that old familiar feeling

It took me a long long time to really feel comfortable in the therapy room when I started therapy 6 years ago.

I remember my first steps into the therapy room and how scared I was. I sat in the leather chair with one foot out the door, and now years later, it’s a room filled with my story, and my healing; a place where I am accepted, supported, loved and heard fully.

I am in that space 4 days a week with Tuesday being 2 hours, you would have to say it’s like another little home for me; home to my healing, home to a place I expose my wounds. Home to a place I also invite God to heal along side of me.

Therapy for me is not just about showing up in a room being stuck with the past. Therapy is about learning, growing, getting to know myself while having someone along side of me to help me walk the path of unsureness.

Therapy is about trusting another person with the scars and pain that binded me for so long. Therapy is about relationship and taking someone along into the world that was dark and being guided to find the light.

Therapy for me is finding who God created me to be, and not what others wanted to create inside of me. Therapy is a process, and a process that so far in 6 years has changed me so much that I don’t even remember the person I was behind the walls that surrounded me.

If you look around the therapy room you will see things on his desk that I have brought in over the years like the healing hope box and the timeline books.

There is a little zen garden that I got my therapist a long time ago at the beach that holds small little meaningful things that represent me and my healing – milestones of moments that mean something to a part of my story.

There is a cup that has the word “Dance” on it written in chalk, and a cross made from one of the “Palm Sunday” services I went to that we plan to make to ashes one day.

The therapy room is shared by many wonderful clients; people who also share their stories and pain – but when I walk in, I feel in those moments, it’s my little corner of the world where I heal, where I am fully accepted to be heard and it feels safe and comforting.

This past year while I was going through an unexpected/unfortunate situation that ruptured the even-flow of the room and my healing in therapy, it was hard showing up and feeling as if my healing place was safe, healing or comfortable. It felt compromised by a situation I had no control over.

It held stress, sadness and an unsureness for a while – but I kept showing up! I never gave up my healing process no matter how hard it was and trusted that it will feel that way again, I just needed to trust it – 6 years of trust was what I held onto.

Today when I walked into session, something felt hugely familiar again; something felt really comforting. I don’t know what that change was, but it brought me back to before all the past hard year happened.. it felt familiar.

I sat on the couch with my therapist and I looked around (per my usual routine) before moving into the talking with him, and something shifted and it felt like a good familiar – even though I still showed up in the hardness, today it felt different.

I looked over at my healing box, I looked over at my words that still stand big on the white board that says “I choose to heal and dance with confidence“. I looked over at the tree photo that hangs to my left, I looked over at the zen garden and all the little things inside of it that represent me and my healing.

I looked at my therapist and just felt “home” again, even though I am there many days a week – something felt hugely familiar and it gave me goosebumps and a smiling heart inside.

I remember saying to myself in session this afternoon “thank you God”. “Thank you God for helping me to see what has always been here, but was just covered by hardness for a while.

I don’t know if it’s because I finally feel the year-long battle of this situation that happened has finally come to a close with some peace?

I don’t know if it’s GOD showing up and saying “this is a safe place to heal as it always has been, accept it and see the goodness in it”.

I don’t know if it was the great talk my therapist had with me today that brought me into the familiar again.

Whatever it is, it felt good; the best its felt in a long time.

My therapist felt the same shift … like a familiar part of me came through today, and he was excited and we celebrated that something small shifted in the room today.

Today I felt there was a part of me that settled back into what was always familiar for me in this room – the safe-ness, the comfort and support, and the great energy of connection and of course the wonderful wisdom and knowledge I love to hear.

Even though I show up 4 days a week and have never quit or given up – I have to say “I’ve missed it” and it feels good to be in the familiar feeling again.

Healing is a hard process, and it’s not always easy to show up in a place where your wounds have been and are exposed, gutted  and prodded over and over! But along with that comes the process, the learning, and the support inside of it that helps heal the exposed hardness.

I’m smiling and taking a deep breath right now. I am writing this today because it feels so good and right and I wanted to share it, and there is more to healing and writing than just the hard stuff – there is the goodness that shows up right in the middle of the hardness and today was one of those days for me.

I am glad I can take you all along with me in the goodness today – thank you for giving me that opportunity to be open no matter what is here, good or bad, happy or sad, anger or elation .. it’s nice to have people walk aside of me in all those feelings.

I look forward to showing up next week … to that familiar feeling that was always there, but just covered for a while.