Imagine a fizzy, fuzzy, foamy drink.
(This image is one of the most common ways that I talk about the therapeutic process of feeling with my clients.)
Imagine looking at the drink and you might see a few things:
- the drink you poured
- the foam in between you and the drink
Now, imagine your decision-making process to get to your goal of drinking your drink:
- drink the foam a few times
- spoon out the foam
- wait for the foam to evaporate a bit
- use a straw and get immediate access
This process of drinking a bubbly drink is similar to the process of feeling your feelings when they build up inside of you for any reason.
You are the drink that has been poured. Your true self and core identity are under the fizz. The fizz are the emotions that accompany a situation, an interaction, a belief or a memory. Your goal is to access your self in every emotional situation so that you can feel confident, competent and secure, but how do you do it when there is foam, fizz or fuzz aka EMOTIONS in the way?!
A straw, right? “Just bypass the emotions and get to the good stuff, back to normal,” we say.
Well, not everybody is ready to use the straw. It feels a bit like a brain freeze if you do too much at once. That’s where therapy comes in. Therapy is the straw that gets to the bottom of bubbling emotions. Therapy helps you decide how you want to deal with the foam and explore ways that have worked and haven’t worked in the past. If you aren’t ready for a straw (lots of us aren’t), then therapy is also what prepares you to consider using a straw as one tool of many at your disposal.
So, to recap: you are the drink & your emotions are that fizz, fuzz and foam. They are part of the drink you’ve chosen. They are part of you. Your emotions are part of the experiences you have. And the fizz, like your emotions, sometimes just has to run its course. You are free to help them along in many ways or you can wait for them to pass. Either way, the goal is to get to the part you enjoy: the drink.
Sometimes getting to the drink is a clean process when we’re patient. Sometimes we have a foam moustache when we rush our way through it! The bottom line is that therapy teaches us to see the fizz as a reminder to embrace ourselves as we embrace the process. This helps you work through the fizz to get to who you really are. It helps you learn more about yourself and how you can become anchored and stay in touch with your truth.
Therapy is the straw.
It doesn’t make the fizz go away. It empowers you to move through the fizz and connect to your core so that you’re able to engage and endure the process. And that’s what to expect when you’re expecting a therapist.