The Healing Power of Okay

If you’ve never been in therapy, and you are on the fence, I’d like to detail one important realization I came to as I sat in there letting it all out to a trained professional.  You only know what it’s like from watching movies and TV and its not really anything like that.  A good therapist isn’t going to “fill your head up with nonsense”. In fact, the best thing they do is listen to you.  That’s what everyone needs, and they provide that.  The kicker is that the response you get is so painfully simple, you wonder if you could have saved the money.  But it has to come from someone else.  Someone who is listening without a personal stake.

              You put it all out there.  All the dark and slimy shit in your life and you try to rationalize your reaction to it, which is all we can really do.  However, unless you are actively trying to hurt yourself or others, the response is:

              “Okay.”

              Okay? That’s what I’m here for?  Okay?  Where are the one or two sentences of ancient wisdom that I can clutch onto with dear life and weather the storms of living as a human being in this chaotic world?

              Turns out, there are none. At least, you don’t need anyone to point you in the direction. You need an “okay”.  You are okay to respond to stress or trauma and deal with it.  It may take years or it may take days.  That’s okay.  You may have quirks or habits that seem crazy to you, things that you are ashamed of or make you feel awkward.  Those are okay, too.  People are weird.  We don’t fully understand ourselves yet.  There are a billion ways to live a life.  As long as you are not directly causing harm, you’re probably just fine.

              It’s okay to think and have weird thoughts.  It’s okay to be unusual or to be boring. We have our burdens but shaming ourselves for our reactions to stimuli is a burden we can drop. We have problems we create for ourselves because existence is scary and confusing. 

              I cannot wrap my mind around what my life would have been like if I had this ‘Okay’ when I was a young man.  The pain and suffering I gave myself because I thought I was inferior in so many respects.  Not enough.  Failing. 

              Actually, I was just living.

              If it’s inside you somewhere that accepting ‘okay’ is tantamount to embracing mediocrity or falling short of your inherent potential, I can safely say that all of that is a giant pile of nothing.  Shitting on yourself does not motivate you or make you better.  It’s when you accept the good and the bad.  The strengths/weaknesses, mistakes/successes, ugly/beautiful.  It is an honest reflection.  That’s what the therapist brings.  The whole story.

               I’ve been wondering about this aspect of life in America.  The stress to either conform or excel or reach a prescribed standard.  It sucks, right? It just makes us miserable, right?  Only winners of the game get to enjoy life and we’re not sure if they enjoy it all that much.  It doesn’t seem like it’s a good way to live.  I think about my ancestors, particularly the ones in Italy, maybe 150 years ago.  Working hard but coming home to real food and family and a glass of wine.  Not staring at a phone wishing we could be or have more.  Just enjoying the evening breeze and the laughter of friends and family.  We act like these things are so out of reach, but we could all have our own version of this tomorrow if we wanted.  No insecurity or inadequacy or emptiness inside.  Not just inside the culture, but inside US.  I think if we just took a week to live like this we would never go back.  We could just see life for what it really is and abandon our need to bend it to our will.  We could just stop feeling so bad about ourselves.  We could just be okay.