IF THINKING YOUR WAY OUT OF THINGS HAS ALWAYS WORKED BEFORE, WHY ISN’T IT WORKING NOW?

Jan was a few years out of college and just hitting her stride – after years of success in high school and college, she was ready for the “real world.”  

Her employers appreciated her curiosity for understanding the root of a problem, her quick and agile mind to come up with creative solutions, and she was excited for every challenge that they threw at her.

She quickly advanced in her career, earning promotions and accolades, and using her achievements to round out her life – travel a bit, pay off loans, buy her first house. She was methodical and organized, checking off her goals one by one. 

At a professional conference she met Ben and was impressed that his ambition matched her own, and soon they started sharing their dreams of adventures together, and just a year later, they were planning their wedding.

Jan and Ben did not miss a beat – they married, bought a new house, went on two international vacations, and got to work starting a family, with their first child born on their third anniversary and their second child born two years later.  Their careers soared – and so did their responsibilities.  

When they met, they’d spend hours talking about what they’d like to accomplish and how they plan to get there.  They’d wonder about possibilities and be curious about other paths.  They’d talk about hopes and dreams and fears – and how they would go about achieving each goal. 

But now any precious minute of conversation was spent going over check lists of what needed to be done and how it would be managed, and the conflicts increased as they disagreed over what should happen and how and when. 

Jan was tense all of the time and she wasn’t sure why – her mind kept going to anything that could go wrong and how to prevent that from happening, and it was exhausting.  

Any spare moment was spent with their children, and while she and Ben would always agree that it was the best part of their day, Jan noticed that she was beginning to feel a bit like a shell – she couldn’t figure out what was nagging her, but she knew this wasn’t how she wanted to feel for the rest of her life.

One night, Jan found herself arguing with Ben, and she realized a few minutes in that they could both be right in this argument, but she had lost her ability to imagine his perspective, or be curious about why he was taking that approach – so why did she have to win so badly?  Why wouldn’t she let him be right?  

She’d never speak to her colleagues like this, or her friends.  How did her fuse get so short? And with the person who she trusted most.  There had to be a better way.

Jan thought long and hard about the changes she had noticed in herself – the worrying, the tension, the arguing.  She researched online, browsed some self help books at the library, and realized that her own mind was becoming a “black box” to her – she was missing something in understanding her own thinking. 

She talked with her friends and asked their advice, and one of them said “You know, sometimes when I don’t understand myself, I talk with my therapist – she’s great at helping me understand the workings of my own mind.”  And Jan realized that might be exactly what she needed.

The next time Jan had a quiet moment, she picked up the phone and made a call.  “I don’t really know how this therapy thing works, but here’s what is going on – I used to be a pretty calm person, but lately I fly off the handle at anything and I can’t seem to let an argument end.  

It’s made my home life stressful and I can’t seem to relax at work.  Is this something you can help with?”  “I’d be happy to try – let’s talk a little more to see if we can figure out what’s going on.”  As the therapist asked Jan questions, it was clear that there might be a pattern as to what’s going on, and there might even be a solution.  

For the first time in a long while, Jan felt like she understood what was going on inside of her, and even got some of that curiosity back that she thought she had lost so long ago – she began to feel like herself again.

Jan went to counseling faithfully every week, and by the end of three months she was smiling more. After six, she had started to worry less, and became more flexible in letting others have the last say. Jan became more curious about Ben, and about her children, and they loved answering her questions about what they thought.  

After a year Jan felt ready to do some hard thinking about what she wanted from her life, what kind of a person she wanted to be, and how she could make that all work.

When she was ready, she began to tell Ben about these new hopes and dreams, and he shared his with her, and they realized they could start to imagine some new dreams together.