Dear Jane,

I’m not seeing you for another few weeks so I figured this was as good a place as any to let things out… In the meantime, my wife and I are going to couple’s counseling which has been a really incredible experience. Although, extremely difficult, too. I guess it ties back to some of my other entries. I’m learning that I’m not coming into situations clear of past wounds(wording?). In other words, the strategy is called Emotionally Focused Therapy or EFT and the therapist leads us through our conflict. First, he asks what seems to be bothering us throughout the week and then we isolate and anaylze that incident to see where escalation points occur. At each escalation point, he stops us, keeps a very slow pace, asking what we’re feeling and what is coming to our minds. The two of us go back and forth how we’re feeling and what’s coming to mind. At any point if he sees us go off track, he reins the conversation back in and let’s each person feel what they’re feeling.

Throughout our conflict, a lot of personal feelings came up, unrelated to the conflict but extremely escalating like my dad being deployed after 9/11 and the anger I felt. I tried to explain, these feelings feel counter-productive to working through the conflict, but I was encouraged and enabled to tell my story and what I was feeling.

I sobbed for a minute or so… shaking in anger at moments.

I don’t have to be tired anymore. I can just be whatever I want to be. I can be whatever I want to be.

And I want to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, I suppose. No need to be extra.

In fact, from what I’ve been reading, you just have to believe you are already what you want to be and it will come true becuase it’s the only thing you keep imagining. So, like, stay focused on your dreams and thinking about how to achieve those dreams and they will come true. In practice, I think that means like, get really well-defined ideas of what you want and keep making decisions toward the ideal self.

What is the ideal self…