Sometime in the fall I signed up for a free consultation with life coach Frank Gjata. He did sessions over the phone, but since he was in the LA area, I went down to see him at his house on Monday, January 3. I was unhappily settled in my new temporary abode after the end of my engagement, and I was determined to start the new year off as soon as I could with some changes.
I told him my situation, explained that I was at a crossroads with no idea what to do with my life. On the one hand, I could stay in Los Angeles. I wasn’t really feeling like I wanted to stay in LA, but then again, maybe I was just upset because of my recent breakup. On the other hand, I could move to Portland. I didn’t think I would like all the rain there, but it would be a lot cheaper than LA. While it did seem a bit grungy for my taste, the city was really beautiful. Or I could move overseas, maybe Europe; a good friend in Germany had invited me to stay for a while, and it would be nice to feel wanted after so much rejection. I hadn’t really loved Germany though the last time I had visited. Perhaps I could go back to Russia, or maybe I could find a well-paying job in some other country that wasn’t even in Europe. Then again, I could move back to the east coast to be closer to my family. I wasn’t sure I could handle the winters after living in Florida and California, but I did miss having seasons.
Frank stopped me. He pointed out that I tilted my head from side to side and gestured from left to right as I announced each possibility and its antithesis. He asked me to stand up and repeat all of my options, moving to a different place in the room for each one. I complied. I could stay in LA. I took a few steps to another spot. I could move to Portland. I walked over a little further. I might go back to the east coast. He asked me to walk more quickly. Travel to Germany. I hopped over a little. Live in Russia again. A few more steps. Back to the east coast. And around again. Stay in LA.
I stopped and turned to him. I’M WALKING IN A CIRCLE. He asked me how I felt. Stuck. I’m walking in a circle and I’m stuck. I was amazed. My physical body was mimicking my inner state. He explained that emotions get trapped in our physical bodies and sometimes when we are confused, doing some movement, some stretches or other physical exercise, can loosen us up so that the answers can emerge. He asked me to bend and stretch, shake out any tightness in my body, to feel which way my body wanted to move. He encouraged me to check in with myself frequently so that I could become aware of any bodily tension early on and address it before it exploded into a negative emotional reaction.
I told him that I felt like a loser. He invited me to adopt a loser persona, to stand the way I thought she would stand and talk the way I thought she would talk. He asked her a number of questions, and it came out that she was unhappy because she felt that no one loved her. She didn’t believe that she deserved to get what she wanted; she felt unworthy of love or of any other gifts in her life. She didn’t believe that anyone could see her good qualities. Is it true that no one sees your good qualities? he asked her. She twisted her head to the side and closed one eye, reluctantly mumbling that, okay, there were a few people who could see them. If you believed that more people saw your good qualities, what could you spend more time doing? She told him that she wouldn’t spend so much time worrying and moping; she could write more, spend more time with her friends, visit interesting places in the city. So you’d spend more time enjoying your good qualities? She had no response to that.
He wondered what she was gaining by being a loser, that there must be some benefit to failing, as she called it, or she wouldn’t do it. I’d gone over that one plenty in therapy, so I was able to help her. I fail in order to get attention from my family. I get some support and concern from them when things go badly for me. When things are going well, I get much, much less, which makes me feel abandoned, unloved, and unimportant.
Last summer when I got engaged, I thought my parents and siblings would be calling me to discuss upcoming wedding plans or my move into my fiance’s condo, but I didn’t hear from anyone for two months. When I finally spoke to one of my sisters, I mentioned our conversation in a blog post in which I debated whether to have a pig roast wedding (my fiancé was Jewish). It was my most successful blog post ever, awarded Editor’s Pick on Open Salon and viewed nearly 4000 times. I thought it was funny. My sister wrote me such a nasty email about it that I stopped all communication with her for nearly four months. My mother (after talking to my sister) sent me a curt email and didn’t send me a birthday card the next month. (Thankfully, my father did, but he sent it to my old address, and I received it three months later). When I emailed my best friend about their reactions, she didn’t respond for a week, and then told me that she didn’t know how she felt about the post. My fiancé worried about what his brother would think. Suffice it to say that, in my mind, success had now been proven to equal complete and utter abandonment.
I felt an overwhelming sense of loss, a searing ache, as if all of my family members had died. The world seemed unbearably large and cold, unforgiving and exclusive. I’d suspected I was unloved, that I didn’t matter to anyone, and now it was confirmed. But I held my ground, and, surprisingly, I survived. Gradually civil relations were restored, and in some respects our communication had improved. When I called my parents to tell them the engagement was off, I was calm, no longer falling apart to get sympathy. I could handle my emotions myself. My sister contacted me, solicitous now that I was down on my luck, but I didn’t need to discuss anything. Improvement – yes. It was, however, five or six months before I could write again, and I knew that fear of another backlash was hindering my progress.
Frank asked me to look at how I was standing in the loser persona. I had both hands on one hip, one leg crossed over the other, and my shoulders were hunched. He pointed out that I was physically all wound up and twisted. My body had done it again. When I sat down, he noticed that I was still holding myself very tensely – legs crossed, both hands gripped together under one knee. (It was a rainy, chilly day, so I was cold, and I wasn’t comfortable with movement exercises.) He imitated my pose, commenting on how much energy it took to hold it. I was in a constant state of tension and didn’t know it. He said I was holding my feelings inside very tightly, and that I had done so for so long, that when they did come out, there would have to be an explosion. I thought back to some of the arguments with my ex-fiance and nodded in agreement.
I told him that getting angry and exploding on someone wasn’t okay. I was crying, so embarrassed and ashamed, so frustrated with my inability to deal with my negative emotions when they were triggered. He told me to forgive myself. He said that anyone in my shoes, who had gone through the life experiences I had gone through, would have felt and acted the exact same way. This did make me feel better. He told me that I had a right to all of my feelings, that I needed to unwind and release them. I had developed wonderful coping mechanisms that had protected me brilliantly! He said that we keep creating situations that will evoke the miserable feelings we are used to – so that we can transcend them. This is a beautiful thing – something to be thankful for. He assured me that loving myself completely, accepting my flaws for the wonderful protection they had provided me, reaching true self-love, were really the only paths to achieve true inner happiness.
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