Trying in 2014--Life Support from Killer Counselors

I’ve written about a range of ingredients that went into our family keeping it together during a trying2014. Our own resilience, the aid of relatives, the power of pals.

We also had professional help. And the assistance from mental health experts proved vital.

First was the family counseling: Hanna and Anna, the two counselors who’d been working with our family since fall of 2013.

In essence, Rowena and I had developed some “clogged pipes” when it came to communication. By the middle of 2014, after about nine months of working with Hanna and Anna, we’d made a lot of progress. But then we took a few steps backwards. The strains of my mother dying, Rowena’s cancer diagnosis, job insecurity and other troubles made me, at least, revert to some unhelpful behaviors and positions. Especially right after my mother died in late July, I found myself losing my cool with Rowena and feeling like we might never agree on how to raise our kids.

Hanna and Anna to the rescue.

Not only did they give us a weekly forum to flesh out our emotions, but they equipped us with a ritual to find common ground on our own. It was simple but effective: let the other person talk for five minutes straight, and then paraphrase their words and your own emotional reaction to them. Only after this active listening to your partner do you get to say your piece for five minutes.

Rowena and I added a physical routine to this communication tactic. Our one-bedroom apartment makes it nearly impossible to have a conversation without our kids hearing us, and Hanna and Anna strongly suggested we not hash out conflicts in front of Julius and Skyla. So we would talk while taking a walk around the block. These mobile conflict-conversations almost invariably put us back in rhythm. Reconnected us. 

I still chuckle at the names of our family counselors. You can’t help but think they are an act out of Vaudeville or the Muppet Show. Hanna and Anna, the amazing twins of talk therapy! Or Hanna and Anny, the dynamic duo of family counseling!

But they were real-life superheroes to us.

And they weren’t alone. By late fall, after Rowena’s cancer diagnosis in September and growing worries about whether I’d have a job come the new year, I found myself in a state of high anxiety. I knew the aches and pains I was feeling in my back, feet and other body parts had something to do stress. So I turned to another mental health pro: Dr. Robert Foster.

I’d seen Dr. Foster a few years earlier for another bout of anxiety. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wrestled with excessive worry and fear. My anxiety probably isn’t quite at the level that Atlantic editor Scott Stossel experiences. He bravely describes the nearly debilitating way phobias affect him as well as his response, which includes finely calibrated use of alcohol and sedatives to make it through public speaking events. I haven’t faced such consistent, extreme anxiety. But I’ve had awful enough episodes of worry and corresponding psychosomatic troubles. These include during my first college final exams, when I was beset by hives, and on the eve of my son’s birth, when I was convinced I’d become incontinent.

Thankfully, my mind wasn’t trying to play that trick on me this time around. But I was hopeful Dr. Foster could ease that troubled mind of mine. And he didn’t disappoint. Dr. Foster had introduced me to meditation the previous time I’d seen him. And I had continued to meditate several times a week.

But now he added a twist—quite literally. He suggested I try a more active, Tai Chi style of mediation, and that I start shaking.

Shaking?

Yes, he said, citing a book by stress expert Peter Levine that highlights the way animals recover from trauma by shaking their bodies. My initial skepticism soon gave rise to curiosity and a connection to dancing—something I’ve always loved and found I could do no matter how much my back seemed to hurt. Rihanna’s words from “Please Don’t Stop the Music” came to mind: “I gotta get my body moving. Shake the stress away.”

So I took to shaking. A full body shimmy, usually coming just after a series of back stretches during my morning shower.

And it seemed to help. Dr. Foster’s primal detoxification joining forces with the relationship repair services of Hanna and Anna to ease my mind and mend my marriage. To make life much better.

During a year marred by one death and the threat of another, our counselors were killer.