Establishing a client base has always come easy to me. I hang my shingle and people come.
I draw what I need to learn.
In contrast to my first private practice, my boundaries were much less rigid and as a therapist “I was willing to go” into much greater depths with my clients.
In a way it was like the wild west for a while.
My clients were “unwinding” or experiencing somatoemotional release on a daily basis.
I tested my own ability to “let go of the outcome” and “get out of the way” of my client’s healing process. I also stretched my willingness to “let go of judgment” and “create a safe space.”
What I found was that anything can happen when someone feels safe.
I don’t mean just physically safe from danger. I mean emotionally safe to feel vulnerable, uncovered, unfiltered, and raw.
Think about the layers and layers of armor we each build as we expose ourselves to life.
It does not take long for most people to hide their true selves as they grow. With each encounter of judgment, criticism, and emotional or physical betrayal, we find shelter in these layers and often “forget” what is under the layers we have created.
Unwinding is a gradual lifting of these layers in an unordered pattern to allow us to peek at what lies under the surface and provide an opportunity to change the messages we heard or how we heard the messages that hurt us.
It is not something you can “do” to another being. There is no lack of control for the person unwinding. At every step it is their choice to continue to reveal their layers to themselves or put on their brakes to protect their vision.
The therapist’s role is merely to be the guardian of safety. An un-opposing force which allows us to feel safe enough from physical danger and emotional judgment to “remember” what is underneath the surface and what lies within our tissues.
Our cells know and remember every living moment we have ever experienced.
It is paramount to our survival.
Unwinding allows us choice to “rewire” the interpretation of those events if they no longer serve us in a productive or positive manner.
The healing experience is life changing for those allowing the change to occur and awe-inspiring to witness.
As that witness, I experienced every emotion I have ever known with an intensity unprecedented for me. Grief, Joy, Rage, Sadness.
Feelings of betrayal, longing, loss, fear, and hope.
It was amazing.
And exhausting.
I employed every life skill I was taught and inherently knew, to stay grounded and shake off the emotions of each day.
This worked for a while.
As my boundaries grew, I felt safe in my own environment created by the love and acceptance of my family and husband. My life mirrored that of my clients, and I was able to hear the cells of my own body tell me of their history and uncharted territories.
It was hard.
My healing journey, like those I witnessed, took me beyond my conscious memory to pre-birth and beyond.
I had a sense of my mother’s grief for her mother and unborn children.
I remembered the abandonment I felt when I was torn away from my mother during my own birth.
I saw glimpses of a childhood abuse by a stranger and the millions of thoughts kids have when making mistakes or misjudgments.
Shame, humiliation, fear, not feeling “good enough,” feelings of rejection and betrayal.
And buried deep under was the raw and unfiltered me.
So sweet, generous, innocent, and pure of heart.
I’m not sure what was harder to bear; reliving every raw emotion which resulted in me burying myself, or the remembrance of the most beautiful being that existed buried deep beneath the sewage.
How could I have abandoned her and her beauty with the falsehood and negativity of interpreting experiences as weapons against her?
It was not her fault, and it was not mine as an adult either.
The realization of the uniformity and universality of what people do to emotionally survive the world was healing.
I am not the only person to bury my inner light to protect it from emotional and physical harm.
All of humanity does the same to differing degrees.
Self-forgiveness is a most powerful tool, and it cannot be “given” by anyone but oneself.
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