TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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NO VOICE UNTIL [00:02:07]

THERAPIST: Hi. Come on in.

CLIENT: Good morning. (long pause) [00:03:14] I feel so much lighter now. (pause) Yesterday I saw you and then I went to our last meeting of Danielle’s work. It was like a love fest. [00:04:03] There are two meditation halls, upstairs and downstairs, and those were both occupied because there were two other practice groups that are just starting, so our group met in the tea room, which is like, I imagine in that house where the hosts, the people who live there, would receive guests. It’s like the first room to the right in this huge Victorian house. It’s a very small room and then there is tea in there and mugs and a hot water thing. [00:05:06] There are a couple of couches and there is a reclining [ ] (inaudible at 00:05:08). So we met in that room. There were five people: the annoying post doc writer woman didn’t come, which made it all the more (chuckles) of a love fest. So there were five of us and Danielle. We were so close to each other. It would be like fitting five people in half of this room. (pause) We talked about this at the end. [00:06:03] There is something about Danielle’s mom’s death and the way that she really shared it with us and was so open about it and the timing of it and just the way that Danielle experienced herself with us with her mom’s death that set the tone for the next five weeks of our [ ] (inaudible at 00:06:34). That was really quite different from what any of us had ever experienced. There was Danielle; there was this woman who is probably in her 60’s, a lovely school teacher. [00:07:03] There is Olive, who is probably my age, who seems to have a different set of work struggles. There is Julie, who is proudly also in her 60’s, who looks like she’s been through two wars and drug addiction and she’s a gardener. She has long, grey hair, really wind burned-looking skin. She talks softly and in a deep voice. She laughs a lot, big belly laughs. Then there is the guy whose name I never knew, who is this overweight, sort of flamboyant gay guy. [00:08:02] [ ] (inaudible at 00:08:03) Those are the people and Danielle. (pause)

It was very sad that the group was ending. It helped all of us and she invited me again to have an interview, which I printed up before she invited me again. It felt really nice to sit so close to everybody because in the big meditation hall, we were kind of spread out. [00:09:10] (pause) It’s kind of like group therapy, meditation style. That’s how it felt yesterday, where no one is really the therapist – or like we all are. (pause) It was very intimate. (pause) [00:10:01] People seemed to genuinely get a lot out of the class, so we shared that with each other and I was surprised by how much [the air] (ph?) around my work came up week after week for me. I was able to articulate that a little bit last night. (long pause) [00:11:30] [Darla] (ph?) is going to see if she can get somebody in the [ ] (inaudible at 00:11:33), a meditation teacher who lives in Virginia, to come to my grandfather’s house. Wouldn’t that be cool? I want to try to make that happen for her. I think it’s hard to go at it completely alone. (pause) You’re not completely alone, but I imagine it must be hard to feel like you have any kind of stillness or any kind of confidence in the method or in the journey when so much is coming up. [00:12:49] But maybe that’s the difference between being 89 and being young and starting meditation. Maybe he has had all the years he needs to have stillness and now things are flowing differently and maybe he can hold it. [ ] (inaudible at 00:13:31) (pause) [00:13:54]

THERAPIST: When you were talking about it, it seems to me, it sounds like some of the stuff we’ve been talking about in the sense that I don’t think what you’re referring to as being difficult to deal with on its own is the meditation, per se, it’s what comes up, the stuff. I think in ways you know plenty about having to do that kind of stuff very much on your own. Then more recently, I think you have been involving other people, which I think is part of what you were saying was nice yesterday, both here and in the meditation group. [00:15:01] As far as you and me, it seems like something we’ve been talking a lot about is the [ ] (inaudible at 00:15:12) that go along with when you feel more on your own with it versus when you feel more like I know or that we’re connected in what you’re talking about. (pause)

CLIENT: Sometimes I do know what it’s like to feel completely alone with what comes up, but I know that I wouldn’t have . . . [00:16:01] I don’t know; maybe I have no idea. It feels as if part of my resolve and commitment and love for the practice is supported by the fact that I can go and be around other people who are also alone with the stuff that comes up for them and where there is this sort of shared honoring of what comes up here and there. That’s very powerful. It’s very powerful to have somebody else honor what came up for you, even if you’re still left with it, right? [00:17:02]

THERAPIST: And I think it’s very isolating and painful when it feels like people aren’t. I’m thinking about some of the more negative stuff that we were talking about yesterday, actually. (pause)

CLIENT: Like how sometimes it feels like you weren’t honoring by what?

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: Like by doing what?

THERAPIST: Not being available, mostly. [00:18:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I felt this really strong resistance come up against the words appropriate and inappropriate, here and after I left here yesterday. Like how sure he is that it’s not appropriate for us to talk between sessions. [00:18:59] Very. (laughs)

THERAPIST: I knew that one.

CLIENT: You didn’t say it. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I was like “who is this Mr. Appropriate anyway? Why do we care about him?” I started to soften into it, like we might need him – “we,” like humans might need him – to not completely hurt each other and dissolve some systems that are actually doing a lot of good, like Western psychotherapy. [00:20:38] People wouldn’t come to you if Mr. Appropriate wasn’t part of the relationship. And like the system of marriage. There is a lot of good in our world. (pause) It’s almost like I’m sacrificing my local short-term – it doesn’t feel very short term, but in the grand scheme of one life – local, short-term fantasies for some more global, more lasting, more helpful cause. [00:22:09] But it’s like I really don’t want to do that. I don’t have much choice, so it’s convenient and the resistance comes back really fast. That’s the theory that kept coming up when I felt like fighting the appropriateness hard.

It’s kind of like what Jeremy and I have talked about or when I brought up having sex with other people. It’s actually like we both support that idea, especially for me where it feels really important that I experience somebody else. [00:23:08] But in practice, without being morally righteous or being anything, it’s actually a terrible idea. It can get really, really, really messy really fast; and that’s not the part of the sex that I really want. It kind of feels like that, but it’s like I still want it. (long pause) [00:24:17] I’ve sort of talked about those two things as if they aren’t related, but they’re pretty related. (pause)

THERAPIST: Like in a way, a different role for Mr. Appropriate.

CLIENT: Yes. [00:24:59]

THERAPIST: Which I doubt [ ] (inaudible at 00:25:02) much more like practical than moral.

CLIENT: Yes. I think there is nothing immoral about pursuing love in isolation. (pause) Sex isn’t love, but if the intention is love, it gets pretty messy pretty fast. [00:26:06] That was a non sequitur. I guess it’s pretty hard to say in words. I don’t really know what I’m trying to say. (scoffs) It gets pretty messy pretty fast trying to talk about it. (long pause) [00:27:03]

THERAPIST: You’re anxious just about telling me. I imagine because you worry that I wouldn’t really get it or appreciate it or I would start talking about how this is a way of avoiding feeling bad or something like that, rather than just what you want to say and the positive things that you feel.

CLIENT: I guess I’m afraid of sounding amoral to you or kind of cuckoo. (laughs) I’m sure nobody ever feels that when they’re talking to you. (laughs)

THERAPIST: No, never. [00:27:56] (pause)

CLIENT: If I feel like I’m connecting with in in every way possible, what are the reasons not to do it? The only important reason to me is whether you want to or not.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: The other reasons just seem like flimsy little gates or flimsy walls that I could just punch down. [00:29:00] It feels much more violent than that, like completely destroy, like burn down Mr. Appropriate.

THERAPIST: We have five minutes. Why don’t we just stop right at 10:30?

CLIENT: Okay. Are you anxious that I’m not going to . . ?

THERAPIST: Are you going to try to stomp down that wall? (laughs)

CLIENT: Uh-huh. (long pause) [00:30:15] I can’t act in isolation. My actions affect other people. They affect my future. They affect your future. [Your actions affect your future.] (ph?) I guess I’ve never had such a long, lasting, what feels like a very deep conflict between what I want to do and what I am doing – how I want to act and how I’m acting. [00:31:09] I don’t think I’ve ever really had much distance between those two – ever.

THERAPIST: [It sounds like you’ve been pretty convinced that the distance wouldn’t have remained here either.] (ph?) (long pause) [00:33:33]

CLIENT: I feel like pleading with you at times.

THERAPIST: I see. (long pause) [00:34:30] We should stop for now.

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