I know peacemakers go to the same place as soldiers.

Therapy was great this week. As usual. I really seem to need it when I skip a week or two... Wonder how August will be.

I’d been starting to feel negative and pessimistic again, especially upon returning from vacation and reinserting myself into the daily grind. I’d also begun to get down on myself for the lapsing of my training, as well as the fucked up state of the world and the “nerve” I had to go on vacation and enjoy myself in the midst of it all... So as usual, she helped remind me of the essential facts that my misery doesn’t help anyone, and that I am allowed to enjoy myself and seek things out that give my own life meaning. She also said something which really stuck—essentially, that I will never become the person I seem to fear becoming; I will never be passive or ignorant or disengaged. These things are against my nature, and hence I do not have to be so incredibly stern and punishing with myself in order to avoid them.

One of the things I love best about her is that she helps me come up with constructive and concrete ways to apply to my actual life the things I learn or acknowledge about myself each week, rather than merely focusing on abstract ideas or nebulous concepts to meditate on. Or worse, getting mired in the hows and the whys of feelings without ever touching on the reality of the here and now—the fact that I live this life day after day, and need to find a way to live it productively with these feelings. For me, that’s the key. I mean, the hows and the whys are essential to explore, but it can’t end there. Once I’ve gained that knowledge, what can I do with it? How can I use it to actually make my life better? I mean, isn’t that why we decide to start therapy in the first place? Because our lives are painful, we’re depressed, we’re having trouble functioning...blah blah blah?

I often feel as though there’s a war raging inside me. Each week, she helps me figure out how to keep the peace.