It’s important to start this piece with a few disclaimers. It’s a bit hypocritical that I would write about therapy since I’ve been in therapy for the better part of my 28 years of marriage and more than half of my life. One time I tried to count all the therapists and therapy experiences I’ve had and the list exceeded 20. And then every once in a while, I remember another one. So, like most of what I write, this piece is meant as a reflection for me, not as correction or instruction for others. It is meant to share my story in a way that clears my head and hopefully touches someone’s heart.
My next disclaimer is just to be honest, but also gracious. Not every therapy experience I had was helpful or beneficial nor was every therapist effective. But there are also many that have been helpful. I believe all of them are well intended. Some I still trust a lot; some I trust less. Some I still respect; some I do not. I still have an affection for some, but others I don’t. But in truth, all of them are just human beings like me. Therapists and counselors are not magicians or prophets or genies. They are just real people who likely struggle with many of the same issues that their clients do. Like one of my many therapists taught me, “Most people struggle with mental and emotional health issues (ex. depression).” And then he continued with the second part of his truism, “It’s just a question of frequency, duration, and magnitude.” That comment was very helpful to me. It helped me demystify therapy and mental health issues. Unlike a trained therapist, I have no business writing anything publicly about therapy. But I do hope many therapists read this reflection. I think it might help them to see both the opportunities and blind spots in the system they work in.
Ok…back to my own personal story.
After almost 30 years in and out of therapy experiences I did something quite simple. I took a hard break from therapy. To be fair this was not prompted by me but by our family therapist. She is, in my humble opinion, the best therapist we’ve ever had. And I believe she demonstrates several qualities that few therapists embody. One of those qualities is the courage and humility to suggest we all take break. This is not because of lack of impact, as her’s has been very significant. This is not because she is sick of us or we of her. We have an enduring friendship. But she trusts her gut. And when she made the proposal it resonated with my gut as well.
I have this sense that therapy is like chapstick. My daughter says the more I use it the more I need it. If this is true, I think it’s sad. I believe the vision of therapy should be to restore lives and relationships so that they don’t need more therapy. But it seems that people, like us, bounce from one experience and resource to another. We have this sense that there is some sort of solution out there. And a quick Google search will confirm that there is A LOT out there. But I am questioning more and more if they are true solutions or perhaps if they just lead to more searching.
After taking the break from therapy, some old friends re-engaged with us and heard of our most recent experience. She spoke of work with her new therapist who was practicing a new approach. She shared a lot about her story and as I listened to the intimate details about their family crisis, I was admittedly a bit distracted. I wasn’t sure where the conversation was going as we hadn’t seen these friends in about 10 years. The twist came at the end.
She eventually made a strong recommendation that we engage her therapist and do the same type of therapy she was doing. I politely thanked her and mentioned that this conversation was early into our “break” from therapy. That did not dissuade her. Without knowing much about our past clinical history she compared our therapist to someone with “only a high school” degree and compared her therapist to someone with a “college degree.” She said emphatically that “you can’t do anything with a high school diploma.” I continued to hold my ground telling her that I was appreciative of her story but taking time to pray before we jumped into next steps. She then told this old parable I had heard years before.
A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.”
The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.”
So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.” To this the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the motorboat went on. Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.” To this the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the helicopter reluctantly flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!” To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”
I was overwhelmed hearing this friend recount the quaint little fable. And I was especially overwhelmed when she insisted that the therapy she had found was possibly the answer to “all my prayers.” The assertion left me feeling incredulous. I was tempted to come to the defense of our therapist or push back on the hugely presumptive statement. Thank God I didn’t attempt either as a fool’s errand.
The only thing that saved me was the clock. Ironically, after such an emotionally deep exchange, the husband abruptly told his wife he had another appointment and had to go. We jumped out of the deep end of the pool, and the conversation was over. Phew!?!?
As I debriefed with my wife I offered a huge thank you to her. She was sitting there in the conversation torn. This is a woman that she trusts. And the story was compelling. I mean who doesn’t want to partake of the holy grail if someone says they found it?!?! But my wife deferred to me and indicated that if I was not ready to pursue this that she would trust me and decline as well.
Leaving that conversation, I realized we might be labeled as in denial or resistant to help. But my heart, my journal, calendar, and bank account over the past 30 years said otherwise. I reminded myself that while it’s possible I have tried too hard to fix things with therapy, I can’t say that I’ve prayed too much or been too patient to wait for God to work.
So what happened next? As you continue to read about what took place you might misinterpret it all as a “plan.” Don’t be fooled. Each activity or choice happened organically, spontaneously, sometimes even unconsciously. But the mix of what follows is what happened in the newfound space created in a world without formal, professional therapy. In hindsight it’s something I’ve come to call “therapy in real life.”
Here are the simple, hard things I did…
I Fasted.
I’ve been practicing Lent for about 6 years. The timing could not have been better. I was experiencing cycles of behaviors (both for me and others) and I needed something to break the cycle. Thank God for Lent and fasting and the church that challenges me towards the sacraments! This particular cycle was different. I fasted from some of the basics as I have in the past (ex coffee, alcoholic drinks, etc.). But, I added fasting from “fixing” and all the things I was “trying” that didn’t work. Some of them felt even ruthless to eliminate. And, if I’m honest, I didn’t even consciously acknowledge or tell anyone I was doing it. If I did I was sure I would cave. In this newfound space, God gave me the strength to be still and pray.
I Prayed.
Thank God for the Hallow app. Some might call it a crutch. Amen! And I need two crutches. I listened to prayers. I listened to the gospels. I prayed in the morning. I prayed at night. When I fasted from all the “stuff” that was not doing anything for me or others I had much more time to pray. Fasting from all my failed and fruitless activity crated a ton of space and energy.
I moved.
Not sure I know how to capture this one. But, I think it’s simply changing the environment and scenery. My mind plays tricks on me. And when I am stuck I am stuck. I don’t know ‘how’ to get unstuck. I can’t seem to change my ‘what.’ But, I can change my ‘where.’ So I went places I’d never been. I went places I didn’t often go. I got lost on purpose. This relates to both the first two strategies of fasting and praying. And it relates to the rest. Because when I changed my environment, nothing was necessarily better. But almost everything was different. And that made it a different kind of better.
I Gave.
When we are in a desperate situation, it’s easy to focus on ourselves. And serving other people doesn’t necessarily solve our problems or fix everything. But I think it can be a good antidote against self-absorption or self-loathing. There’s so many people in the world that are suffering. Consider the fact that millions die of starvation every year. So instead of imploding on my own mental and emotional health issues, I found a spot to help other people in their struggles no matter what they were.
I Listened.
I listened to the Bible end-to-end. It seems like it takes forever to read the Bible cover-to-cover. But as I put in my head phones and walked and drove, it actually felt like it didn’t take that long. I didn’t try to digest everything or take everything in. That would have been impossible. Some people question listening to a book and don’t count that as really reading. I actually think I took in more by listening. I know what it’s like to sit in front of a therapist, talk and spill my guts. I do a lot of talking and they ask a lot of questions. Sound familiar? I wonder if we should do the reverse? I wonder if it’s more therapeutic to just shut up and listen. Stand outside of ourselves and our situations and take it in? Laugh at ourselves at bit? Take a break from our desperate attempts to figure things out or get validation.
I Breathed.
There are some super simple things that I take for granted. A good nights sleep. A deep breath. A tall glass of water. These all provide fuel. Some of this might seem a bit far fetched or new age (which is what we say for most things we don’t understand). But there is real fuel when we stare out at a sunset, take in a huge deep breath, and feel a body that has consumed a couple hundred ounces of water. My body literally just said, “thank you!” And it make my next choice a lot, lot easier.
I Ran.
I’m a little biased on this particular strategy because I’m a runner, but when my body, heart and mind are all in full gear, beautiful things happen. I can’t tell you how many times I’m tempted to stop my jog and start writing something or record something. And often that’s exactly what I do. Regardless of your exercise preference is, I can say for me that exhausting myself in cardio provides immediate benefit. It’s an immediate release of tension and stress. Imagine being in the best shape of your life? The same struggles may exist externally? But being in great shape seems to make dealing with hard things easier. On the contrary, when I take in fried food, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, etc. while being idle with ESPN, Apple TV, and social media all the hard stuff seems infinitely harder.
I Rested.
Rest and Sabbath are a dying practice in our culture. We just go go go. I’m the best at being the worst in this regard. And when I’m faced with mental and emotional health issues I go go go all the more. I strive. I try doing everything impulsively or on accident. I rarely consider doing nothing on purpose. Yet in resting I find the ultimate way to do something so critical: trust someone else to solve the problem. Resting is like the ultimate way to show that we are not God. I think if I could stack up everything I tried it would be better to just list up all the stupid things I’m not gonna next time. This list is much longer than the one or two things that were actually useful. Like I said, I can’t say I tried too little. And I can’t say I trusted God too much.
As most of them are, this been a long reflection and anyone who has made it this far certainly deserves something at the end. I didn’t think I deserved anything at the end of this therapeutic break from therapy, but what I got was worth far more than anything I could have ever imagined. And it came after utilizing all of the therapies from the past plus one more big one…
I Walked.
After many weeks and months of this “therapy in real life” season, I ended up in Santiago de Compostela, Spain with my wife Shawna. As I had dreamed of doing for years, I (along with my wife) walked the Camino de Santiago as a Pilgrim and ran the final 13 miles to celebrate mass at the Cathedral. Shawna and I had agreed on this plan and she walked at her own pace with new Canadian friends we made along the way. We agreed to meet at the end for a moment I could never have scripted or hoped for. This mountain top experience was certainly not the end of a journey, but just a peak along the past several months that I will be able to reflect on for years to come.
As I arrived for mass the beads of rain and sweat and mud dripped off of me. Likewise, the weight of all my burdens in the past seemed to fall at the foot of the cross. Those who know me know I struggle mightily with codependency. So to get to a place where we could be pilgrims on the Camino (something I’ve wanted to do for years and have had to cancel multiple times for the sake of others) and do it at our own individual paces was a great testimony. We honored the fact that we would have both shared and unique experiences. So while it may seem a bit counterintuitive that I’m there at mass by myself, while my wife is still walking the Camino, it was actually quite a fitting scene for me, for her, and for us. It was exactly what we needed. I was at the foot of the cross, fully devoted to Christ, and not codependent or entangled with her or the world. And this allowed me to be the most present and loving husband, father, and friend. She was able to be on the path with Christ and friends and God spoke to her in equally meaningful ways.
After mass I checked into our hotel while I waited for Shawna to finish with our new friends, Ero and Wayne. I positioned myself on the balcony of the hotel, so I could capture her final steps on camera. Almost exactly as I had anticipated, she turned the corner and I got to capture priceless video as she marveled and was overwhelmed to finish the five day, 75+ mile journey on foot. Within just a few moments, she was somehow able to spot me on the balcony amidst the huge crowd. She was both exhausted and animated as she motioned for me to come down to her.
We walked toward each other across the ancient bricks of the Cathedral courtyard dodging others standing between us. We embraced for a long time. And then, through tears, she whispered something into my ears, “For where you go, I will go.” For those of you who know the book of Ruth, you recognize the phrase. It’s a statement of devotion and “loyal love” that God demonstrates for us all. It’s also a phrase that we have in our marriage vows from 28 years ago. It would be easy to make too much of a heightened emotional experience. But after walking about 120 km I knew in my heart that she really meant what she had said. The therapy for us both was walking and shedding our fears, anxieties, worries, and more with each step. All that was left was the purest and simplest version of our hearts.
The next day we had an experience that was equal, if not sacred in its own way. We went to mass together with a packed crowd of other pilgrims. During the mass the priest invited anyone to come forward to light a candle and offer a prayer. My wife walked forward, lit a candle, and in the most courageous act I’ve ever seen, she publicly offered a prayer. I won’t share it here out of a respect for her, but trust me when I say that it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth. And to be there to witness it was truly priceless.
What’s the point of sharing these two stories? It’s quite simple. After 28 years of therapy we never came close to this. But after a few months of doing therapy in “real life” some of the most amazing things came true. As I said at the beginning, this does not negate or invalidate any of the people out there who are longing to heal or people who are working tirelessly to help people heal. But at the same time, I hope the same people read these stories and consider how we can get in our own way. Sometimes we can get caught in a loop. And sometimes, maybe sooner than later, we need to just take a break from all the things we’re “trying.” Maybe we need to do more therapy in real life. I know it’s worked wonders for me and for my family and I pray that God continues to reveal breakthroughs like this as we journey on.