I’m not a parent, but I’ve worked for years with parents, all six of my siblings are parents, and I guess I should just say that sometimes I like to read the stories of people whose experiences are radically different than mine. Maybe that’s why I like mommybloggers (though not all of them use that term to describe themselves). I recently linked to my friend Alissa’s blog, and recommend her if you’re interested in the life and times of a family that was created through adoption. And for a good time on your lunch break, I think you’ll like this blogger. I link to her today because I like her take on psychotherapy in this post, and I believe all couples would be happier and healthier if they had this couple’s attitude! (She’s also hilarious.) Enjoy!

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Back in grad school I learned about the Zeigarnik effect, and I ran into the concept again when I was attending a Gottman workshop last month. You don’t have to know everything there is to know about this, but the bottom line is interesting: humans have a hard time forgetting unfinished business.

Think about a relationship you’ve had that has gone sour. This usually happens over time: you and your partner (or friend, or mother, any relationship) have little interactions over a span of months (or even years) in which you feel slighted, misunderstood, maybe even mistreated. And then you discover that you’ve been collecting these grievances and keeping them in a little bitter file in your mind, your anti-partner file, if you want to call it that. Your memory of these events may be distorted, but there’s little chance you’ll forget them because you keep rehearsing them in your mind, over and over. They may not be accurate memories, but they’re certainly powerful ones.

Meanwhile, anything neutral or good that has happened in your troubled relationship is either forgotten, or (worse) discounted and twisted into a bad memory, ready for the anti-partner file. You are suffering from the Zeigarnik effect. Until you resolve your unfinished business with the other person, you won’t be able to let go of these nasty memories.

But once you do resolve them, something happens that almost feels magical. They slide away. They become distant echoes of a bad time for which no one is responsible…or if someone is to blame, they’ve copped to it really well, so no problem! And you start collecting positive memories again. Bluma Zeigarnik studied and described this effect by working with restaurant servers: if they had taken an order but not turned it in to the kitchen, or if they had served a customer but the customer hadn’t yet paid the bill, they could remember with sharp clarity what the customer ordered. But as soon as the business was transacted—the cook had the order, the customer paid the bill—the servers had no idea what the customer ordered. The now-irrelevant information just slipped away.

Wouldn’t that feel good? If you’re nursing an old wound,* or if someone you love feels wounded by you, it might help to simply sit down, listen non-defensively to one another, and resolve the problem. After that, may not even remember what all the fuss was about!

*I need to say that some wounds run very, very deep, so this concept is not a suitable replacement for long-term relationship therapy or individual therapy when a person has been seriously harmed, abused, or betrayed. The problems I’m referring to here are in the category of everyday slights and injuries. And, I’ll also say—since it’s what I do for a living, after all—that working through small problems is also easier when you’re seeing a counselor!

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So, this is it. Today is my fortieth birthday. I’ve been telling people that I have a lot of “energy” about this event. I’m not in crisis—believe me, I checked!—but I have a lot of interest in the fact that the earth has circled the sun forty times since that Monday morning in rural Minnesota when my parents headed for the hospital. I know that the earth herself couldn’t care less how old I am, and that I am one among billions, but I confess I’ve been thinking about myself a lot lately. Who am I? How am I doing compared to my 30-year-old self? (Much better, generally speaking.) And what’s next?

One of the things I decided to do to mark this event was to follow my own advice and write a letter to my older self, specifically, my 50-year-old self. I wrote it in longhand, just to be certain that it won’t find its way into cyberspace. (Some things need to be between me and myself…or is it myselves?) But I can tell you it was a not-too-long message of greeting and reflection for the enjoyment of the person I will be ten years from now. I told him what I haven’t yet accomplished for us, what I am proud to have gotten done, and some of my hopes for him. And I shared with him my compassion for our 30-year-old self, who (as I noted above) was in much worse shape than I hope either of us will be.

This is more than a silly, self-obsessed thing to do. It really is a healthy way to get in touch with oneself. Who am I? Who was I? Who do I want to become? I often encourage clients to do this exercise if they’re feeling apprehensive or anxious about their future, or if they’re feeling regret about their past. Can you speak with wisdom and affection to your older self, and (this might be much harder) your younger self? Thinking of yourself this way—in the third person—can free you to live more comfortably in your own skin, as you, like our home planet, move into the future, year by year.

Oh, and I asked the 50-year-old me to write back and tell me everything!

My five-year-old self.

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I just received written feedback from a client who found our work together helpful, and I have a chance to share it with you. (The client gave permission.) Here is the feedback, with editing to protect the client’s identity:

“Stephen, thank you for working with me. I have enjoyed getting to know you, and talking with you. It may not have seemed like it at times, but I found our work together helpful. I’m not good at expressing myself, and I need time to mull things over before they sink in, so I wanted to let you know that I always left your office with challenging, comforting, enlightening thoughts to think. You wrote on your blog recently that therapy should be more like massage than CPR, and I agree. Leaving your office felt more like leaving a massage appointment: I felt a little exposed, and my (mental and emotional) muscles were a little sore, and it wasn’t until some later situation in which I had a chance to use those muscles that I truly appreciated the work we had done. It has made a difference to me and you have my gratitude. Thank you.”

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A few years ago I was working with a client who struggled with anxiety. (This is putting it mildly.) The client came into my office one day and was in the midst of an anxiety attack—and a fairly severe one at that. The client was barely able to walk, so intense were the anxiety symptoms. Fortunately for me, I was studying dialectical behavior therapy at the time, so I had just learned a set of basic self-soothing techniques. My office was just around the corner from the kitchenette, and the client was seated on my couch, so I told the client I needed to step out and would be right back.

I came back from the kitchenette with a small bucket of ice cubes. “Here,” I said to the client. “Just hold onto a few of these.” The client took three ice cubes from the bucket and began to hold them. Almost magically, the anxiety symptoms began to diminish. The client looked at me, eye to eye, and smiled. Ice was the answer.

Why? Because we experience our emotions in our bodies. That means we can regulate our emotions by making a change in our bodies, particularly a change of temperature. A writer I know will take a shower or bath when she feels stuck, and she emerges from the water with a new insight. I don’t use ice to calm myself down, but only because I prefer washing my hands and face with very hot water and soap. Another method: fill a shallow bowl with ice water and hold your face in the water for up to 30 seconds. Our bodies can’t stay anxious if they’re being asked to focus on a powerful physiological experience. Holding ice can be painful (as can the hot water), and sometimes it’s the pain that breaks the “spell” of anxiety. Other times it’s just the slight shock of coming into contact with warm or cool water.

So the next time you’re feeling stressed—and particularly if you’re having an intense experience of anxiety—try using ice or cold water to literally chill out!

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