Therapy at its best: Doing what you don't know how to do

It seems  these two Irish lads were on their way to somewhere else for the day, when they came upon a wall seemingly too high to scale.  They stood there for awhile in the cold morning mist pondering their dilemma.  As they looked at that wall standing in their way, they took their caps off and threw them over the wall.

--Irish legend

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

-J.F. Kennedy

We made it to the moon, of course, but what's remarkable is that Kennedy issued this proclamation in 1962. While NASA was already a serious operation at that time, it's clear that in 1962 the United States didn't have the capability to send anyone to the moon. He threw his hat (our hat) over the wall.

We're funny creatures, humans. We do things all the time that we don't actually know how to do, and yet we quite frequently impose knowing how to do something as a precondition for doing it. Strange.

Advice on therapy from a therapist

I'm often asked, by new patients or by a friend starting his or her own therapy, "How can I get the most out of therapy? How can I be a great, successful therapy patient?" My advice: Ask for a ton and don't just limit what you ask for to the things you can already imaging doing. Throw your hat over the wall. Take a serious look at the things you want to accomplish in your life--emotional changes, new habits, life goals--and take them on even if you have no idea how they'll be accomplished.

Get liminal

Liminality refers to the point of emergence, where we stride the gap between one level of development and the next. Consider the demands, for example, that come with a new job that you're not quite capable of handling. Or a gym class you've signed up for but where you can just barely keep up (at first). In a sense, being liminal is the hallmark of ambition. It's how we get better at. It's how we grow.

Who wants a job he or she can already totally handle? Or an easy gym class? Perhaps we should relate to our emotional development--to therapy--on the same terms, as a process through which we can expand our emotional capacities by doing things that are beyond us.

Being emotionally ambitious

Too often "I don't know how to do that..." is the end point. And yet it holds such promise as the beginning of a therapeutic inquiry. Just as those Irish lads threw their caps over the wall, perhaps great, growthful conversations everywhere in your life could begin with "I don't know how, but..." As in "I don't know how, but...

...I'd love for us to figure out how to make this vacation less stressful than the last one."

...I want to talk with you about our sex life."

...we should figure out how to spend more time together as a family."

...I want to make enough money this year to pay off these loans."

Perhaps what follows is a commissioning of a committee (of two, perhaps--you and your therapist, or perhaps more) charged with the exploration of sorting out how to get the (seemingly impossible) job done (picture NASA circa 1962).

A question of possibilities

One of the things I love about art in all it's various forms is the ways in which, at its best, it so often it expands our sense of what's possible. It pries us (if we let it) from our attachments to the belief that we know the limits. In therapy, the resistance to the possible takes the form of holding back on our view of what's possible for me and of what's possible period. What's tricky is that we aren't so often aware of the limits we're imposing on our selves. When it comes to what's possible for me the limitation was often imposed decades ago. It's just there--a fact so taken for granted we don't even see it. (Of course I could never own my own business.) You'd be amazed at what  my therapy patients have told me just isn't possible: Living without depression; getting stable financially; ever having a satisfying sex life or a loving partner; freedom from intense anxiety. They've given up so much, often without realizing it.

"At least my therapist knows how to do this."

Maybe. Or maybe not. Hopefully you've got a smart therapist who's got all sorts of expertise on how to take on the world, emotionally speaking. But when it comes to some of the most meaningful of life's projects, sometimes we're all flying by the seat of our pants. In taking on the big challenges you might have to do more than gain access to ready-made help: You'll need a therapist who can innovate.

Stop knowing, start growing

The flip side of all of the limits we impose is acting like we know what we're doing when we don't. It doesn't take a therapist to know that most often, "I got this" or "I don't need any help" are self protective. It can hurt to admit that we don't know, but it's the very thing we need to do to bring new things into existence in our lives. It's the first step in getting closer to others, closer to understanding our pain, how and where it comes from and how it takes shape in the world.

In other words, proudly declaring "I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to!" is the first stop en route to the moon.