If I’m honest, I came away from my last counselling session a wee bit rattled, and it still bothers me over a week later. It’s probably a good thing, as I know that being a client is meant to be a rather uncomfortable experience. As any experience of digging around in one’s personal historical rat’s nest is likely to be.
So what got me rattled? Well, for some reason my Counsellor chose the last ten minutes of the session to explore our relationship. I think I responded by asking what relationship, or something like that. I confess to being a little nonplussed by the idea that we had one. In that moment I inwardly froze and I think my main feeling was fear. It dawned on me that I didn’t know anything about this person beyond the four walls that enclosed us during the sessions. A bit of me didn’t want to know since, as I understood it, I was there to explore something of myself with the assistance of another person with a particular skill base. So strictly professional then… isn’t it?
It got me thinking of how we compartmentalise relationships. So we have, brother and sister, husband and wife, doctor and patient, teacher and pupil. We create our own mental picture of the framework of these relationships. This is meant to make life a bit easier to navigate. It would be nice and cosy if things were to remain that way, but inevitably it seems they don’t. Relationships are generally very messy around the edges.
So why did I freeze? Was it because I was being invited to explore this messiness around the edges of our relationship; whatever that might be?
The fact that I froze and my mind went blank, is obviously evidential that I have something to explore there. It seems to be around my feeling that something is expected of me, but I don’t know what. It puts me in mind of being back at school, where I am suddenly singled out for the answer to a question. I think I froze then too.
But why freeze? Why does a simple question, request or comment feel like a full frontal assault on my boundaries? I’m guessing because it’s happened too many times in my life; particularly at times when I simply didn’t have the resources to defend myself.
Over thirty years ago I wrote a, probably not very good, poem. It just sprang back into my mind. In it, I think I was reaching for something akin to this current bit of writing. So it somehow feels appropriate to leave it here.
THE BOX THAT CONTAINS THE THING WE FEAR MOST.
It sits in the corner,
Inconspicuous,
Appearing benign but somehow beckoning,
C’mon, take a look, just a peek.
The pull gets stronger,
Just that bit too much,
Till temptations too strong
And we have to reach out and touch,
To be thrown back by searing, heart splitting, pain.
But that’s enough you see, we’re hooked.
We can’t resist the addictive pull,
When the wounds have healed
We bear the pain and lift the lid, a crack
This time to be driven back by blinding light.
To develop immunity,
We take the vipers venom in small doses,
Till eventually,
Feeling nothing,
We throw back the lid.
To find that love,
Real love,
That sense of exquisite, inexhaustible yielding.
Through lack of the risk of total acceptance.
Has shrivelled,
And
died.
Terry Smith, Dec.90.
