A Question in Therapy by David Atkinson
How would you live your life differently if you knew you were good enough?
My face got hot. I ummed. I awed. I started sentences I couldn’t finish. I struggled, stuttered, stumbled around the thought, ashamed of the fact that this state of mind to me seemed an impossibility.
Silence hung in the air like the blast of heat that comes when you open an oven too quickly. I looked at him. He looked at me…… I’d feel free, I said. And then, he conjured the perfect image. Maybe one day you can learn to blow with the wind, instead of trying to control the gust yourself. I considered how nice it would be to submit to the universe’s breeze. How liberating to stop trimming my own stems & branches for fear where they might grow. I’d trust, I’d let go. Perhaps I’d bloom in the most unexpected places. Like a bright, beautiful wisteria — untethered, uncontained. I’d love without the suffocating shadow of fear, of loss. I’d live more outside of my head, instead, inside the moment.
Maybe writing these words is part of me finding my way. Illuminating a path in the darkness, like neon bulbs on the floor of an airplane gangway.
Slowly working to unpick the seams of self doubt, guilt & shame, sewn tight in their conception, attempting to protect, but now only hinder. I take a deep breath, I feel them starting to come loose.
With one foot in front of the other, I inch towards a self acceptance I couldn’t foresee when I began, but lately, I’m starting to believe in.
***
“A question in therapy’ is inspired by a real conversation I had with my therapist. It’s about a realisation; that everything might be different if I believed I was good enough. It’s confronting an ugly truth head on, how terrifying and liberating that can be. How from that point of acceptance, things can start to soften. It’s about healing.”
David Atkinson speaking about his writing
