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When You're Tired of Your Own Courage
Therapy is sometimes a space where we come to fall apart — and that's ok. And that is growth.
Many of us have "decided" to be courageous non-stop in life. (I'm putting quotes around "decided" because many times it turns out that this decision wasn't a decision at all, but a strategic mechanism that helped us cope with whatever dificulty we encountered in life.) The question is what courage is anyway and how we perceive it, but let's say that what we've learned about courage is that it means moving forward even when it's hard, facing challenges instead of running away from them, fighting, taking risks, always striving for progress that is tangible and measurable.
And many of us have learned this lesson a little too well. We've learned to be brave even when we wouldn't want to be. "Courage" has become part of our identity, struggle and challenge the way we live our life. And that kind of courage certainly has its place in our lives. Sometimes we truly need to be brave in that way, to have the capacity and strength to meet challenges and to dare to reach for what we want.
However, that's not the kind of courage I want to talk about here. For a person who lives this every day, who knows that inner voice that always pushes and says "you can do this" — it's no longer brave at all to do something that scares you. That person knows this kind of courage, has been through that cycle many times and knows that it's easier to take action, even when it's hard, than to do nothing.
For this person, courage actually means — stopping. Not doing. Staying with the discomfort that arises when we stop ourselves from taking action.
Why does discomfort arise, and what does this have to do with falling apart in the therapeutic space?
We all have a specific wiring. Some of us have a lot of energy that needs movement, and for those people it will be far more acceptable and less challenging to engage in action than it is for someone whose system simply carries less charge. People with naturally less energy will have different kinds of challenges, and they will likely be slower and heavier when it comes to moving in a certain direction. The truth is, we need both. We need to move and be active, but sometimes we need to allow ourselves to be slow and rest. For naturally more charged people, in stressful situations, the fight or flight response will activate more easily, and if we don't have enough support and inner safety, we might stay stuck in this mechanism for so long that we begin to slowly slide into freeze — chronic exhaustion and fatigue that no amount of coffee in the world can fix. If you arrive at this phase, it will look like you are shutting down because your body just can't handle this kind of stress anymore, and at the same time, you will not know how to actually rest and recharge.
If we have learned from a very young age that the safest thing for us is to keep moving, as a coping mechanism to avoid discomfort or danger, the hardest thing will be to stop. If we've never had adequate support in our lives, a safe place where we could stop and simply be, we've learned that the feelings we might encounter in stillness are simply too big and too powerful to bear alone — and we've found ways to avoid them.
Many people who come to therapy may find, perhaps for the first time in their lives, a space that is safe. Where just being and feeling is ok. Where we don't have to be anything other than what we are. We don't have to pretend we're doing better, that we are stronger, we don't have to entertain anyone, or perform, or avoid any danger. And for the person who is used to being courageous and ready for action all the time — this is so new that they can barely find their footing in that space.
So many times I've witnessed it, and gone through it myself — sitting down in front of my therapist and tears simply beginning to fall. Or a deep anxiety and fear would appear, or I would feel anger I didn't think I was even capable of feeling. And all of that was ok. All of it was welcome. It's a process of learning inner safety through an outside container. And slowly I learned, as did my clients, how to stay with feelings, how to sometimes allow ourselves not to hold it all together, how to let ourselves be just ordinary, messy human beings.
Sometimes falling apart is not a bad thing — sometimes it's the only thing that makes sense. The only thing that can bring us to a better place. A place with more clarity, a place that carries wisdom. A place where we can rest, recharge, and from there — move again.
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