TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: So where do we start?
CLIENT: I’m not sure if there was something we had to pick up on from before.
THERAPIST: Start with where you are today.
CLIENT: Okay. I think I am actually in a pretty good place today. I think the past few days I have been realizing that being present doesn’t necessarily mean being in like this monk state of complete awareness of everything around you. You know, I think whether I got that from society or what. But I think what I am realizing is that being present doesn’t have to be boring. [00:01:06]
An exercise I have been attempting walking my dog. It just takes forever to do anything. Is to look at landscape or look at whatever is in front of me and try to describe it in words that I wouldn’t normally use. So it is kind of a game almost.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: To be so in touch with what you are seeing. Or how you describe a person. Like a person on the bus today. There was this woman with a kind of pinched face sitting across from me and she didn’t look very happy. But that is one -
THERAPIST: But you were on the bus thinking about something on the bus rather than thinking about something else.
CLIENT: Yeah, and that is the other point to is that it doesn’t necessarily mean I am, you know, focused on the rumble of the bus. [00:02:06]
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: It can be that I am just not focusing on something that I am obsessing over.
THERAPIST: Yeah. And it is interesting that you are almost describing being present. Not necessarily being I mean it is actually being in the present tense rather than being in the past or the future.
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: So I think anxiety -
CLIENT: Or the theoretical. (laughs)
THERAPIST: Yeah. Anxiety tends to live in either the past or the future. So if you are in the past and feeling negative about it you may be feeling regretful or, you know, remiss about something. If you are fast forwarding to the future you are anxious because you don’t know about the “what ifs.”
CLIENT: Mm hm. Yeah.
THERAPIST: But being actually in the present tense in this moment, anxiety doesn’t tend to live in the here and now because you are living it.
CLIENT: Mm hm. Unless you are like cooking and it is burning right in front of you.
THERAPIST: (laughs)
CLIENT: Which I do. Yeah. I think on a larger scale being present is something that I am contending with just as far as, what am I doing right now with my life? And it seems to me that even though it is [00:03:20]
THERAPIST: The “with my life” part kind of takes it away from the present.
CLIENT: Well -
THERAPIST: “What am I doing right now?” is different from “What am I doing with my life?”
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: There is a huge whole future piece to your life.
CLIENT: True. I mean I guess, “What am I doing now that I am not working?” And I understand what you mean but that it is okay that I am not working because I can take the time now to focus on myself. And I guess the realization was, today or yesterday, was that I guess I would much rather take a few months to take care of myself and try to adapt some new habits or attitudes as opposed to continue the living the way I had been for another 30 years or whatever. [00:04:25]
A few other things. (laughs) There is this Johnny Cash song. It is called, “Get a Rhythm.”
THERAPIST: I don’t. I am sorry.
CLIENT: That is it. We are through. (laughs)
THERAPIST: (laughs)
CLIENT: It goes, (singing) “Get a rhythm when you get the blues. Get a rhythm when you get the blues. Get a rhythm.” And it is just, you know, it is something along those lines. But for me it is There is an Earth, Wind and Fire song, “Sing a Song.” You probably don’t know that one.
THERAPIST: I actually do.
CLIENT: You do know that one.
THERAPIST: I won’t sing for you though.
CLIENT: Come on. I sang for you.
THERAPIST: You also play instruments. There is a slight musicality there.
CLIENT: (laughs) Come on. Alright, well interpretive dance.
THERAPIST: (laughs)
CLIENT: And there is another one too and I can’t remember what it is. But for me those have a deeper meaning in that also on the bus I had this melody in my head. And that happens all the time. And often times I just record it on my iPhone. But actually it is like a motor and it is like keeping me engaged into that melody and where it might go. And it doesn’t allow me to think about things that are not there. [00:05:51]
So it is remarkable to me that that is something that happens so often to me but it is something that I maybe don’t realize or don’t tape into as a mechanism.
THERAPIST: What did the melody on the bus evoke for you?
CLIENT: Well sometimes when I get a melody, often times when I get a melody, I try to figure out if it something that I just heard. (laughs) Because often times I will have a melody and it is something I just heard but it is so deep seated that it seems like, well it had to be something I heard. You know, It can’t be something that is [from the hip] (ph).
So, you now, it just gets me to think about, okay, what am I going to do with this melody? I mean, is it going to be part of a song that I am working on or is it going to be something else. And if I like it enough I will stop and record it into my phone. But I am not sure I can honestly say it evokes strong feeling one way or the other. It is just I don’t know. [00:06:59]
THERAPIST: It is interesting. I wonder if you actually I don’t know if it would evoke a feeling or not but it sounds like your typical process when you notice it doesn’t give it a chance, doesn’t give you a chance to notice whether or not it would evoke a feeling. Because what you just shared with me is when you hear the melody the first thing that you try to do is figure out, “Is this something that I have heard or is this something that I have just come up with, that just came to me?”
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You immediately go to analyzing.
CLIENT: Oh, yeah.
THERAPIST: “Where did it come from? What is it?”
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: “Is it good enough for me to keep?” You immediately jump into your head.
CLIENT: Yeah, that is true. That is true.
THERAPIST: And I wonder what would happen if you heard it and instead of wondering about it, let yourself just kind of sit with it, ruminate with it in an affective way.
CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I do that once I have realized that I did create it. (laughs) But I see your point that even if it were something I just heard -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: it could still be -
THERAPIST: It could still evoke a feeling for you. [00:08:05]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Like, is this a happy melody? Is it a sad melody? At it’s most basic. Does this make me want to get up and move? Does this make me want to relax with it?
CLIENT: Hm.
THERAPIST: And letting yourself just tap into another aspect of it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Not that there is anything wrong with thought in determining whether you like it or dislike or like it enough. Or, where did it come from? What is it influenced by?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I mean that is all good stuff.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: But another whole side of being present is noticing, like you were saying, you were noticing the nature around you when you are walking the dog and trying to describe it linguistically.
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: That is one thing. Another thing is, how does it make me feel? You know, it is just another way of experiencing the world.
CLIENT: I think that is where my challenge is because I don’t expect to be moved by something like that. And to be honest, I mean I think both of these descriptions of the settings and the melody And the setting being the (cross talking at 00:09:07).
THERAPIST: Mm hm. yeah. Nature stuff.
CLIENT: Whatever. It is something that I am trying to use for something else.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: I am trying to come up with ways of describing so that I can improve my songwriting.
THERAPIST: [That’s okay, yeah.] (ph)
CLIENT: You know, I am trying to tune in to this melody so that I can apply it somewhere.
THERAPIST: You are trying to make it productive.
CLIENT: We know that. We have been there. I have to have a product. And though the describing the nature around me is so new that it is almost like a challenge to see what I can come up with. And it is not like I am trying to say, “Okay, this is going to be the next great line in my song.” It just is an exercise to try to see if I can look at something in such a way that I have never looked at it before so that I can use words that I have never heard before to describe it. [00:10:16]
And sometimes I am, you know, not pleased but more satisfied than others with the things I can come up with. But for me the benefit of this, the upshot, is that maybe it will improve my writing. You know? I don’t know but I am not not going to do it if it doesn’t.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: But the whole evoking a feeling thing, I don’t know. It may be that right now those functions, whatever, are keeping negative thoughts at bay so that it is doing so much at that that to have a feeling evoked might be the next stage if I can, you know. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Because the negative feelings are so ever present. [00:11:25]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I mean they are -
THERAPIST: Do they leave room for other feelings? I wonder.
CLIENT: Not very often. No. (pause) But another thing I have been noticing is, to be present And I have noticed this a while ago but it is coming back to me. Your posture has a lot to do with being present. How am I holding myself? And if I am sitting like this like I normally do I am not being present to my body and I know that I will pay for it later.
So for whatever reason, my focus on correct posture and sitting and standing in ways that aren’t going to give me grief later. That to me is a really big part of being present. And I don’t know if that is like [00:12:39]
THERAPIST: Do you feel different depending on how you are sitting?
CLIENT: Oh yeah. Definitely. And I can also tell by how I am sitting how into whatever I am doing I am.
THERAPIST: That gives you a lot of feedback.
CLIENT: Yeah, because if I am Often times, you know, when I am at the computer and the speakers here, I find myself in some -
THERAPIST: Weird contorted.
CLIENT: weird Ebenezer Scrooge position where I am just like contorted and stuff. Ebenezer Scrooge, maybe not, but you get the idea.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Someone who is curled over. And it is only then when I realize, “Look at me? If I keep this up I am just going to have a headache later.” And so it almost keeps me on more of a surface level with what I am doing. And I can still get into what I am doing but I am also, I think, more, I don’t know, physically prepared. I don’t know if that makes any sense. [00:13:46]
THERAPIST: What keeps you at a surface level? Focusing on your posture or not -
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: And surface level might not be the right thing but just more of an awareness.
THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounds like one piece of you is kind of out here checking, “How am I sitting?”
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: What is my position?
CLIENT: Yeah. So I think the tendency to fall into poor posture is very similar to the tendency for me to fall into mental poor posture.
THERAPIST: That is one of the habits and it is connected.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: If that is the way you found yourself sitting and approaching things -
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: then it is all connected. You are used to connecting maybe a negative thought with that kind of posture.
CLIENT: Oh, yeah.
THERAPIST: Your breaking one chain. From one part of that chain creates new parts everywhere else. [00:14:42]
CLIENT: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think I can see it. I mean and also it is tied in with my going to the gym. It is tied into developing two recipes for kale and one recipe for collard greens, which I just thoroughly enjoyed. Which I had no idea I would have that problem. But I guess the I have been trying to think about all these things in light of a new year.
And I don’t really put much thought or energy or concern into new year’s resolutions because I think you are just setting yourself up for failure. (laughs) And as opposed to trying to reinvent myself I just kind of want to discover myself and who I am and be more accommodating, more understanding in that even if I do have, you know, this awesome dinner of lentils and kale and whatever else, that I might have some ice cream afterwards and that is just fine. You know? [00:16:02]
THERAPIST: Mm hm. Yeah. A couple of things that you have mentioned. You know, trying to create a habit of describing in new language or checking in and noticing what your posture is and how that is affecting you. Those are nice. It is a nice focus to have because they are not all or nothing. It doesn’t mean that You know, if you set up a resolution, “I am going to go the gym every day,” blah, blah, blah.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You miss one day and now you are screwed.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: However the things that you have just mentioned really can work because you can pay attention to your posture and it doesn’t mean that you are going to have perfect ballerina posture every day for the rest of your life and every moment.
It is possible to pay attention to it sometimes and you get some feedback and you notice something and you might shift. And other times you are focused on something else and you slip into whatever your, you know, kind of thoughtless posture is. And that is okay.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Because it doesn’t preclude you from noticing it again at some other point.
CLIENT: Sure. [00:17:01]
THERAPIST: You know, doing language description when you are on the bus or walking the dog or some other time, if you don’t do it one time when you walk dog it doesn’t mean that the other times you did it wasn’t useful exercise for your writing -
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: wasn’t a useful exercise for being present. And you can do it again at the next opportunity.
CLIENT: Yeah. That is a very good point. It is not a hard and fast rule.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: It is more of an “opt in.”
THERAPIST: Right. And you can do that as much or as little as you remember.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And it is beneficial each time you do it and it is not a mark against you if you don’t.
CLIENT: Exactly.
THERAPIST: Those things are more likely to be enveloped in your life.
CLIENT: Yeah. And also to understand and recognize that to not do those things is how I have been living for a long time. So if don’t remember to do it, well, that is understandable.
THERAPIST: Of course. [00:18:01]
CLIENT: (sigh) Another thing that I was thinking about. I have done a lot of thinking. (laughs) Is I picked up my friends at the airport on Monday last week, a week ago. And they invited me out with them for New Year’s Eve. And I said, “Oh, that’s great.” You know? And I was actually hoping that they would include me in whatever their plans are. My wife is still away.
And it is always a tendency for me to sign up for something and then when it is there like, “I don’t want to do this.” And I don’t know if it is so much like I resist the idea that it is some sort of social phobia although it could be. But it is more like, “Oh, it is nice. My dog and I are just hanging out here and I am in my pajamas. I don’t really want to go out. What’s the point?” You know? [00:19:08]
“It is just going to be a bunch of people drinking.” And, yeah, so that day I was like, “God, I just don’t want to do this.” And I forced myself to do it because I knew that I can’t keep doing it.
THERAPIST: What was the experience of doing it? (inaudible at 00:19:35)
CLIENT: Boring. (laughs) I mean it was You know, I had very low expectations and -
THERAPIST: They were met?
CLIENT: Almost. But the whole thinking around that and the And I guess when I got home I was also proud of myself for having done it because I just didn’t want to do it at all. And my tendency is to just say, “Oh, I am not feeling well and my dog just threw up. Sorry. (laughs) I have to administer medicine to her, you know, hourly.”
But my Dad, when my Mom When I was growing after the whole, you know, the fall (sigh), my Mom would say that she was always concerned that my Dad didn’t have any friends. He had friends but he never did anything with them. You know, he preferred to do something with my Mom. You know? [00:20:38]
He didn’t want to be with anyone else socially. He wanted to be with her. And I think, you know, he actually said this after she died, in the months after she died, that that was one of the reasons why he was struggling. But I think there is a connection between the experience of him losing his job, and a lot of his friend were around his job, his teaching career.
And for him to just go into this kind of cocoon, safe area, doesn’t venture out socially, and my Mom who continued to support him and stay with him, is his safety net, a safety blanket. And, you know, my Mom would go out with friends but he wouldn’t. He would be doing something around the house, putzing around doing something, you know, unimportant. And that was the way it was until she died. [00:21:52]
Now, I don’t know I know that before that incident that they did have people over, they did have friends. But I don’t know to what extent. But I know that afterwards there wasn’t much going on. It seemed like he was very disconnected from his family. I just don’t think he looked forward to seeing his mother.
And so I think there is just this general lack of presence to his family. He is not present to his children. He is not present to his own social things. He is not present at all. And so that withdrawal I am comparing to my own withdrawal since this Mexico thing. And I would much rather do something with my wife. And social things are like, “Yeah, okay, maybe.” You know? But [00:23:08]
And the feeling I have towards my family. It is like I don’t feel really present with them. I don’t feel like a very good brother. I don’t feel like I am really that engaged to all of my siblings. And even friends, it is like when I call them on the phone they always ask me things and I have to force myself to ask them, “How are the kids?”
You know, things that I really don’t care about but I have to ask. And I feel bad for having to force myself to ask something that I should care about. Should.
THERAPIST: Was there a time when you did care about that stuff? What did you care about pre-Mexico.
CLIENT: Well I think before Mexico I was drinking. So I think that was something I looked forward to doing, going out and drinking with friends or going out socially to drink. And I think the Mexico thing just kind of clamped down the feeling of shame or guilt or whichever. And I think, I don’t know. [00:24:40]
Your question is a good one and I don’t know if I have an answer for how I have changed or how I interact socially with people. But I know that I am not present. I think my Dad was depressed. I think he withdrew. And I don’t think he ever realized it from an outside perspective that it was something that he (pause) That the shame and whatever guilt from the fallout was something he never quite dealt with and it reflected in his presence to everyone around him. [00:25:39]
I think my shame and guilt is maybe not even from the Mexico thing perhaps. I mean I had an issue growing with wondering who knew. You know? And so that I think clamped down some things of my own (pause) when perhaps drinking was a way of escaping that. You know? It lubricated the desire to go out and meet people. That removed -
THERAPIST: And it gets you out of your head a little bit.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. And, I don’t know. I am still kind of processing a lot of this but I do see some similarities. (pause) That is about it.
THERAPIST: So to keep it really recent. On the New Year’s Eve thing which was boring. What would have made it less boring? [00:26:41]
CLIENT: Well, that is a good question because (sigh), again, I don’t feel like I am so interested in other people and what they are doing. I guess I am so wrapped up in myself. I don’t know why that is but it is, you know, endemic to my whole life. (pause) And there was just a lot of drinking and noise making, excessively so.
THERAPIST: I guess that can be really fun if you are drunk. (laughs)
CLIENT: The people at the table next to us. I was the only one sober and then I was like, “That is so childish. Can’t you wait until it is midnight.” [00:27:42]
THERAPIST: (laughs)
CLIENT: Yeah, it was like I had the buffer. And, yeah, I just I don’t know. It is hard for me to enhance (ph) to that because it is New Year’s Eve and it has always been kind of this lackluster, anticlimactic, high expectations and little payoff holiday, as far as I am concerned. So, yeah, I don’t know. I mean any other situation?
THERAPIST: Well when are the times that you feel like you are engaged and having the most fun?
CLIENT: (sigh) That is not often the case. I don’t know that I actually have a lot of fun. (pause)
THERAPIST: So that might be something to seek.
CLIENT: Fun? [00:28:50]
THERAPIST: Like to do some experiments about what makes it easiest to be engaged and what actually creates a feeling of being involved. I mean it can be fun, it could be involved, it could be fulfilled.
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: Something that feels like the experience is actually giving back to you and you are not trying to necessarily create it and you are not withstanding it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: But that you are actually in it.
CLIENT: Yeah. I grimace and I groan. “Oh my God. What does that mean?” And I don’t know. And when I think about things, social events that Like I am going to this friend’s cabin in Vermont this weekend. (sigh) And it is going to be him, his wife, who is also my friend. Their (sigh) eight year old daughter. Let’s see if I really engage that, no. At least I remember her name. [00:29:53]
But I am going up there and supposedly we are going to go ice fishing which is something I did not expect to ever do again. But I am just imagining myself in that situation, this very intimate gathering, and trying to figure out why I am thinking that it will be uncomfortable.
THERAPIST: I bet moments will.
CLIENT: But why? (laughs)
THERAPIST: Well you probably don’t have that much in common with an eight year old girl.
CLIENT: That’s true. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Their dynamic as people who are going to be actively parenting while they are there is different than your role. So there may be moments where it is awkward or uncomfortable. I think it is important, that doesn’t necessarily mean the whole weekend has to be awkward or uncomfortable. And your goal might be to find moments or notice moments when you do feel engaged. [00:30:57]
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: And to see if you can experiment with a few things and just notice how they are so that if you feel, you know, if there is awkward moment when nothing is going on that that doesn’t necessarily have to extend to the next moment or the thing after that. But let it be there and then see, okay, what happens next.
CLIENT: Yeah. I can do that. (laughs) Maybe. I think my tendency is to feel like (pause) there is something wrong with me and they are going to regret asking me, inviting me up there.
THERAPIST: Mm. That is pretty global.
CLIENT: In terms of -
THERAPIST: To go from, “There might be things that are awkward,” to “There is something wrong with me. They are going to regret inviting me.” See how big [00:31:59]
CLIENT: That is always the case though.
THERAPIST: So I wonder what would happen if you could keep it Like divide it into separate parts and keep each part separate rather than jumping to this global assessment of yourself and the whole situation.
CLIENT: I don’t know what that would look like. I mean, I am flustered at the idea of (pause) taking moment by moment.
THERAPIST: What do you mean you are flustered by it?
CLIENT: Well I don’t know how to I don’t know if I don’t know how or I don’t understand how a moment can be different from the next moment. I mean, I know that -
THERAPIST: Let’s go somewhere in between. How about breaking it into chunks where it could be like [00:33:06]
CLIENT: (laughs) That is just nomenclature.
THERAPIST: No, well I am thinking about a chunk like dinner one night.
CLIENT: Oh, okay. Okay, I get it.
THERAPIST: Playing card games after dinner before the kid goes to bed.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Then there is probably the chunk of time when the adults are up but the child has gone to bed. Or ice fishing, one chunk.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Are you going to bring an instrument? You could have a chunk of music and that might be something in between the all-encompassing, “Something is wrong with me.”
CLIENT: Mm hm. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Or the whole weekend is awkward. Moment to moment might be a little bit too much to try to take in.
CLIENT: (laughs) Thanks. I do appreciate that. Um. (pause) I do enjoy my time here speaking with you. (pause) [00:34:16]
Yeah, it is I think just one other dynamic that I at least need to identify which is the fact that people I go out with, they all drink and I don’t. So I don’t think it is such an issue or a problem or even awkward this weekend, this coming weekend.
But I don’t like when people feel like they can’t drink just because I am not drinking. Or that the right thing to do is to not drink because I am not drinking. And, I don’t know, I guess I have to leave that in their hands because I don’t really All I can do is say, “I will be fine with you drinking. That is not a problem.” But if it doesn’t feel right for them they won’t do it. So I guess (inaudible at 00:35:29) at that.
THERAPIST: We have about ten minutes. (pause) I did want to offer you the chance to go back and do some of the progressive muscle relaxation because I know you had mentioned it and then we didn’t have time for it last session.
CLIENT: Oh, yeah.
THERAPIST: So if you want to save some time for that this might be the time. (pause)
CLIENT: No, I think I am going to do that at home.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: But I guess I would like to talk just a little bit about the reason behind not being present, the reasons. Now in the morning lately I have been getting up, and because I acknowledge that I can be so easily distracted with things that I want to do or things that come up that suddenly seem like they should be addressed around the house, things like that. [00:36:49]
And so I have been getting up and making a list of the things that I want to get done that I will feel better about having gotten those things done at the end of the day than anything else that should come up that really can wait. (pause)
So it is a way for me to identify the things I don’t want to do and the things that I would rather do. And (pause) I don’t know I think it has just been an exercise to be able to look at those things and wonder why is it that I don’t want to do them. Why do I want to carry them from day to day to day?
THERAPIST: What are the things you carry from day to day to day? [00:37:48]
CLIENT: Well, like there is this final Amherst report that I was supposed to turn in in August that they just e-mailed me about a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, I had it on my list and like, you know what, I am just going to do it. And I did it and I got it done. And I was like, “I don’t care if it reads poorly. It’s done.” You know?
And, you know, I had to update my resume and cover letter for a position I applied for. And things like that that I don’t enjoy doing and I don’t know why. I mean I think having to think. As much as I say I like to learn things and I like to keep learning, sometimes it just seems like such a burden to have to think. And I don’t know why that is.
And this is not something that we are going to wrap up in one, you know, five minutes or whatever it is. But, I don’t know, maybe I guess it is just thinking in certain ways. Thinking in ways that I am not comfortable thinking. Writing, for example. [00:39:05]
THERAPIST: Yeah. Writing has been a challenge. I remember you talking about the process of writing papers when you were in school.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: And both of the things you just mentioned are also evaluated as were your papers.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And I wonder if there is a difference between thinking and putting something out there to be evaluated like a resume or a report.
CLIENT: Or a song.
THERAPIST: Or a song.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think there is a lot to do that because I resist finishing songs because I (sigh) whatever. I don’t feel like they are ready or whatever. But when I touch these things every day a little bit, they do get done. And that was the process that I used this past week. It is less daunting to say, “Okay, I am just going to do this for fifteen minutes.”
THERAPIST: Ah, a chunk.
CLIENT: A chunk. There you go. You are smart.
THERAPIST: Once in a while. [00:40:05]
CLIENT: Yeah, right. But it is just interesting for me to see how that works or how it doesn’t work. The things that I supplant these other things with that I would rather do or that I can justify as being a worthy priority when they are not.
THERAPIST: What are those types of things? What are the things that you find it easier or more enticing to spend time on?
CLIENT: Oh, well for the past few months it has been finding furniture and stuff for the household on Craigslist. And that has been a huge time suck. I mean it has been I legitimize it by the fact that, okay, well, this is the time to do it when I am not working. And, you know. But I notice when it becomes more just widespread, boundless.
THERAPIST: Yeah, when you feel like it is taking up more time than (cross talking at 00:41:12).
CLIENT: It is like I might as well buy these things new then taking all that time that I save money. And so I am just trying to identify these things and be honest with myself. Is this something that really that needs to be done? Or is this something that I am just screwing around with?
THERAPIST: You are using as avoidance.
CLIENT: Yeah, so anyway. That is me in a chunk.
THERAPIST: Well I think the idea of using this idea of chunks, because it seems like we can put it in different places and it can be useful for you. You know, one is trying to just to kind of cut back on that kind of globalization that you sometimes do in your head.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And also a way of using boundaries for yourself. How much time do you want to spend on a certain thing? When does it feel like that is actually productive and when does it feel like that is avoidance of something else?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And you can figure out what is the chunk of time or effort that you want to give to things. [00:42:16]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: See if that is a way to also help yourself build your presence. That idea of being in a monk-like state and being present centered as a global way of being is a little bit too much to reach for. But doing it for the amount of time you walk your dog or take a bus ride from here to there is a reasonable chunk of time to try something out.
CLIENT: Sure, sure. I guess, I mean we have talked about this in the past, but just to know that I want to come back to it is these things that, how I view these things that are going to be evaluated. How I build them up.
THERAPIST: And that is sort of prohibitive to creating it.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. And I know chunks. I have practiced that. Well not practiced it but dabbled in it a couple of times but something addressing that is something I want to talk about. [00:43:16]
THERAPIST: Yeah, kind of go back to kind of reassessing how you build up your expectations or the self-talk around something that is going to be looked at or evaluated.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: We can make sure that we practice that too.
CLIENT: Um, I need to cancel Friday.
THERAPIST: Friday? Okay.
CLIENT: [Because I’ve got my] (ph) psychiatrist for a two our meet on Wednesday and I am just going to be all psyched out I think.
THERAPIST: Okay. So let’s pick a time for the next week.
CLIENT: Yeah. Let’s see here on my calendar. The 13th.
THERAPIST: So my Monday is packed but Tuesday the 14th I could do a 9:30 or a 10:30 or 2:30.
CLIENT: Let’s do 10:30.
THERAPIST: Do you want to do that same time on the 21st?
CLIENT: I don’t know. Sorry. [00:44:21]
THERAPIST: That is alright. You want to schedule it week to week for now?
CLIENT: Yeah. I just don’t know what time. I, yeah.
THERAPIST: That will work for January. Come February it is going to be important to schedule a couple of weeks in advance because things will get busy.
CLIENT: Because the students come back.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah, okay.
THERAPIST: (laughs) Life will get very busy again. I do have a little bit of flexibility for the next couple of weeks so I am not afraid that the spots will all disappear.
CLIENT: Okay. Sure, sure. That is fine. Let’s see here. (pause) What is the date today?
THERAPIST: The sixth. (pause) 2014. (laughs) I caught myself doing it this morning and made a couple of things 2013, so. [00:45:29]
CLIENT: I don’t think I have written the date since it has changed.
THERAPIST: Thanks. Alright. I will see you next week.
CLIENT: Okay. Thank you.
THERAPIST: You are welcome.
(audio ends at 45:48 and is blank until 57:43)
END TRANSCRIPT
