Do As I Say, Not As I Do

While sitting in my office of the ten-story office building which I had recently moved into because of a need for larger office space, because of more clients feeling a need for therapeutic and self-help services, I began to contemplate the meaning of it all. After all, this is what I had worked so hard for, right. All those years of schooling, years of sacrifice, years of depriving myself of any semblance of a decent social life, all those years of two jobs in addition to going to school. Is this what it was to lead to? I glanced around at the office, which was as plushy decorated as my finances and imagination would take me, I again asked myself that question as I half listened to Becky, the thirty-two year old depressed client who had been visiting me for the past two years to pontificate about the various ways that she felt that life had been unjustly treating her. Listening to her story brought to mind the similarities of her story and the thousands of others that I had heard prior to hers. Just another version, half-baked over. I then found myself somehow tuning in and out of what Becky was saying, and after a while it seemed that her mouth was moving and no sounds were coming out. When this occurred, I realized that I had better do something quick to right this situation. Something to snap myself out of these doldrums and tune back into what she was saying. She seemed so much in need of a shoulder to cry on, what with her head held low, teary eyes and wringing hands, I felt that she deserved me tuning back into the newer version of her vagrancies of life. I think to myself, “I thought that I had gotten enough sleep last night, but maybe I should not have had that last glass of wine, with those steak and potatoes.” I finally jolt myself back into Becky’s version of reality and find myself automatically, smoothly and softly saying, as I directly and firmly look into her brown eyes “One thing that seems to happen in life Becky is that people seem to recreate negative things from their past, in their present life, hoping to make them right in their mind, and subsequently their environment.” Sounds like true words of wisdom to me. Wow. Sometimes I even surprise myself, with the wonderful pieces of information that I impart to my clients. It seems that I revert to autopilot just when I need to. “Saved by the bell again, whew,” I think to myself. It must be all those Psychology books that I have read over the years. It certainly is not that I live by these tidbits of verdicts on humanity, however, I think that they have been emblazoned into my psyche by gurus from the past and I suppose that my motto is, “If it was good enough for them, it should be good enough for me.” therefore, I pass on these vagrancies of information and lo and behold, I am usually quite surprised how clients quickly catch on to its meaning, following a few quizzical looks and cross examining. They then leave self-satisfied and ready to try whatever version of mental concoction that you prescribe. Albeit, hopefully, without the need to prescribe any medication to dull the pain.