Photo by Virgilia Dale. Thanks, V!

This morning I saw my therapist and read her yesterday’s blog, about childhood memories. I don’t do this very often, maybe once every couple months, if I’d like her opinion on something or it seems relevant. For example, on our last therapy-iversary, I read her my post about why me and my therapist are successful. It was my way of saying, “Thank you.” (I also brought cookies.) Anyway, I read last night’s blog because, as I told her, “I cried when I wrote it and am hoping I can cry again.”

“Go for it,” she said. “Get the poison out of your water.”

Then she added, “I like how you’ve been crying more lately.”

Well, sure enough, it worked. I cried more when I read the post to her than when I wrote the damn thing. I guess there’s something about my therapist’s presence. It’s like I know I can say anything, be completely me in the moment, and that’s going to be okay. Never once in five years have I felt judged. Not that I’ve always been agreed with–far from it–but I’ve never felt judged. Instead, no matter if I’ve been angry, sad, depressed, irate, confused, lethargic, disappointed, hurt, or horny–I’ve felt totally accepted. And I guess that’s been one of the big gifts this blog has given me too–acceptance.

Self-acceptance.

I imagine this is why certain posts make me cry. Like last night’s, they’re usually the ones that have something to do with my childhood. The way I see it, I probably needed to cry (and yell and scream) back then but just didn’t know how. Consequently, it’s like some part of me got asked to sit down and shut up indefinitely. But here’s the thing about writing if you do it correctly–you bring your whole self to it. This means that when you’re being creative all the parts of yourself that have previously been silenced can potentially speak up. They may cry and they may to tell people to fuck off. If you’re smart, you’ll listen. This is what self-acceptance is–not letting every part of you run the show, but letting every part of you be heard.

The above picture of me at a lemonade stand showed up in my Facebook memories today. For a while my dance studio was in the same building as a photographer, and the lemonade stand was one of her props. Anyway, this picture always makes me think of that overused saying–when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Along these lines, there’s this quote from Joseph Campbell–“To transform you hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes.” To me this means not so much that you make the best of a bad situation, but that on some level you actually choose the bad situation.

I’ll explain.

There’s an idea in the self-help world that you’re happy not when you have what you want, but rather when you want what you have. Think about it. We usually associate wanting with things we don’t have, but if you were to–in this moment–look at everything in your life and say, “I want this,” you’d immediately experience a sense of contentment. For me this would look like saying, “I want to weigh 190 (ish) pounds. I want to be single. I want to be living at home with my parents and experiencing a headache.”

Good news! I am.

Applied to one’s past, all of this means that rather than labeling your difficult circumstances as bullshit or something that never should have happened, you look at them and say, “That was exactly what I needed.” This is what Campbell means when he says, “Turn your fall into a voluntary act.” Children do this all the time. They trip on their shoelaces, hit the concrete, and scab their knees then immediately look at their friends and say, “I MEANT to do that!” In keeping with my previous discussion about last night’s blog about childhood memories and specifically the fact that my family’s home burned down when I was four, this means that yes, I cry or scream about it when I need to, but I refuse to let myself be bitter about the situation. Instead I think, That helped make me who I am today. And I like who I am today.