New Beginnings
On Saturday, like a lot of Americans, I felt a weight lift from my chest. Breath felt a little easier. The sun felt a little brighter. “This is a new dawn,” I said to my daughters, as we watched Harris and Biden grace the stage with dignity and strength.
The next day, I felt the familiar push/pull between the lightness and celebration of this new beginning, and the lurking, heavier knowledge that beginnings are just that; a starting point. There’s a lot of work to be done. And it’s not going to be easy.
As a therapist in practice for over a decade, I often see new clients experience what we call “a flight into health,” after their first appointment or so. “I feel sooooo much better,” they say at the start of appointment number two or three. Generally, I smile and let them tell me what feels better. Their relief is absolutely real. They have made time for themselves, felt heard and validated, received empathy, perhaps gotten hard things off of their chests. It feels like a new beginning. It’s very important for me to celebrate with them, to mark this beginning with joy.
As the weeks go on, however, often these same clients return with heavier hearts. Their familiar symptoms of anxiety or depression have returned, or they have found themselves back in patterns of habits and addictions. I, of course, knew this was likely coming. “It’s okay,” I tell them. “We expect this. You spent months or years struggling. It’s going to take time for lasting change.” From here, we continue to develop an action plan, taking steps toward healing and growth. We celebrate even little wins, and we work on self-compassion when the going gets tough.
Real change happens, slowly but surely. That Sunday of toggling feelings, I decided to drop into celebration, to take a deeper breath, fill my lungs with joy and to honor this first step. I knew that this celebration, the memories of it, the joy I felt in my core, could be conjured up when life felt hard. I tell my clients this too, “If you felt it once, you can feel it again.” If we work hard, we’ll develop new patterns, real change, so we can feel this joy more often.
We got this, clients of mine. We got this, America. Let’s party first, and then we’ll work on real change, one step at a time.