I just returned to Seattle after a week-long service project in New Orleans. Our group worked on homes in the Gentilly and Upper Ninth Ward areas of the city, north and east of downtown. We managed to get to the French Quarter a couple of times, since the trip wasn’t all work and no play. (That just wouldn’t go over well in the Big Easy.)

I was glad to do this. It was the first time I’ve done several things–hanging Sheetrock on a ceiling, nailing siding on a house, mudding and sanding and priming walls, laying ceramic tile. I was glad to make a small contribution to the cause. The homeowners we worked with are proud of their city and see their return home as a way to honor their heritage. After all, New Orleans is a city where generations of families spanning three hundred years have chosen to stay and flourish. To move to Houston (or Seattle, for that matter) in the wake of a hurricane is a momentous decision for a New Orleanian. The culture of the Crescent City is not big on the notion of diaspora.

And yet, I had a divided heart about our work. The map below, from 1728, roughly thirty years into the history of New Orleans, shows how the city was wholly confined to what we now call the French Quarter. There’s high ground around the Quarter, hugging the north bank of the Mississippi, but fully 80% of New Orleans was devastated (or completely destroyed) by Katrina. And that 80% was built on drained swamps. When you walk up to a levee, you can see the river (or Lake Pontchartrain) standing high above the streets and neighborhoods behind you. It’s unsettling. It’s not unreasonable to ask why–even in light of the great heritage of the New Orleanians who long so desperately to come home–we rebuild here.

One of my work partners was insightful about it. She said that it’s obviously much harder and less sensible to build houses below sea level, but it’s not really an unusual thing for humans to do. Across the world we’ve built cities in the unlikeliest of places–scorching desert, frigid tundra, and atop earthquake fault lines, to name just three. New Orleans is no different. It’s harder to build here than, say, Lincoln, Nebraska. But not everyone wants to live in Nebraska.

Whatever my thoughts and feelings about all this, it was gratifying to go to another part of the world and lend a hand. And I also had this thought: it may not have been as much about the actual work as much as simply being present with our fellow citizens in New Orleans. A catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina is a once-in-a-century body blow to a city, and whether or not you want to lay bathroom tile, your simple presence (and yes, the money you spend on a sazerac), is treasured.

But if you’re like me, you won’t go until later in the year. It is *muggy* down there right now!

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I’m spending a week in New Orleans volunteering on a rebuilding project. I’ve never been to the Big Easy, so suffice it to say I’ve been learning a lot, and seeing a lot! On our first workday I helped lay kitchen tile, which involved spreading glop all over the floor, fitting the tiles, and prepping the tiles for grout. What a mess! At one point my friend and I were obsessing about the exact measurements of the tiles. We were worried that they were just a little bit off. But then our contractor/supervisor came in, saw what we were doing, and said, “Don’t worry about it. We’re not building a new house, we’re restoring an old one. And you need to know–there are no right angles in New Orleans.”

New Orleans culture is a far cry from my Midwestern upbringing, and even my lifestyle in Seattle. But it seems to me that it’s healthy to live and work (at least for a while) in a part of the world that doesn’t get anxious about the teeny tiny details. There are lots of right angles in my life. New Orleans gives me just the perspective I need.

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Making fun of therapists and therapy is as easy as … well let’s just say we therapists make for a target-rich environment. Enjoy this cartoon–and simply click on the image to get a larger view. (And if you’re wondering, here’s my actual take on buying your way to happiness.) Happy Friday!

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Sometimes therapists act like the Wizard of Oz. They’re not supposed to reveal to anyone that they have concerns, worries, even (gasp!) neuroses! But everyone knows this, so it’s a little silly for me to pretend that I am the healthiest human on the planet. Every once in a while, I’ll write in this blog about my human side, and how it actually helps my work.

So here’s one of my hangups: I sometimes worry about how I sound when I’m talking with clients. We’ll finish up a session, schedule the next one, say our goodbyes, and I’ll go back in my office and think, did they notice that I keep hammering on one issue, and one issue only? Are they frustrated that I sound like a broken record? Or is it just me?!

The broken-record topic for me is self-confrontation. When I first began working with couples (and they now make up about half of my practice), my mentor said to me, “You need to find out what your theory is. It’s not that you need to find a theory. You have one already, and whatever it is, you’re using it.” Since then I’ve come to understand that my theory about couples–and individuals–is this (drum roll):

Self-confrontation is the path to ecstasy.

(Huh?)

This is what I mean. When a client begins to complain about their partner, I criticize the quality of their complaint, not the behavior of their partner. I push them not to drop their complaint, but make it better. Make it more effective. Take the poison out of it and get in touch with what you really want from your partner…and get in touch with the fact that this is your want, not your partner’s, and your partner was not put on Earth to meet this want that you have.

So far so good…but then at the next session the person complains about a different behavior their partner is doing (often enough, it’s a fairly bad behavior, to tell the truth!) and I do it again, except from a different angle. Instead of troubleshooting the complaint, I’ll push him to confront his own misbehavior in the relationship, according to his own standards. He wants his partner not to shout or hurl insults? Okay, that sounds reasonable. So…why are you yourself hurling insults at the top of your voice?

Maybe now you can see how this is irritating. I get downright uncooperative when I feel a person is not challenging herself first. But I wouldn’t do this if it didn’t really help. A person who confronts herself gains an enormous amount of emotional strength and relational influence. If you’ve done your personal homework, then your complaint about your partner won’t be half-assed (pardon the industry term), and it might get you what you want. And if you’ve done your personal homework, you can stand much taller than your partner when she’s shouting. Soon enough, she’ll figure out that the shouting is getting her nowhere…at least in her relationship with you.

So until I come up with a better theory (and this is a pretty robust one, if you ask me), I’ll just have to deal with the worries that crop up when my clients leave the session. Most of them come back, after all, and the ones who got past their irritation with me were able to find out how self-confrontation can take them farther than they ever imagined.

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In American popular culture we hear lots of therapy buzzwords, or buzz phrases. After a school shooting a reporter will announce, “The families are gathering in the gym tonight for a candlelight vigil to begin the healing process.” Then, a year or so later, that same reporter will return to the scene of the tragedy and talk about how the victims’ families have “gotten closure.”

Cue the eyerolls. Healing process? Closure? Really? I don’t want to sound cynical–really, I don’t–but let’s have some respect for the complexity of human grief, the mystery of human relationships, and the difficulty of wrestling with an upsetting problem, or person, or situation.

This brings me to a useful but problematic word: ‘acceptance.’ What is it? In my work with clients, acceptance is a process one goes through to make sense of a situation, draw wisdom from it, and move forward in one’s life with the benefits of that wisdom. Please note:

Acceptance is not resigning yourself to an unjust situation (particularly a violent or abusive one)
Acceptance is not pretending you weren’t harmed, or pretending that you didn’t suffer a loss
Acceptance is not making up false (and trite) aphorisms that paper over your pain

In short, acceptance is not resignation. I may accept that my beloved died, but I don’t have to resign myself to that hard reality. When I accept that someone died, I accept that I am deeply sad; I accept that the person’s absence is painful; I accept that she or he brought both delight and difficulty to my life; I accept that–and this might be the hardest part!–I accept that I must move forward and even grow beyond that person, and live future chapters of my life without that person’s immediate presence. And finally, I accept that the person I miss will continue to have an influence–for good or ill–on my life. I may still draw insight and wisdom from my relationship with my beloved dead.

Here’s another way that acceptance is not the same as resignation: I may accept that my partner is, let’s say, emotionally volatile, or has a substance-use problem, or can’t get along with his/her family members. But I don’t have to resign myself to it. This means that if my partner is emotionally volatile, I may accept that as something that’s true about my partner, but also be clear with him about what I’m going to do when he’s flying off the handle. Or if my partner has an alcohol problem, I might accept that as something that’s true about my partner, but be clear with her that I’m not going to help her drink, or be with her when she’s binge-drinking. Or if my partner has a ‘crazy’ family, I might accept that but let my partner know that I’m not his go-to person for all the complaining he wants to do about his family. In all of these examples, acceptance looks very different from resignation.

Sometimes you may accept these situations, and your acceptance process leads you to end the relationship. That doesn’t mean you didn’t ‘accept’ the problem. It just means that as you worked through it, you concluded that ending the relationship was your best option. Other times, you stay. But you stay in a different way–you stay in such a way that you are not allowing your partner’s problem to become your own. And your partner may then choose to address the problem!

Acceptance is a living process, an ongoing path of discernment, self-confrontation, and action. As I said above, through acceptance you make sense of a situation, draw wisdom from it, and move forward in your life with the benefits of that wisdom. It is anything but passive!

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One characteristic of European-American culture is the so-called “theory of opposites,” a habit of looking at problems, situations, and phenomena in either/or terms. That person is either good or bad. This dinner party is either pleasant or awful. This relationship is either healthy or doomed.

There isn’t anything inherently bad or wrong about this way of thinking–in fact, to think so would be to use this way of thinking to reject it!–but it’s helpful to remember that it is only one way of looking at the world. African and African-American cultures are much better at “both/and” thinking. That person upsets me sometimes, but she has many good qualities. This dinner party isn’t particularly fun, but I love the mashed potatoes and the person on my right is funny. This relationship is driving me crazy, but I love my partner and can see how we have a lot going for us.

You’d be surprised at how easy it is to fall into “either/or” thought patterns. Again, it’s not “bad” to do this, particularly if, say, you’re in a dangerous situation and need to make a quick judgment that leads you to safety. But for all those times you’re wrestling with yourself, your relationships, and the hundreds of situations in your life, consider thinking more broadly. Consider a “both/and” approach.

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Oh, the joys of running your own business. The smoke detector outside my office has a low battery, so I took it off the ceiling and took out the dead battery … and it’s still beeping at me! I am living this nightmare. Enjoy the video while I run to the store and get a new 9-volt for this noisy [bleep]!

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Okay, so the weather gets to my head and all I want to do is take a long spring walk, but I should also say that I was kidding about firing your counselor, particularly if your counselor happens to be me! There’s always plenty for us to work on, issues for us to talk about, growth and gladness for you to cultivate in your life and in your relationships.

And then you can go for a long spring walk! Have a great day.

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Yesterday I was walking to work and I noticed something. The flowering trees were fragrant. The grass was lush and green. The skies were azure, with a few white clouds here and there adding only brightness to the firmament. There was a slight breeze. The sun was warm. The shade was cool but not cold. It wasn’t quite 70 degrees.

It was perfect. There was nothing, nothing, not one thing wrong with the weather! And today looks to be about the same. If you’re like me, you have an agenda today, a list of things to do. Please, for your sake, put this on the top of your list: promise yourself that today you will take at least a quarter-mile walk in the perfect weather. On your walk, try not to do anything but walk, listen, breathe, and observe. How many bird songs can you hear? Don’t bother counting, just marvel at how many there are. How many flowering trees?

After a week of blogging about anxiety, I think this might be the best advice I can offer on the first day of May. Please enjoy it! Happy May Day!

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