22 août 2023
Thérapie brève orientée solutions expérientielle 6 séances
I met Maria while living temporarily in France for several months. I was traveling alone and needed to reach out and find some friends. When I saw a local Tantra event with a picture of a beautiful glowing woman as the guide, I knew it was for me. I really didn’t know what Tantra was, but I was drawn to Maria as a person. I have excellent instincts for a trustworthy face.
At the end of the 8 hour day with Maria and 10 others, including her wonderful assistant, I was told by one of the other participants that one on one sessions with her would be well worth my time. I had no doubt. Soon after, I was in full swing with those sessions. What started out as reaching out to find some friends ended up in finding a type of healing therapy that was beyond my wildest imaginings.
As a newly divorced empty nester struggling through the midlife transition, I had a lot of heavy, hard, dark emotions weighing me down. I felt scared, lonely, insecure, angry, guilty, defensive. I was putting on a brave face and doing my best, it just felt like a lot of work. In fact, during my first session with Maria, I was feeling quite annoyed with her. She kept asking me to do things and answer questions that felt very hard.
Other therapists in the past had let me just vent and rage and say whatever I wanted, but Maria was reigning it all in and making me stay focused on what she was actually asking me. She was directing the conversation expertly but I can’t say it was always easy. She thanked me for trusting her and I knew that she knew that this type of therapy requires trust and a feeling of safety to dive into the deep end of the healing process.
You don’t really learn new skills without a bit of struggle. It felt a little like when my father brought me to the deep part of the lake and let me struggle for quite a while until I found that I could swim. He was right there with me ready to catch me if needed but no way in hell was he going to treat me like a weak victim. He told me with his fearless eyes that I could do it and he would wait until I found the strength within to keep my head above water and start to enjoy the feeling of swimming.
Yeah, so Maria’s methods were annoyingly hard. Also, I can be lazy about making changes in myself. So much easier to complain and blame. One day she had me fill up a backpack representing all of the things I was carrying around in my mind and body–relationships with my children, sense of failure, a need to please other people, a loss of faith…She made me carry the backpack and describe all of the physical sensations of being out of breath, weakness in joints, tiredness, emotionally overwhelmed. And then at the top of the hill, I was to find a place for each one of the rocks.
I threw the sense failure off into the woods. I just didn’t even want it anywhere near me anymore. I set down very carefully and conscientiously each rock representing my 3 children. Really play acting the reality of how necessary it was for me to let them go live their lives as adults who don’t need me to s’mother them. I took the rock representing my people-pleasing fawning personality and dug into the dirt as deeply as I could to bury that away. The ego must die, including that pesky clingy personality that feels so comfy and familiar.
I placed the “loss of faith” rock under a little bush. As I did so, I realized I hadn’t lost my faith at all but that my faith was transforming, growing, expanding, evolving into a new form (or maybe the form it had been in as a pre-schooler before anyone told me their version of faith). We proceeded down the hill leaving the rocks behind and I was instructed to describe the lightness and ease I felt in my body as I walked away without the weight of those burdens. Maria asked if I wanted to go back for the rocks.
Even with the obvious benefits to myself of not having to carry those burdens, it was interesting to note that a part of me wanted to go back and make sure that my “children” represented by rocks were okay. It was an exercise in trust to keep walking away from a place that I would likely never see again. Leaving the past in the past. Resisting temptation to go pick up those burdens that aren’t really mine. Let it go, Kathryn. Let it go. God it felt hard. I really wanted Maria to just leave me the hell alone and let me at least have the comfort of familiar burdens.
In another session my assignment was to buy balloons in two colors, red and white. During the time between sessions, I would blow up a red balloon for each hard emotion (fear, sadness, anxiety, overwhelm) and a white balloon for each time I wanted to celebrate myself (bravery, clarity, confidence, a job well-done). I told her that was fine since I was going to the store anyway, I would just pick up some balloons. The first store didn’t have balloons. The second store I tried had balloons but not the right colors. The third store had the red and white balloons but I had to dig through piles of balloons to find the ones I wanted. Again, I was getting a bit annoyed at Maria for making me do this. Did I mention I can be a bit lazy about making changes in myself?
The really interesting thing about that is there was a mother in the same aisle with her child, presumably buying balloons for her child’s birthday party. I vividly remembered, and felt in my body, the tiredness I knew as a young mother wanting everything to be perfect for my children. Wanting so badly for them to be happy. And I thought, I tried so hard to be a good mother for my children, I wonder why I’m not willing to put in a little effort to buy some balloons for myself. I wonder about that. I got the balloons. And by the end of the week, my floor was covered in red and white balloons. I think I had to return to the store 3 times.
It takes a lot of air to blow up a balloon. We all know it’s not like typical shallow breathing (which by the way is a trauma response. We breathe shallowly when we are in a state of fawning, not wanting to be seen, essentially playing dead). But when you have to blow up a balloon, you have to admit that you are in fact there and very much alive. You have to put in some effort and acknowledge it, see it. There it is. A red balloon. And there is another white balloon.
Weeks later, on the day that I left France to return to the States, I had a harrowing morning trying to catch my flight. I couldn’t find a taxi to take me to the train station, by the time I found a taxi I had missed my train and needed to pay cash for her to drive me all the way to the airport. I didn’t have cash. Stopped at an ATM and realized that I didn’t have that much in my account. My sister wired money into my account. I got to the airport, rushed to the gate, the plane was visible through the window but the gate was closed. Exhaustion, disappointment, frustration, annoyance…My sister was texting to check in and I told her that I was just going to take a moment to take care of myself. She wanted to help me find a new flight and whatever else she could do to help. But, I said, I got this. Wow! I’m growing. I’m changing. I’m learning that I can swim in the deep end and even enjoy it.
So, what were my methods of taking care of myself? I sat at a little table in the airport and got out some imaginary balloons. Red. Red. Red. Red. Keep going. Keep blowing. Keep getting it ALL out of your system. All of that stress of getting to the airport. All of that disappointment of missing the flight. Blow it out. Red. Red. Red. Red. Okay, Kathryn. Time to turn it around. Do you know how to book flights for yourself? Of course. White balloon. You got this. Blow up that balloon. See it. Acknowledge it. Know it in your cells. You got this.
I booked new flights to NYC. I had layovers in Paris and Madrid. When I got to NYC I had to find two trains to get to where I was staying. All. Day. Long. I blew up imaginary red and white balloons. Tired-Red. Got on the next flight-White. Sad that I missed my son’s graduation-Red. Glad that I have a place to stay when I get there-White. Incidentally, the party store that had balloons only had white ones that were twice the size of the red ones. That helped the turn around be a little sooner. Go ahead. Blow up the red balloon. But the white ones, that’s the focus. Those are the ones that make you stronger. Big, white balloons for every single time you did what you set out to do. Every single time you reach one of your goals. Even if you want to congratulate yourself for finding the bathroom before peeing your pants. Go for it.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed telling this story to people because the red and white balloon method (after all of my petulant grumbling about having to buy them) has been unbelievably helpful. When I got to my host home in New Jersey, I didn’t even feel overwhelmed after international travel and long layovers. I was releasing emotion as I went along. Not carrying it around with me letting those toxins accumulate in my cells. Of course all yogis have a billion and one breathing techniques, but for me this one really takes the cake.
Hmmmm. Rocks. Balloons. Making myself a poster. One of my assignments was to make a HUGE poster for myself about myself listing my resources. Once again my first instinct was to make an excuse. Well, I travel full-time, how could I possibly carry around a big poster? But there in the house where I was staying was a roll of big paper that could easily be folded to fit in my suitcase. Excuses aside, I went to work. Next thing I knew, possibly 10 hours had passed without me even noticing. According to Maria’s definition of talent, it’s something that you do in which you just feel like you are in the flow and it happens with ease. How had I forgotten how important creative outlets are for me? I printed, cut, pasted, colored, rearranged. I was having the time of my life and it was all a celebration of me and things that I like about myself.
I can honestly say that telling yourself what YOU like about you is a completely different experience than receiving compliments from other people. When other people have complimented me, I try to figure out what they are seeing in me. It has sometimes felt like a projection or maybe something that they want me to be? But, when I compliment myself, I can really enjoy receiving the compliment. Then when other people compliment me, I can receive it easily without fear of having to be that version of me. I know what I like about me. That’s all that really matters in the end.
Another piece of that assignment was to list my qualities as she wrote them down. Then came the pop quiz. I had to repeat them back to her by memory. The homework was to recite them to myself in the mirror every morning as I gave myself an essential oil massage. (Or did I mix that assignment from one of my other therapies?) Anyway, as I was listing my qualities, I found it helped to make it into a rhyme. Then, because of my background in music, it very naturally turned itself into a little song. SO…now I have a self-love song to sing in the mirror every day. I was amazed at how it brought me back into my body and ended some of the dissociation I had been experiencing. Again, so many affirmations are out there and available, but I can tell you from experience that if you write one for yourself that is specifically what YOU like about YOU, it’s a totally different experience.
Last session was particularly amazing. I’ve been gradually feeling stronger, more capable, more trusting of my own abilities and that I have the resources that I need. This session was like the icing on the cake. I had just downloaded a very old picture onto my computer and placed it in my daily Google doc journal. In the picture, I am about 2 or 3 years old, standing at the end of a picnic table at a campground with my mother holding my hand. My brother, sister and father are in the background. Could NOT have been a more perfect picture to have immediately in mind for today.
Maria guided me through a process of identifying my guardian angels. My mother in law, my father and my sister were there with me giving me messages of saying “You got this” “Focus on the child in you that just wants to have fun” and “Listen to yourself. Trust yourself.” Once I was grounded in a posture of feeling my feet rooted deeply into the earth and my head accessing the energy of the cosmos, I was guided to visualize my inner child (easy to do with the recent picture downloaded on my computer) and go through the postures of reaching out my hand to hold hers, pick her up slowly and gently, surround her with a healing green light, allow her to melt into me and fill me.
It is the child that heals the adult and allows the adult to in turn have the calmness to care for the inner child. I am her. She is me. We have been integrated and made whole. Wholeness is healing. I literally felt like a different person from how I felt at the beginning of the session. Somatic changes are real and lasting. You can revisit the techniques to solidify them, but unlike other forms of talk therapy, it actually sticks to your cells and gets into your bone marrow. HA!! Just saw a friend posting on Facebook that he had dental surgery using bones from an organ donor!! Apparently, it is actual science that bones can come back to life and fuse with live bones!! NO freaking WAY!!
Well, this reflection on my therapy sessions ended up being so much longer than I had anticipated. I’m so glad that I wrote it all down, though, and I hope that my story will encourage others to embark on this healing journey. You are worth it.
Today was my last session with Maria. We revisited an exercise she had had me do early on. I used objects in the room to create a visualization of how I was feeling in the moment. I started with lots of greenery in the form of decorative plants. Then I gathered fresh oranges and my jewelry and make-up and essential oils. I had stones and beads and a pine cone and a snail shell. It simply felt fun to create and play. What a HUGE difference from the first time Maria had me do this assignment and I was grumpy and tired and overwhelmed. This time was pure JOY! I’m not even going to analyze how or why this all was possible. All I want to say is how deeply grateful I am that I spent the time investing in myself and trusting this process.
Thank you, Maria. I’m sure there were other parts of the process that I haven’t even included here, but I need to end somewhere. I trust that everything we did together has become a part of me without even having to consciously remember it all. I am so grateful!!
Kathryn M