The Heart Wants What It Wants.

I woke up this morning with the lyrics “the heart wants what it wants” replaying in my mind. I’ve been up for a bit and rather than feed that immediate need to address what my mind and heart were conveying, I made some coffee and did some work. I got feedback this week that it seemed that with all the things I’ve had going on the last four weeks or so, I appear a bit distracted. That my multi-tasking may not be working as effectively and I am dropping the ball a bit. I can’t say that, that feedback isn’t true. It forced myself to do some serious evaluation of myself and how I intend to show up moving forward. I work hard almost always but I know that with all the million directions that my mind is being asked to travel in a day, I am not giving one thing my all and I know that it is time to refocus and reprioritize the important things in my life. I know that fear will always live in me but what I have realized in the last four weeks is that fear in the right number of doses is good and that even with a little fear I will survive and move forward.

I had therapy for the first time in weeks yesterday and it was so needed. I didn’t realize how much I had kept stored in my heart and mind that needed an outlet. As a clinician myself, I didn’t consider what it must be like for clients during the holiday to not have access to their support until I myself realized how much I had missed that outlet. Therapy has been a tremendous outlet for me throughout my life and I don’t know what I would do without it. The last few weeks have really opened my eyes to so much I had been unwilling to see. More importantly it has taught me a valuable lesson about myself and how I have spent so much of my life viewing people’s actions towards me. My measure of myself was always if someone left me, provided me negative feedback, was that it was a rejection of me, that something was so wrong with me that they couldn’t “stay.” What I have learned recently is that I am not being rejected by someone making another choice.

I had a new experience this week with a client, now former client. During my feedback session, after we discussed the various things that needed addressing and the goals for this upcoming year my boss alerted me to a change a client of mine was requesting. We have worked together most of the time I have been at the private practice. She had been sporadic the last few months. She is pregnant, and vacillated between needing therapy and not. We had an appointment this week, that she cancelled and then my boss let me know she was asking to be moved to another clinician. My response to the situation surprised me because I didn’t see it as a rejection of me but rather a need she had that I was not meeting and her advocacy for herself to seek it in someone else. Of course, the part of me that wants to learn and grow wants to know what caused the change but, in the end, the biggest lesson for me and one that I am most proud of is that I didn’t feel rejected or as if I wasn’t enough.

The last month has been a tremendous learning for me. Everything that has happened in my personal life has not been reduced to me not being enough or that something is wrong with me but rather an acknowledgement of that someone else has made another choice because its right for them. There are days that are hard, days where I struggle to accept the tremendous loss, where I wonder, am I missed as much as they are. Most days though, I warmly remind myself that this is my meantime and as long as I am taking care of myself, maintaining my boundaries and working towards growing myself, I am ok. I’ve always been ok; I was waiting for someone to make it better and the only one that was every responsible for that was me.

This week has been emotionally draining. Lots of Covid related issues at one work, difficult feedback at another, and my father being readmitted to the hospital has been a lot to navigate. Vacillating between anger and fear with my dad’s current situation and realizing that being angry with him is not going to allow me to show him compassion or empathy both of which he needs to heal. I am choosing to let go of all the things he could have done to avoid this outcome and focus on the fact that it doesn’t serve me to be angry at him. I can’t be there how he needs in my anger and the reality is my anger is masking my primary feeling which is that I am afraid he will die. Over time I have developed distance between my parents and have held firm on some very critical boundaries which have helped me tremendously but I would be devastated if something happened to him. Despite all of his “stuff” and how I feel about my childhood experience losing him now would be so hard. All I can do though, is “pray” that time will heal his lungs and that he will regain his strength and walk out of their more healed. I have no control of the outcome all I can do is show up how I can.

That has been a theme this week, showing up how I can and knowing when I cannot. I have felt like a terrible friend. My friend of 23 years lost her daughter tragically and while I was able to show up for the planned “events” to memorialize the death, I feel like I have failed to show up in any other way. I reached out to her the other day to apologize for not being there more. She is debilitated in her grief and I have felt unsure of how to support her or help her. What do you say or do when someone is completely destroyed by the loss of their child? There isn’t much I can do except offer myself in the way she needs. I can’t fix this for her, no one can.

No one can fix us or make things better for us. We have the capacity to support one another but the idea that our presence can fix or change someone is one that will land us in disappointment each and every time. We are responsible to ourselves and our healing. I woke up this morning with the song lyrics in my head “the heart wants what it wants” and no truer words were ever spoken. I have spent so much time feeling betrayed by my heart because I am tired of feeling sad and the last four weeks have demonstrated that I can’t control what my heart feels. When you give yourself over to someone in love the only thing that will ease the pain and sadness is time. I can’t demand that my heart unlove nor can I demand it numb itself so I no longer feel the pain. All I can do is show up for my feelings and allow myself the time to work through them.

Last night as I lay in bed, kid less for the first time in weeks my body was craving touch, to feel desired, to feel tended too. To feel another human being next to me. And the only person I can rely on for that is me. I know how to tend to my needs and pleasure myself and yet my body did not respond. I felt betrayed by my body, to need that release and that my body had other plans. The tears immediately came. The heart, the body, wants what it wants and what I have come to accept is that time will ease all of that and I will not beat myself up or get angry about it anymore. I will just continue to not give up on myself and be patient with me.