinks that of anyone else. But we say it regulary to ourselves. So the idea of COAL is that we approach our feelings the same way, putting judgementalness aside and using them as a source of information about ourselves.
My T made a very big deal about me needing to contact him in between sessions. Seriously, he made it very clear on a number of occasions that not only was it ok for me to contact him, it was actually of theraputic value. It taught me to reach out to others and see good things happen. It taught me how to get my needs met, and to take responsibility for my own needs, it even taught me about boundaries since I had to trust what my T said about it being ok and that he could protect himself.
I learned so much about myself by seeing how I reacted to my needs and what it felt like to try and get them met, how much I hated them, how much I hated myself for having them. Tracing those beliefs back to their sources, when and where I learned them, was how I achieved a lot of healing.
Again, I want to stress that I am not in any way criticizing anyone. As I said, been there, done that, can still do that. But I wanted to suggest a way of approaching it that I thought a lot of people might find helpful.
AG
Original Post
Sorry for being so ridiculous!
