There is a part of me that wants to keep the conversations that Wyatt and I have had to myself. They are extremely important to me, deeply personal. I come to Miraval partly to spend time with him specifically - to ask for his help and to hopefully learn something, to change something. He has been the only therapist over the years that has really helped me, though of course my walk and talk with Coach Leigh did turn out to be quite helpful as well. I have done one on ones with him, his workshop, his mini-workshop. I think I have learned more from him about life, and how to live it, than I have from anyone. I would like to keep the conversations within the confines of my ever racing mind, but how am I supposed to remember all of the things he said to me if I don't find a way to write at least part of them down?
I am going through some stuff right now that I don't want to be specific about. And the processing part of it is over, so it seems. It is the action part that I have failed at so completely. To Wyatt, every moment is an opportunity. Literally. An opportunity for something. To change, to learn, for joy. And he thinks what I have in front of me is perhaps the greatest opportunity of all. And it's not that I haven't been presented with the opportunity before, I just have not seized on it. Perhaps I wasn't ready. Perhaps I am still not. And I say that I can't. I can't is what I tell him. It feels too hard. It feels impossible. I say there is a lot that I can't do. But Wyatt says that's not the problem. I can do anything - obviously - I have landed here in adulthood, having achieved amazing things, even if I minimize them in my own mind. The problem is in fact simply that I won't. I can do it - but I won't. He says over the past four years he just sees me continue to live out the traumas of my past, and that although I feel frustrated with it and all of the "processing" I have done, and that I say I don't understand why I can't change - he says its obvious to him that I must not want to change because I have not attempted it and failed. I simply haven't attempted it. AA people always say nothing changes if nothing changes. Wyatt says that a lot too. He also reminded me of another AA thing - from "How It Works" - "half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point." I am standing right there. And I am either going to do what I told Wyatt I would do, and jump off. I didn't say I would try, he made me say that I would in fact do it. Or I am going to remain in a place of permanent stuckness, ever processing and getting no where. Hell, I will probably find myself sitting across the table from Wyatt next year saying I don't know why I am so stuck. And he will probably laugh at me next time.
I think perhaps the first step is always the most difficult. And he thinks I will find that if I do it, if I do what I need to do to change my life in the way that I want it to change, I will find that it is not nearly as difficult as I made it up to be in my own mind. And what if - what if something amazing happened. We went over worst case scenarios and we decided that the outcome of my simply living differently is unknown, but that each of the possible outcomes was tolerable - that I could live through whatever the outcome would be. I am thinking of the first step as kind of like rock climbing. Like when when you have to repel down the mountain before you can climb back up. That moment when you turn around, sit back in the harness and step over the edge of the cliff - you know you are safe but you feel so incredibly unsafe, and then you feel free. This - is like that I think. How am I ever going to experience joy and love for example, if I don't step off this cliff?
Of course there is more, I spent hours with him on this trip, and others, but, well, maybe more will come out later. Actually there is another important thing. I live my life in a place of constant fear and anxiety. I am rarely in the place that he calls present moment time. Although I know what it feels like to be there and it is amazing. I told him I was afraid and he asked me how old do you feel? I said about 5. He said the key to figuring out what is going on and how to solve it is pretty simple (he didn't say any of it is easy, just simple). You have to ask yourself, when something happens and all of a sudden you are in a state of fear, the question is always whether you are experiencing fear right here, right now, in reality, in the present, or whether you are operating out of a place of trauma. Hence the question how old do you feel? If you are afraid, and you feel 5, you are operating out of a place of trauma, with the coping skills of your 5 year old self. Well, given that I live in a constant state of something other than the moment - this really is the ultimate question for me. What I feel right now, all this crap that I was telling him about during our conversation, it's coming from a place of trauma he says. The same old place it has always come from. And I think I might have learned a bit from him on how to take myself out of that old bad place and into the present, with the coping skills of a 35 year old and reality in front of me. And if you can get right with whether or not you are in reality or in an old trauma, you can figure out what's next. It's just an interesting way for me to look at my life on a moment to moment basis I suppose.
Because he is so in to being in the present moment, I did ask him how to stay there. And he basically said you can't. It's just a constant readjustment to the present moment, to living a conscious life rather than an unconscious one. It's constantly asking yourself how old do I feel? What is actually going on right in front of me? He also has a lot to say about accountability - about showing up for yourself, not abandoning yourself - and by the way, taking responsibility for your half of every relationship you are in. 100% responsibility. That means you no longer get to make it about anyone else but you and you no longer get to make excuses.
He also says we live our lives according to a pattern that has been ingrained in us through our culture and the crazy people who raised us. It says - guess at what the other person is thinking. Guess at what the other person is feeling. And then make up a story about why they are behaving the way they are. But make damn sure you don't talk to them about it. So true. I think most of us are walking around making up stories about other people - over which we have no control and no responsibility. And then we wonder why life and relationships don't work so well. Just try to catch yourself doing this - you might be surprised how often we are caught up in other people's stuff and we don't belong there.
Instead, he says pay attention to what YOU think, pay attention to what YOU feel, and watch how it creates your behavior. That you don't have to guess about. If you do something and it doesn't work, DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE. Try something different. If that doesn't work, ask for help.
I asked him how to get the negative voice out of my head. The voice of my mother and my past - the one that says you are not lovable, you are not good enough, you are not smart enough, you are not capable - and he said start writing it down. Every negative thing you say to yourself in a day, write it down and pretty damn quick you will stop talking to yourself that way. What if you are capable he asked me? What if you are lovable, what if you are in fact incredible? What if I am?
So there you go. There is so much more - but there's a little free (expensive) advice from Wyatt. Read his books. I have worked with Wyatt with many different groups of people and I always hear at least one person say the experience changed their life. He has certainly changed mine.
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