Thoughts & feelings on starting to see clients in my clinical internship: The concept of CHANGE

It’s safer for that me that is not quite me to face rejection than it is for the me that is really me to.

What changes when we are immersed in environments that allow for possibilities for change?

I’m finding such liberation in transferring my past experience with tarot and energy work into the (postmodern) therapy space because there is constant reinforcement of the power of transformation. For all of its institutional faults, the premise/promise of therapy is that change is possible, permitted, and can be desired and encouraged. In practice, change can be anticipated to have negative repercussions in relationships, to the self and to others. It can feel like it will disrupt things in and around us in ways that feel scary and unknown and therefore taboo. In the meta-space of therapy, or tarot or hypnosis, we can play with change, practice change, and understand what change really means in our lives. We can viscerally experience how changing one’s relationship to life — mentally, emotionally, physiologically, relationally — is not only possible, but something that can be done collaboratively, with permission, with the support of another person, while witnessed, and safely. That it is not something that will disrupt someone else’s peace, hurt someone else’s feelings, prove your wrongness, or any other belief we carry about what changing means for us. Change made from an intentional, considered place is a beautiful thing that honors our natural evolution. We resist change because we are often coming to it from a reactive place, of trying to get away from a feeling or a discomfort. We wrestle with what potential change says about us, our value or our identity. We wrestle with what we will lose when change comes. We wrestle with whether we can step into the change without failing.

How many spaces are there in life where we can do this mental wrestling while another person reflects that process back to us, so that we can see from the outside where our beliefs and ideas are taking us? I am just starting to see clients in my internship so I know I’m riding a bit of a high with the newness and the excitement of doing the practice after months and months and months of just classes and homework. But I have sat with people in session for about twelve years already. I’ve been a reflector and experienced the joy of reflecting a new but accurate image back to someone, seeing their mental construction of self loosen and bend enough to include something more loving and supportive than who they were an hour earlier would allow.

Change can bring up fears about loss, but underneath that fear of loss may be a different fear. A fear of becoming more of the self, more embodied and full of who you really are, but then what if that true self comes out and is not accepted, or not loved? The discomfort of being small but loved may be more acceptable than the potential pain of being true to self but rejected. Thinking of all the versions of self that are held back inside of each of us for fear of that rejection. How much we stay in versions of ourselves that are not quite right simply for the protection that it offers. It’s safer for that me that is not quite me to face rejection than it is for the me that is really me to. But, what if that true self emerged into love and acceptance?

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