I’ve spent a huge chunk of my life in the “therapist’s chair.” So much so that I considered it a professional victory when I could finally afford the fancy ergonomic “Cadillac” of therapist seating. I know, it’s the small wins in life that really matter.

However, because I’ve spent so much time in the chair (or the role) of the therapist, it’s easy to lose touch with how difficult it is to be in the role of the client. I mean, I know it’s not easy and I tell everyone that walks in my office how brave it is to cross over that threshold to face your own stuff. But it’s still easy to forget exactly how that feels.

Therapists disagree about how much of their own lives to share. Some of my colleagues never share a personal story; others treat their lives as an open book, sometimes in a very unhealthy way. After 30 years in that chair, I lean toward what Aristotle called "the virtuous mean," the Goldilocks zone between too much and too little. Too little courage is cowardice; too much is recklessness. For a therapist, the mean is sharing your own experience when the time is right and for the good of the client in front of you.

So here's a journal entry I wrote several years ago, when I started with a new therapist. It shows two things. First, your therapist is a real person, not some expert who has finally reached the peak of "having it all together." Second, going to therapy is hard, and brave, and funny, and sad, and stupid, and genius, and all of the other things…for everybody. So the fact that it's taken you 8 visits to the website (statistically speaking), or that it keeps landing on your to-do list and never gets done, or that you've found every possible reason NOT to go, doesn't mean anything about you other than you're absolutely normal.

Here’s the personal reflection (pardon my French) on my own experience as a client:

From my journal, years ago:

I'm in therapy now. Yep. Me. The guy who spends his days in the therapist's chair is now on the therapist's couch. It sucks. I don't want to be there, but I need to be there. Okay, a part of me wants to be there, but I don't like admitting that. I want to feel better. I want someone to pick up this weight off my chest so I can breathe again. I actually want to go fetal or get high or drive a hundred miles per hour as far away as I can, but I'm trying to channel all of that into dealing with my stuff so I sit there for an hour every week or so to try to get over myself. The result so far: I feel. That’s it. I just feel. Can't say I feel better or worse, but I do at least feel and that’s slightly better than not feeling so we’ll see where that takes us. I like that my therapist's office is over a liquor store. Something about that feels right to me. I'd be irritated with the guy in the fancy office wearing a tie trying to get me to "live my best life,” or “just do it,” or “manifest at a higher vibration.” I want to punch that guy every time I see him. He's expensive. And fake. My therapist looks like Wilford Brimley playing the role that Robin Williams played in Good Will Hunting. I've only been to about 5 sessions, but he's been wearing the same thing every time I've seen him - jeans, boots, and a denim shirt that may have never been ironed before. For all I know, he may wear that same thing every day of his life these days. If you asked him why, he'd say, "fuck you, that's why." I like that. His office smells like he's been there a long time. A Bob Dylan record on the shelf tells me he's got a poet living inside him, but the cowboy hat hanging from the antlers on the wall says you'd probably have to get him drunk to find it. He quotes Joseph Campbell and Milton Erickson which lets me know that he's no dummy. And he tells me to keep talking while he grabs his hot tea from the microwave which lets me know he's at the age where he doesn't really need to make an impression on me. That makes an impression on me. I feel like he's got stories to tell, but I have to keep my curiosity at bay because we're not here for his stories, we're here for mine. I'd much rather talk about his partially because that’s kinda my jam and partially because it helps me avoid my own stuff, but I have to redirect myself, to be honest about my stories. I don't like telling my stories. They all sound made up. They're not as far as I know, but they sound too tragic to be real. Some of them may be made up, to be honest, but they weren't made up by me. I tell them the way that I was told. They're a part of my memories because my mom gave them to me. Most people have those kinds of memories, but when your mom is a notorious liar and really good at it, you start to second guess your own reality. Today, after a few of my stories, he asked me if I would consider myself to be a “parentified child.” I'm thinking, "if there were a tribe of parentified children running around, they'd make me their king." I didn't ask to be parentified, but dammit if they didn't put me in that role. I hate them for that. I know it has made me great at certain things, but being the little adult robbed me of a lot of things. Mostly freedom. Now I'm supposed to try to find that freedom that was taken from me. How the hell do I do that? That's like telling the adult elephant being held by a small rope and a stake that he could yank that thing up if he really wanted, but he's been tied to that stake since he was a kid and doesn't know his own strength. And he sure doesn't know what it would be like to take off running. Where would he go? What would he do when he got there? What if everything else sucks worse than this stake? Someone needs to tell him, “You’re a fucking elephant! Do whatever you want! You're big enough. Just go do it!" So even though internally I question the wisdom of telling a guy going through a mid-life crisis to figure out what it means to play, I'm going to give it a try. I've got to reclaim that part of my life. I've got to free myself from that stake and walk around a little - maybe even get a little muddy. Not sure where all this is going, but I know it's a journey that needs to be taken.

Yeah, I know. It’s a lot. But it’s honest. It’s real. It’s raw. And yes, I actually paid money for that experience!

So, why do I share this story? Because I want every client that walks in my office to know a few things:

• I’m really impressed with the fact that you intentionally woke up, got dressed, got in your car, walked through my door, and willingly subjected yourself to that couch. That tells me something about you, and it’s NOT that you’re broken or diagnosable, or any of the other things you keep telling yourself. It tells me that you’re not willing to settle for the status quo of this life, and regardless of what prompted you, you’re doing something about it. That’s important.
• You’ll never hear me say “I understand what that feels like” when you share your own lived experience with me, but in this case, when it comes to crossing that threshold on purpose, I want you to know, “I understand what that feels like.” (And as a side note and a personal opinion from 30 years of experience, any therapist who doesn’t do their own therapy shouldn’t be sitting in THAT chair. Feel free to ask them if they’re doing their work!)
• It’s supposed to be hard! This is the key. Whether the resistance shows up in your mind or your body, when you make that first appointment, walk into the office, or swipe your card, know that it is “baked into the process.” Nobody, and I do mean nobody, ever grew at all inside the comfort zone. That’s literally why they call it the comfort zone. Step just outside of it and BOOM! Resistance. Friction. Tension. Whatever you want to call it. That’s where the growth happens. You may not like it, but you can’t argue with it. Feel the resistance – and keep the appointment. Showing up is a big part of the process.

And if you show up enough times in my office…I may even let you take my fancy chair for a test drive. Maybe.