There have been many approaches that have stood out to me in my Psychotherapy and Counseling Techniques course this semester. One in particular though has been living in my head rent free, nagging me to play with it. It’s from a type of therapy called Solutions-Focused Therapy. I like SFT because it’s positive, empowering, and it feels tangible. I think there is definite value in therapies that focus on analyzing the past and discovering insight, but when I try to apply those psychoanalytical types of therapies to my own life, I always end up wondering if any of it is true. Maybe that’s because there is a part of me that feels like I don’t remember my childhood — or I feel like aspects of my childhood have been internalized as an adult that other people have told me, and shaped how I am now in ways that I don’t want to be true. Maybe I just recognize how faulty memories are.
Like the time this I was at a bonfire with my dad, and a stray kitten was walking into the flame. He took the kitten and threw it into the river. When I brought it up years later, that he had killed this kitten — he said that it was because the kitten was on fire. But I don’t remember the kitten being on fire, and I don’t remember anyone getting the kitten out of the river’s current that earlier that day had whisked me dangerously away.
I just don’t know what parts of the past are real or not. Nothing incredibly traumatic, just tiny things.
I guess what I’m saying is that while it is interesting, there is this helpless and blaming aspect that comes from analyzing the past. And maybe you can pinpoint what part of your childhood shaped you, but at the end of the day you just never KNOW. It’s like God is only real if you believe he is, karma will only kick your ass if you think it will, and the fatter you think you are, the more weight you’ll eventually gain.
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Sometimes you know. If you’ve been molested, or been in war, or been the victim of domestic abuse, than you know. You know there was something that happened to you, and that it fundamentally changed you. But what if nothing incredibly traumatic ever happened to you? I know it doesn’t matter, that trauma is trauma and everyone processes things differently, and that often times the degree of traumatic response doesn’t match the traumatic act.
But what if you’re just not sure what happened to you? What if all the reasons you can think of just don’t add up. What if you just can’t accept that all those tiny traumatic things had an impact? Well at that point, I think you just have to stop wondering. Stop wondering about the past, stop living in the past, stop making excuses, stop blaming your parents and other influences.
This is where I think the miracle question comes in. The miracle question is a technique in SFT that brings clarity to goals. This question has many variations, but it usually goes something like this:
Imagine waking up tomorrow morning. By some miracle overnight, all your problems are gone. How would you know?
The first thing that hits me when I think about this question is that I don’t really have any problems. I mean, I’m well fed, my family is alive and well, I’m loved through more than just words, I have things I am passionate about, I’m in good health and attractive. I have a plan, things I am aiming for. I have so much to be grateful for.
So why am I not thriving? Why haven’t I reached that pinnacle of myself that I know exists. I have everything inside me that others have inside them. More than anything, the miracle question reminds me that I’m the one CONSTANT in my life. The one common denominator. Whether I’m joyful or depressed, whether I’m procrastinating or moving forward, whether I’m being needy or isolating myself, whether I feel as if the work I’m doing has purpose or is pointless — it’s always me that is there. No one else. And sure, maybe that is the me that is the accumulation of my past experiences, as a child and as an adult. But at a certain point, none of that helps me.
And so here we are — right back to the importance of personal responsibility.
It seems so simple. So why is it so difficult sometimes? Why do I have all of this insecurity swirling within me, when literally every person I love just wants me to succeed?
At this point, I should stop typing. I should end this in a coherent, well-rounded way but I can’t. I can’t because when you stop and wonder why it’s so hard to do what you know you need to, you really just come full circle. It all wraps through your brain and goes back to all those things in your childhood that affected you, making you insecure and scared.
There are even parts of my past that made me not want to succeed — that made me not want the attention. Whether it be good or bad, sometimes attention is the worst part. Sometimes it’s the best part.
So what do we do? How do we make sense of everything? I guess this is why having a spiritual practice is so important. It’s also why every single theory in my textbook makes sense, even if they’re vastly different. Because it’s all a little true. Sometimes you have to remember that it’s not your fault, that there are reasons why you are the way you are. And sometimes you have to tell yourself to shut up and stop being so self-centered, worrying about dumb shit that no one else cares about or even notices.
For me, life is a continual mix — a constant state of living in the gray. Trying to be okay with not knowing. Understanding that so much has nothing to do with me. A constant give and pull, ultimately ending in surrender. The human need to recognize my power, carving out the life I want little by little. Wondering if any of my dreams are possible, while simultaneously knowing they 100 percent are.
I still like the Miracle question. To answer it shortly for myself, if all of my problems were solved — it would really come down to three things.
- Self-regulation — knowing what I need, surfing an urge to figure it out, solving the root problem instead of focusing on symptoms
- Attention — being particular about what I give my attention to, having intense focus so that I’m not wasting my time doing a million things at once, reading things I won’t remember
- Dependability — keeping the tiny, daily promises that I make to myself. Because without that I have nothing. Trust isn’t possible without consistency.
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What is the most beautiful thing about those two themes? They are in my control. I can make those two things happen. And just by recognizing that — coming back to it day by day — it makes it easier. It makes it possible to “Be as you wish to seem.”
to “Act as if.”
Because you already are the person you want to be. It’s just swirling around inside of you, asking to be let free.