One of the things they teach you in psychotherapy 101 is that it isn’t the therapist’s role to tell patients whether or not they should end a relationship. After all, isn’t it up to you to decide your own course? Well – Today I am going to break that rule. I’ve seen too many people wasting too many years suffering and hoping beyond hope that somehow their dead-end relationships will magically get better–All the while I knew full-well the relationship was going to fail anyway.
There’s a consensus in our society that in order to have a fulfilling relationship, you are required to WORK at it. But how can a relationship be considered ‘good’ if you’re constantly feeling like it’s work?
There are two reasons you believe this ridiculously dissatisfying idea.
You are an expert at suffering. On a quest to play The Victim, you do everything for everyone. Then you make them all jump thru hoops to prove to you that you deserve to be compensated.
Faith. Most folks think it is strictly a religious term, but it actually means “to believe in something with strong conviction”. It seems like people’s faith has been tested more as of late with all the loss and tragedy around us. As a person who tends to be skeptical of religious dogmas, I am frequently asked: Pizzuls, what do you have faith in?
Life is uncertain. This truth is the Bain of human existence. Fear of uncertainty is at the core of all sorts of problems ranging from procrastination and the inability to make decisions, to full-blown anxiety disorders. Moving forward in life is simply too scary when you can’t know for sure how things are going to turn out.
It is amazing how much my patients pay me to ignore my advice. I make suggestions week after week and they do everything in their power to avoid doing things differently. They act as if simply coming for therapy and chatting with me will somehow magically make change happen. The reason for this is simple:
People are annoying. You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em. They trigger all our emotions and often inconveniently so. It would be great if we could be happy without needing others in our lives, right? Then we wouldn’t be vulnerable to so much conflict and heartbreak. If we could just find a way to rely solely on ourselves for serenity, then life would be so much simpler.
People throw the word trust’ around but have no idea what it actually means. Trustworthy is just code for being dependable’. And your trust bar’ is based on the amount of dependability you require from another person in order to feel satisfied in the relationship.
