Great Life Gifts

My spiritual director/psychotherapist always thought it was a moment for celebration when someone appeared at his doorway in their lowest moment. “When you hit bottom,” he would say, “then you can break open.” As difficult and harrowing the journey to the bottom can be, hitting an emotional bottom is a moment of celebration. When a series of unhealthy choices finally shove your ego off the cliff of a fantasy life, then you have a chance to break free and fully assess where you might go next. And at your most emotionally and mentally battered, you are more open to the belief that choices you can finally make on your own behalf will lead you to a pathway of peace and security. And once you hit the valley and the shell of a fantasy existence has cracked open, you will be able to soak in the oxygen of a world who wants you as you are.

One of the most gratifying aspects of serving as a counselor is the breakthrough moment clients experience in finding the source of dissonance within their lives. Whether it’s the honest acknowledgement of a feeling towards another or the awareness of their own behavior, the breakthrough moment is an earth shaking moment which is felt by both of us.  How does the process unfold to arrive at a particular apex in time? Like a person who is frantically swimming to the water’s surface, a counseling client is sifting through a tidal wave of emotions and thoughts which is drowning her authenticity. A word at a time, a client wrings out the excesses of her relationships to get to the simplicity of one relationship—the relationship with herself. When the breakthrough occurs, it’s like the near drowning swimmer who has reached through the water’s surface. He is freed to let out the carbon dioxide suffocating him and inhale the oxygen of a life that has been missing. It’s a release ...