not fast but . . .

The weekend is over and I am trying to get my head back in shape to go back to work. It is slightly more difficult because last week I was a little sick and had a slight fever. That was good because it seemed to make everything a little more intense. It was kind of fun, except for the feeling sick part.

But I'm better now, so I will have to use my regular brain. A little caffeine is all I can add, and I can't do too much of that or I have to go sprinting down the hall between sessions.

One thing you have to have if you are going to last in this business is patience (and patients too, ha ha). I have been seeing the same woman in my first hour of work each week now for just under two years. She is a great client; she works hard, she has a family history that crippled her early on ( hers was one of the mothers I highlighted).

Change comes slowly. It's true of all of us. Brains seem to get stuck. They seem to like to do the same thing over and over. I think there are parts of our brain that let us know that if we are not dead, or in great pain, then what we are doing must be working, so we keep doing it. It's difficult to stop.

I can see it in my own habits. I have about four or five patterns in my life that vary very slightly. Each time I move from one to the other I get the feeling that I have discovered something brilliant. Eventually I realize that I have discovered it two-hundred times before, but even a very slight changes seems drastic.

In two years this woman has done over fifty things she had never done in her life. She shops in new stores. She doesn't flirt with a man if she wants something, she asks for it, She treats herself to a new music CD each month. She is enjoying her life a bit more. She tells me that these changes have been the source of new feelings of hope and accomplishment.

Sometimes, doing therapy is like watching global warming.