One of my favorite moments during a first session with a client is when I ask, "What are your goals for therapy? What do you want to get out of your time here?"
A goal that I hear often is the client wants "to have more control" over something, usually his/her emotions. This usually causes me to smile in irony, because one of the major beliefs in the therapy I practice is that control is actually the problem, and that we tend to make things worse for ourselves when we approach the world with a need to control x, y, and z. Think of the person who begins to misuse alcohol because he/she is trying to control the pain from the loss of a loved one, or the person who diets excessively to control how he/she looks or feels about his/her body. Over the course of a couple of sessions, clients often realize that it is not necessarily more control that they want in their lives, but rather, they are missing a sense of peace, fun, adventure, ease, or the ability to go with the flow. How to incorporate those elements and values more often into their lives is what ends up being the focus of therapy. I haven't met anyone yet who values being "a control freak."
Let's try an experiment: What do you notice when you say, "I want more control in my life?" To get you started, how does your body react? How do the muscles in your face move? What are your hands doing? Are your arm muscles tensing or relaxing? Is your heart beating quickly, or slowly? Is your chest and stomach tight or relaxed? Are there other thoughts that pop into your mind along with, "I want more control in my life"?
Now repeat this experiment, this time saying, "I want more peace in my life." Are there differences in how your body responds to the two statements? If so, how would you like to choose to confront the world - with more control or more peace?
A goal that I hear often is the client wants "to have more control" over something, usually his/her emotions. This usually causes me to smile in irony, because one of the major beliefs in the therapy I practice is that control is actually the problem, and that we tend to make things worse for ourselves when we approach the world with a need to control x, y, and z. Think of the person who begins to misuse alcohol because he/she is trying to control the pain from the loss of a loved one, or the person who diets excessively to control how he/she looks or feels about his/her body. Over the course of a couple of sessions, clients often realize that it is not necessarily more control that they want in their lives, but rather, they are missing a sense of peace, fun, adventure, ease, or the ability to go with the flow. How to incorporate those elements and values more often into their lives is what ends up being the focus of therapy. I haven't met anyone yet who values being "a control freak."
Let's try an experiment: What do you notice when you say, "I want more control in my life?" To get you started, how does your body react? How do the muscles in your face move? What are your hands doing? Are your arm muscles tensing or relaxing? Is your heart beating quickly, or slowly? Is your chest and stomach tight or relaxed? Are there other thoughts that pop into your mind along with, "I want more control in my life"?
Now repeat this experiment, this time saying, "I want more peace in my life." Are there differences in how your body responds to the two statements? If so, how would you like to choose to confront the world - with more control or more peace?