My Corner of the World: Musings from a Nashville Therapist

Overwhelming Emotions: Fear, Sadness, Anger

We’re living in unprecedented times. I know it’s cliche to describe things with these words, but I don’t have others to offer as a starting point. In every corner of my corner of the world, from family to friends to clients to acquaintances to artists and leaders I follow online, most everyone is grappling with the rapidly-unfolding yet causing-us-to-stand-still-or-else-risk-great-harm events. I’m in the camp of people (i.e. a bunch of therapists) who believe we’re in the midst of mass trauma. Things are happening to us right now that we are mostly powerless to stop or to change. Worse, they are having the largest impact on the least powerful and most vulnerable among us. Fear, worry, sadness, anger, disappointment, hopelessness — I’ve been telling people that if you aren’t feeling one or more of these, something is wrong. We’re supposed to have an emotional response. It’s how we’re wired. The dark emotions are a part of our humanness, and our humaneness.

Late last year I ran across the poem Good Bones, by Maggie Smith. A quick google tells me it went viral in 2016. I can see why. Though I hadn’t heard it before, her words have stayed with me since. They ring true.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful. 

Maggie Smith, "Good Bones" from Waxwing. 
Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Smith.

“The world is at least fifty percent terrible … ”

A few years back, author Kate DiCamillo came to Nashville, and I went with my daughter to hear her speak. During the q&a, a child in the audience asked Ms. DiCamillo why the book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (I highly recommend this and every other book she has ever written!) is so sad. She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then answered, “Well, the truth is that life is sad sometimes, and good [writers] tell the truth.” At this response, I wanted to stand up and applaud. Yaaaaasssss, Kate DiCamillo, Yaaaaaasssss!!! Life is sad … and also scary, and also rage-inducing, and hope-stealing. It’s important to know that, and to feel what we feel.

Sometimes the work I do in counseling is to acknowledge with someone that the world is terrible. There’s no getting around that fact, and yet despite its truth, lots of us feel alone. We feel alone, as in we believe the myth that we are the only ones for whom this is so. And, we feel alone, as in we feel our feelings alone, by ourselves, apart from others. So added to my work is to feel with people — to help them learn how to stay with and listen to what they feel, and to trust how they feel, and to show that they can be sad or scared or angry or hopeless and we can still be together. And to remind myself to do the same.

“You could make this place beautiful … ”

Sometimes, the work I do in counseling is to help someone see that not everything in the world is terrible, and that part of our challenge as humans is to look also for the good … and/or to create it if we can’t see it. That’s kind of a tall order, and it's unlikely any of us can all do it all of the time. Some have fewer resources and less energy whether due to the present moment or season, or to systemic reasons that hover persistently despite circumstance. For me I have learned that it helps me to try to create beauty and goodness in the ways I am able. Noticing flowers in bloom, putting a construction paper rainbow on the windows where I live, buying from small local businesses, donating to nonprofits whose work I support, calling my loved ones, putting my voice into the world. These are some of my ways. Small though they may be, they are what I can do. This year, amidst what is terrible, I aim to make my corner of the world more beautiful.

How about you? How could you make this place beautiful?

Let me know what you’re doing over in your corner of the world. And if you or someone you know could use the support of a therapist right now, contact me for help with getting started.