What I<\/b>\u2019m Doing On My Summer Vacation<\/b><\/p>\n
A Little ERP*, if you please<\/i><\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSo. . . say a little bit about what you hope to take away from this course.\u201d The usual opening gambit for pretty much every, small enrollment workshop, seminar, personal growth group, or line dancing class I\u2019d ever taken. What wasn\u2019t usual was that the query arrived three days early and came not from the guru, but from my wife. The impact, however, was the same, deer-in-the-headlights scramble for a catchy, succinct, and novel sentence or two that would allow us to move onto dessert and get me off the hot seat.<\/p>\n
What you should know is that my wife is an accountant. Albeit a very intuitive one. I\u2019m the psychologist and, by extension, the one\u2019s that\u2019s supposed to be coming up with the pithy question that cuts to the heart of a situation. I\u2019m the one that\u2019s supposed to be tuning into my inner state and confronting it, naming those murky truths, finding those self-defeating patterns that handcuff us to yet another iteration of the \u2018same old same old\u2019. Not her.<\/p>\n
So I look her squarely in the shoes \u2014 that\u2019s what accountants do, I\u2019m told, the extroverted ones at any rate. And there is<\/i> a hint of the outgoing in me, on a good day, if I concentrate. But I digress.\u00a0 And, as says the bartender in a favorite film of mine, Irma La Douce<\/i> \u2014 you may remember the guy: handlebar mustache, slicked down hair, perpetual eye-roll \u2014 \u2018that\u2019s another story\u2019. And, well, that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n
I contrive a response. Something lame and predictable about a fourth credit toward a certificate, honing a blogging interest I\u2019d indulged for years from a protected and safe distance. . . There, is that good enough? Too late. The cracks had started to form and the old pre-(fill in the blank) course anxieties had started to leak through. The cues \u2014 you\u2019d think I\u2019d recognize these familiar \u2018friends\u2019 by now \u2014 were lining up, just off the radar; but still lurking in the trees.<\/p>\n
Consider the Rumi retreat in the idyllic, upstate Vermont mountains. Five glorious days of homemade bread and readings, diving into writings of this cherished (by me anyway) philosopher-poet. Who knew that Sufis danced? I certainly didn\u2019t. I\u2019m outta here. My wife, who likes to dance (and<\/i> read poetry), was less spooked. But it was early days in the relationship and she was<\/i> the accountant in this pairing. So she deferred and all was forgotten, equilibrium restored, as we cycled our way through those same mountains for the remaining four days.<\/p>\n
Or my first encounter group. First marriage \u2014 different wife \u2014 just over and me looking for a place to \u2018process\u2019 things before moving onto dessert. California this time. Mountains above Mendocino with a bunch of \u2018vets\u2019 of the no holds barred, bare your soul (and other stuff as it turned out) \u2018healing experience\u2019. Think Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice \u2014 except Bob is a Southern Ontario boy steeped in county fairs and (small \u2018C\u2019) conservatism. Exposed<\/i> was not the word. I would have fled this one too, except the buddy that had talked me into this experience also had the car; and it was a long walk out of these<\/i> woods.<\/p>\n
Esalen for in-depth meditation training, cycling junkets in Italy, annual treks to my group guru in, believe it or not, Kansas \u2014 same scenario. Ego out there in front of a bunch of folks I barely (or worse, don\u2019t) know and . . . OMG. The accountant had it pegged. (Good thing, because she does my taxes too!) She wasn\u2019t asking about the usual \u2018what are your expectations for this workshop\u2019. She had set her forensic eye a little higher (or deeper): \u2018when are you going to twig to the karmic message here, hon?\u2019<\/p>\n
Well this could be the time. The reassurance of removing to a controlled (read, self-directed) setting, engaging in familiar, oft-repeated rhythms makes me a happy camper. I should have figured this out, age twelve at Camp Kilcoo, where the infirmary with a timely ear infection trumped a canoe trip. Or Arthur Murray dance (there it is again) lessons in that dreadful second-floor warehouse conversion that passed for a studio in downtown Buffalo. Or . . .<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s just let it go as a busman\u2019s holiday. Accept that the compulsion to get a doctor\u2019s note, to hop in the car and head home (or indeed anywhere<\/i> else), to miss the plane is part of the predictable run-up. Let\u2019s just engage the process. Take a breath. And know that it generally works out \u2014 why else would I keep coming back to the trough? How I spent my summer vacation: in a little \u2018exposure\u2019 therapy with client one! That would be Exposure<\/i> and \u2014 here\u2019s the kicker \u2014 Response Prevention<\/i>.<\/p>\n
*Preferred treatment intervention for the OCD\u2019s amongst us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What I\u2019m Doing On My Summer Vacation A Little ERP*, if you please \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSo. . . say a little bit about what you hope to take away from this course.\u201d The usual opening gambit for pretty much every, small enrollment workshop, seminar, personal growth group, or line dancing class I\u2019d ever taken. What wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}