I don’t feel like writing this. I don’t feel like sitting here when there are so many things that need to get done. I’d rather be pulling weeds, or cleaning our house. I’d rather be active in some way, engaged in some process that gets my hands moving and dirty. That shuts off my mind.

I don’t feel like being a mother some days. I don’t feel like talking when I’d rather be quiet. I don’t feel like making someone else food or having to think about healthy snacks when I just want to eat my bag of chips for lunch. I don’t want to think about how to transition her into her own bed. I don’t feel like thinking about potty training or trying to anticipate her emotional needs.

I don’t feel like being with people sometimes, yet I crave connection. I don’t want to do the work of being vulnerable myself; I want others to lean in, to see what my needs are, gladly meet them as if they didn’t have any of their own. Oh yes. This is exactly what I want. I want to be known without having to make myself known. I don’t feel like being nice sometimes. I don’t feel like playing pretty and acting like I have my shit together. Because, therapists have their shit together, right?

Underneath these possibly incoherent ramblings I feel the longing. The longing to break out of my own resistance. This resistance that I know so well, and yet can’t manage to loosen myself from its chains when it presents itself. I’m cranky, and, damnit, sometimes I just want to be fucking cranky. What’s underneath this, though, is a longing for authenticity. To be real with where I’m at and how I’m at. I’d prefer to blame our society and it’s mediocre at best tolerance for big feelings. And not only big feelings does our society generally turn away from, it’s anything that poses a threat to the safe little bubbles we’ve created around ourselves. But, as I type this I sense ego at the helm…this is me looking elsewhere when I’d rather not turn toward the mirror.

Before I sat down to type this out, it felt so alive in my mind. And now that I’m looking at the screen, I don’t feel like being here. I’d rather be somewhere else, doing something else. And then I know, once I’m there, the next shiny object (or task or project) will be glimmering over there in the corner. I’ll be distracted again, thinking peace lives on that side of the room instead of the seat I’m currently in.

Resistance is a sneaky little beast. It hops me from one thing to the next, constantly chasing those little bread crumbs while quietly laughing as it watches me behind the curtain. It knows exactly what it’s doing, and so do I, yet I fall victim to its antics time and time again. This is the language of disconnection. This is the dynamic warning me that following the bread crumbs will take me further and further away from myself. So, sit I must.

And not only sit, but sit and let myself own my dissatisfaction. Let myself own the fact that I don’t feel like doing a damn thing (and yet simultaneously feel like doing everything) and not think I have to push this part of me away. Because that’s what I teach as a therapist – to own all of our parts, to let them take up space within us, to not turn away from or judge anything. It’s not easy when we have stories associated with parts that make them hard to accept (for example, the story I have around therapists having their shit together, making this post a tough one to publish…).

When I let myself say that I don’t feel like it, a little more breath comes out. I still might not feel like it, but when I admit it I can enter into the river rather than fight against it. Water always wins…