Collective Heartbreak - Is Happy Real?

photo by author

Clients occasionally arrive equipped for the journey – with appropriate gear for the long trek – aware that they are not going to get to the pinnacle or goal in a day. However, some sit on the couch with doe-eyes feeling as though they have been traveling on the rocky trail forever without an end in sight. They’ve run out of supplies. They may hope that I have a technique, a pill – something that will just make the pain go away.

In moments like those I wish I were a magician. A few weeks ago, I threw down my notebook and exclaimed: “Being a counselor sucks sometimes!” (I think my client and I were both a little surprised, but she knew I did it because I felt for her. I wanted more than anything to diminish her pain.) The only consolation I can offer clients is that things usually get better if they want it, stick with it and work at it. Change can be scary even when it is positive.

Some days a client might cover 10 miles on the trail and the next day it may start snowing and she may only travel a mile before setting up camp, but inevitably, she will arrive at her destination... or a destination. So we can’t always see the ground we’ve covered or how we’ve changed, but a year out or two we look back and feel like a different person.

People are occasionally suspicious of happiness, assuming that the happy person is faking it or just born

Love Lasik

Baby bird in Niwot, CO

Dance transformed me into a more open-hearted woman. Becoming a counselor is yet another quest to chase out the places where I am afraid of intimacy. Witnessing (and urging) another person into the terrifying territory of feelings has required that I be equally brave.

Being open-hearted sounds either medical or perhaps like what follows will be Hallmark sentimentality. Sure, I’m now a big mush-ball when it comes to the people whom I love, but recently, my new understanding has been like Lasik surgery to the heart. Lasik permanently changes the shape of the cornea. In the same way, what I need to do to love more fully has become clear, and my heart and self are permanently altered.

Rainbow over Niwot, CO

Why is intimacy terrifying? (Counselors ask a lot of questions.) Being “burned” makes it less enticing to jump back into the water. And I’m not just talking about the relationship between couples. It applies to the connection with our parents, children, extended family and friends. We throw daggers between ourselves and others just to keep them back. Like some fake watch salesman on a NYC street corner, we hide the daggers inside special pockets of our coat – just in case someone gets too close.

Niwot, CO

  How do we do it? We judge. The other
  is too slow, too uncultured, too smart,
  too shut down, too fat, too emotional,
  too unemotional... the list goes on. Our
  egos convince us that it’s super
  important that we teach the other person
  a lesson (even if the person will learn whatever they are supposed to
  learn in their own way, on their own time). Or we argue politics
  when in fact our tantrum may have to do with poor early attachment
  to a parent. Or we hold strings to the money or time that we give. (I
  was there for you; therefore, you should be here for me now.) Or, we judge based on another’s appearance or seeming difference. And we are equally harsh on ourselves.

Captured on a visit to my sister and family

Our only job is to love... and that requires that we become bigger than ourselves, entering possibly unknown territory. When we love we set ourselves and the other free. Our egos, pesky little buggers, have the power to convince us that if we don’t do what they tell us to do everything will fall apart. And if everything falls apart, we will have no control, and then it will be our fault that the world ends because someone didn’t load the dishwasher correctly.

In NYC with my girls

  We live in an angry
  culture, and it’s not just
  road rage. Yesterday I
  saw a father walk up to
  his teenage son in the
  airport and twist his
  arm so hard I thought the boy would cry out. Love, and the healing of the
  world, begins at home. Undoing the fear of love begins at home. Where do
  you throw daggers to keep people back? Who do you need to manage so
  you will look better? Will you need to wait until you are dying to decide that
  love is really worth the pain?

LASIK is a surgical procedure intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LOVE is a radical choice intended to reduce a person's dependency on the illusion of separation.

Starbucks and Revelations

Standing in line at Starbucks, I got to talking to the man next to me. He told me that every morning he drives north to this particular Starbucks to buy his drink and breakfast before getting on the freeway to travel south again to Denver where he works – all because the staff is stellar – unbelievably friendly. “It’s not like other Starbucks.” It adds about 15 minutes to his commute to make this coffee run, but evidently it’s worth it. I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but this phenomenon fascinated me, and I started to go to this Starbucks just to observe the dynamics. And, it was true. Mostly female employees, they were like morning stars that must have risen hours before we arrived, shining down and lighting our way. The woman at the register asked one man how his birthday had been. She asked the next customer if he had found the folder he had misplaced. And, she complimented the third gentleman on his jacket. It was my turn. I thought maybe I was looking into the eyes of Venus. When the dark haired beauty, probably a student at the nearby University of Colorado asked how I was, it felt like if I had said I was having a hard day, she would have pulled me aside and urged me to vent. Her enthusiasm was sincere. I wanted to order more than a decaf Americano – like maybe a couple of salted caramel cake pops, some almonds, a CD and a veggie plate, but I reminded myself that coffee was all I wanted. “Okay Hon, that’ll be right up.” It felt like we were all swept back in time to a 50’s diner.

People long for connection and caring. Taking it a step farther, we also yearn to be accepted unconditionally.  A part of us heals when we tell our deepest (what we consider darkest) secrets to a friend, counselor, coach or spiritual advisor who can receive it without judgment. Accepted, we forgive; we’re a little easier on ourselves. It could be someone who loves us enough to know that whatever we did was what created the person we have become today. Or it might be a confession to a total stranger on an airplane or to a priest. My mother always says that the concept of Catholic confession was the precedent for counseling.

Too, we are thirsty for touch. Yoga instructors will tell you that the more people they can "assist"(helping them to move more deeply into a pose), the more likely those individuals