When comfort is found in resistance
On Memoir: Am I making life harder than it needs to be?
My therapist said she wanted to try an exercise if I was up for it.
“Sure,” I said.
She took a long blue-green scarf into her hands and said for me to hold one end while she held the other. Clutching my side of the scarf with both hands, I waited, and in the hushed moments that followed, she inquired if any thoughts or emotions were surfacing for me as we shared this connection, each of us holding onto the scarf.
“I’m anticipating something. Waiting for something to happen.”
“What tells you that?”
“My entire body feels as though it's slipped into a heightened state of hyper-vigilance, tense and on high alert.”
“Pull the scarf until you get to a tension that feels right,” she said.
I tugged and guided the fabric through my hands, stopping only when I encountered a reassuring resistance.
“What tells you this is right?”
“Resistance is where I feel comfortable.”
She asked if the distance between us felt right, or if I wanted something to change.
I’d been leaning back on the couch, both hands holding the scarf and I said that I was feeling the urge to scoot to the end of the cushion so I could better plant my feet. I needed to feel more grounded, more vigilant.
“I’m bracing myself for something to happen, making sure I’m rooted and stable enough to handle it,” I said.
“Would you like to try an experiment?”
“Sure,” I said.
She said she was going to drop her end of the scarf.
“Do you want to ask me when to drop it or do you want me to just drop it?” She asked.
“Just drop it.”
She let it go and her end fell to the floor. My grip relaxed and I leaned back onto the couch.
“What did you notice as I dropped my end?”
“A relief. Like I could relax.”
“Tell me more.”
“I was no longer anticipating what you were going to ask of me.”
“Would you like to ask me to pick the scarf back up or just have me pick it up?”
“Just pick it up.”
“Okay, just let me know when you’re ready for me to pick it back up.”
I had unintentionally bunched up the scarf in my hands, making it inaccessible for her. I had to unravel it for her to pick it back up.
“What was different about me just picking it up versus you asking me to?”
“I don’t want to ask people to do things for me.”
When we were finished she asked what all came up for me during the exercise. What did I think about my responses, she wondered.
It wasn’t surprising that a certain level of resistance felt comfortable to me. I feel like I’ve been coming up against some form of tension since the day I was born. When your parents are meth addicts living in the unforgiving Mojave Desert with little to take care of themselves or you, life is bound to be an uphill battle. I can tell you that nothing has been easy. I have worked and struggled for every single thing I have, every single thing I’ve done. I’m not complaining because it’s this resistance, this strain that has made me who I am. It’s given me the grit and determination I need to push through just about anything, and it has led to me living a beautiful but sometimes wildering life.
The thing is, the thing I’m wondering now is how much of life has shown up with its teeth barred, and how much of it did I confront with raised fists from the very start? Childhood has taught me to find comfort in the tension—the chaos—and I wonder if I’m inviting resistance into my life where it wouldn’t be otherwise. Please, do come in. Allow me to find you a comfortable spot to sit between the blades of my shoulders. Make yourself at home in my bones.
Am I making life harder than it needs to be?
What do you do when the only way you know how to live is in the friction—the opposition? Where do you find the ease? And if you find it, how do you allow it in and feel safe?
The only thing I know of ease is my son who is easy to love. I watch him; the way he moves through the world with so much presence, so much peace, so much joy, and I wonder was there ever a time when I wasn’t waiting for something bad to happen?
Maybe my relationship with tension began when the police raided our home, arresting my mother, and pulling her from the bed where we slept together when I was only three. Or maybe it started earlier when my uncle found me alone in a crib with a bottle of Coca-Cola, no one else at home when I was only a year old. Maybe that’s when I learned not to ask things of people because if I did, I couldn’t count on them to show up for me.
My therapist pointed out that the exercise revealed that relationships aren't a source of comfort and security for me. Instead, they feel like work, responsibility, and pressure.
“Yeah,” I said. “That checks out.”
In my experience, relationships are unpredictable and unsafe. People leave. They get arrested. They overdose. They just stop showing up one day. So, I've learned not to rely on anyone but myself.
The past informs the present and present me is still trying to be invisible, to not ask too much, to be self-sufficient. That’s what this is all about, this work I’m doing with my therapist, she wants me to lean on people more, to ask for help, to trust.
“That’s a slippery slope,” I said.
“What about your partner?” she said. “You’ve been together for over ten years.”
“Well, yeah but part of me still feels like he could just leave one day because well, he could.”
“What about your brother? You two are close, right?”
“Well, yeah. But that could change. Years ago, he got married and disappeared, and it wasn't until his marriage ended that he came back to me.”
She validated my feelings, as good therapists do, but she also encouraged me to trust the people closest to me. She pointed out that I often assume responsibility for other people's emotions and experiences in the world, even when they are not mine to bear.
I’ve felt responsible for others since I was a child. Who else was going to take care of my parents? They certainly couldn't do it themselves in the state they were in. My father, forever drowning in grief over the loss of his brother in a car accident when they were barely twenty, and then losing my mother to drugs, prison, and other men and women who could hold her attention better than he could. I just wanted to make things easier for him. He was an addict too, but he was home more than my mother was, and so, I thought I could fix him. I thought I could make things easier for him by making myself smaller, by diminishing my needs. He had enough to deal with without me throwing my little kid problems onto him.
My mother was drowning in her own grief, but hers was more of a thrashing sort of grief. A tornado of destruction—of herself, and others. She tried to numb the sadness with drugs, with chaos. I only wanted love from her, and I had it. She was a mess, but she loved me. That was clear. I wished my love could have kept her, but it couldn't, so I just kept giving and emptying myself out until I was exhausted.
The past continues to affect the present and present me is fucking tired because relationships have felt like work my entire life. My therapist says let it go. The resistance, the tension, let it all go. Their problems, their sorrow, they were never mine to carry. She says, pick up your own needs, wants, dreams.
“What do you need?” she asks. “What do you want?”
I shrug and stare at her for a long time. Then I say, “I don’t know how to listen to my own needs.”
And so we are. I’m trying to listen and to trust and to open my hands.
What came up for you as you read this? What brings ease into your life? Do you find it easy to trust? What do you want? Tell me one thing. Tell me everything. I’m here for all of it.
If you liked this piece you may also like this one…
Been going through a similar learning journey myself these days ❤️ trying to listen to what I want, let others emotions not become my own, and make myself normal size instead of small again. Happy to talk about it whenever friend!