save US.

First, listen to: Save Me by Noah Kahan.

A little less than 10 years ago I felt this way. Broken, unfixable, a burden. I was so ashamed that I completely avoided my true struggles by acting out with impulse, seeking external validation, and coping through numbing and false control. And although I knew that the ones I loved were the ones I was treating the worst, that pain and guilt was so strong that I completely avoided that understanding as well, and in fact subconsciously made it worse. Thus, continuing a cycle of shame, poor decisions, bad behavior, pushing away purposefully the ones that I loved some of which I’ll never get back, and ultimately ending up with a lifelong battle against my own thoughts.

I taught someone about about shame vs. guilt the other night. I enlightened him with this spark-note version that guilt is “I made a mistake, take responsibility, and will learn from it”, while shame is, “I am the mistake, I am the problem, I will never been enough.” I’ve lived in shame since I was a kid. Many of us do. My shame led me down a path of low self esteem, abusive relationships, depression, pain, and then halted as it nearly took me off the edge of a cliff to die, from an eating disorder.

When I heard this song last week, a new release from one of my favorite artists, it all came flooding back. I work daily to combat the negative thoughts inside my head, something I teach my clients to do everyday. For me, its more of an understanding… I’ll always have them, but I can learn to retaliate. And today I live in a world of strong, brave retaliation, and I am okay with that. I am the best I’ve ever been. But I realized when listening to this song— after a week of some deep humbling gratitude from my clients culminating in a conversation with a dad of one of them, who called me a guardian angel for his daughter, and my response was, “I do this because someone else, at some point, did it for me” — something that I knew before and suddenly made such tangible sense in the moment… we are healed because of each other. We save each other. There is no healing alone, there is no gratitude without gratitude, there is no insight without insight, no strength without support. Even in our despair, our brokenness, our healing, we are connected and WE are the answer.

Yes I may have done a bit extra in a small way to support this father and this girl… but the truth is I love her. I care about her well-being and that extra time and care I gave to them outside of our weekly sessions was just the reality of caring for people, for me. I don’t know how to do the one without the other. When he thanked me for that 5th time that week, and I responded with the now conscious understanding that I do what I do because of what has been done for me, I thought about a few things…

I thought about my friend Heather. She has literally known me at the worst times in my life. My darkness, the world’s darkness, she’s seen it all and lived it all with me, we’ve struggled and we’ve come together. Despite the darkness, she loves me unconditionally. She literally would praise me for taking a poop I think, if I told her it was an accomplishment ;) . She loves me with what might look like blind love and support from the outside, yet she’s not blind at all- in fact she’s got 20-10 vision into my life.

I thought about Andy who reminded me all the time how proud Petey (my dad) would be of me. I thought about how he had been the one thing that was constant in my life and needed at the time, and not part of my controlled chaos. It was his acceptance that allowed me to exercise that chaos and he even joined in on it, on our adventures. He climbed five 14,000 ft peaks with me in the first year I lived in Colorado, not against his will per se, but it was an amazing way he loved me through compromise and sacrifice. And I would argue, that some of that adventure and chaos rubbed off on him.

I thought about my badass friend, Brooke. She’s an FBI agent. A later in life friend, she has challenged me and loved me, and jumped in when my world came crashing down around me. We literally argue over which one of us is prouder of the other. And let’s be real, her accomplishments blow me out of the water. Our friendship is so fierce and raw, it’s all-empowering and without her I wouldn’t own my confidence the way I do. Every woman should have a friend like Brooke. (And for the record… I’m prouder ;) ).

I thought about the women in my life- my sister, my mom, my grandma, my godmother. My awesome crew of moms. They’ve ALWAYS been in my corner, and despite at times sitting on the sidelines to the once Daddy and Daughter team, they filled in, played strong, lifted me up, no questions asked.

I thought about Greg, my brother in law. He let me invade their newlywed home and be his and my sister’s roommate during a very dark time in my life. He supported my dad and boyfriend at the time- during an intervention moment where my family decided to get me help with or without my will or permission. He took a step into a storm that wasn’t his even close to being his own. Who does that?? He did, without hesitation. He is one of my biggest fans and I run most of my big decisions in life by him, and he listens and approves, because he believes in me inside and outside of the darkness.

I thought about all the teachers, mentors, supervisors I have had throughout my career and journey, who have told me it’s OKAY to be unconventional. It’s OKAY to love the way I love, AND because I do, I must take extra care of my heart and my soul, and consistently learn to refuel. They were the ones that didn’t tell me I was crazy or too-outside-the-box, or marching down the wrong path… but who got to work and put some streets lights up for me along the way.

I am where I am now because of all those and so many more little big things that people have done for me throughout my life. I am saved because of the millions of moments I’ve shared with others. So maybe it’s not about us being broken, or unworthy, but it’s about knowing that we all are broken and thus all worthy. And that all of us are meant to save each other- with a smile, a hug, a hope, a hello. I can’t tell you how many first responders or survivors come into my office and feel unworthy- feel as those their problems aren’t worth my time or support- they feel silly, weak, guilty. And the reality is, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The realization we must make as a society is that we are all worthy of love and support, and what we must do in receiving it, is learn to give it. The greatest gift a client ever gives me is teaching others what they have learned.

I might be a therapist and my life might revolve around empowering others to save themselves. But there isn’t one person on this earth that isn’t capable of doing the same thing. Maybe our wounds are made for the purpose of healing other wounds. Maybe we struggle so that when we survive we have the ability and insight to help others through struggle- we end up replacing the ones who helped US survive. And the circle of life continues, the broken to the saved, the wounded to the healer. Pay it forward… because in the end, we either have pain or we have purpose.

“The analyst must go on learning endlessly… it is his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal” - Carl Jung.

“ A psychotherapist’s own experience of being wounded is what helps her face the suffering client in simple relatedness. So, what does it mean for us to resonate with the archetypal energy of the Wounded Healer? As clients make their way to my psychotherapy office with their dreams, confessions, and tears, it is almost as if there is an alchemical foot-washing taking place. I am washing their feet, not out of a sense of superiority and perfection, but rather from an energetic field of having my own feet washed as well. The primary requirement for becoming a psychotherapist is not the intellectual training. It is not the methods and techniques. It is simply the willingness to kneel and be washed” - Kathyrn C Larsey.