It’s Not That You’re Lonely Per Se….
…It’s More that No One Really Knows You, Not Really
You wear the mask of “you” so beautifully: no one ever thinks to question what’s underneath. People like what you do for them, not for who you are at your core. And to be frank, you don’t even really know who you are at your core, so how the hell would they?
So much comes easily to you—reading a room with unnerving accuracy, negotiating with toddlers and mercurial bosses alike to get what you want (by convincing them that it’s what they want), the list could go on and on. There’s never been a system you couldn’t hack, a stranger you couldn’t charm, or a puzzle you couldn’t solve.
Well, that’s not quite true.
The one puzzle you’ve never been able to crack is yourself. And why despite winning all the games life has thrown your way, you still feel so profoundly alone.
It’s like you are a magic trick performed by a master illusionist. You haven’t discovered the secret of it and aren’t sure you ever will. So instead you forge on ahead, a convincing knockoff of yourself.
Instead of ruminating on the endless labyrinth of self, you dive into things that have always come easy.
You love to work. Being industrious has always soothed you. Except, lately work has lost its savor. The meetings, the people, the projects bore you. You play with what responsibilities you could add, or consider making a jump to somewhere new, casually scrolling LinkedIn to see what might appeal.
Nothing.
It all sounds as boring as the here and now. Your industriousness fails to distract from these ghosts of discontent. But what else can you do? Maybe the part of the work/life balance out of kilter is the ‘life’ and changing work would do little to alleviate this ache for something more and less than what you have now.
Relationships have always been tricky. Tricks that you’ve mastered, but tricks nonetheless. You adore the people you’ve chosen to have in your life. And while you can charm many, you only deeply (and recklessly) love a few. You’d literally do anything for them--though you’d appreciate very much that I not state that too loudly.
What you feel for them is guarded as closely as any state secret, and yet if anyone really looked under your armor, they would see the hundreds of paper-cut sacrifices you make for their happiness.
Very few see you.
In fact, if pressed, you’re not sure you could name anyone who has seen you--tear-ravaged, heart-broken, uncertain, insecure, lonely, or worse of all, the kind of vulnerable that lies underneath all emotion and thought.
No one really sees you, not even you. You used to think that you preferred it that way.
You tell yourself you don’t want them to feel the guilt for all the immense work you do to just be with them, to be who you want to be when you’re with them. And if resentment sometimes creeps on the edges of your heart, you are well practiced in shoving it ruthlessly away.
Underneath your love, the truth is more complicated. It always is.
And so you find yourself circling back around again, to the call to understand yourself, and even more wildly absurd, to love yourself.
You’ve Decided the Problem is You’re Never Satisfied
Surely your hunger for more, especially more success is the problem. Everything has always been a competition. If not against others, then against yourself. You’re baffled by those who settle for ‘good enough’, when has good ever really been enough?
But that’s the problem. Enough needs to be enough. Never mind that your ambition and anxiety get mixed up and you’re not sure if you’re running to something or from something. Regret, nips at your heels, scenting the desperation you work so hard to mask.
Whenever you break down and try one of the self-help books, looking for advice on how to beat the system of self, you drown in the endless rhapsodizing to just “love yourself” and “practice self-compassion.” Perhaps if they offered more actionable steps of how to actually achieve such a thing and less preaching on why it was important, you might actually purchase the book instead of just downloading the Kindle preview.
Besides, how can you even love yourself when you know at your core you don’t really understand yourself? You are a damn sight trickier to read than anyone else of your acquaintance.
Therapy Has Often Been Proposed as the Solution
That’s always seemed a little good to be true to you. You’ve done the research, and it seems like everyone is promising a variety of solutions. But here’s the thing: you don’t need a solution, you need an answer to this perplexing question you don’t even know how to ask
What Therapy Is:
When it comes down to it, therapy is a hard sell. Particularly to people like you, who only feel comfortable being ten steps ahead of everyone else. Therapy is slow, and you’re used to going fast.
I respect your ambition, but my honesty compels me to tell you that it is a complete liability in this journey into self. You will be confounded, frustrated, and overwhelmed. And if you stick with it--if you’re willing to venture into the unknown territory of the heart, you will discover something utterly shocking: you are so, so lovable underneath all your hard-earned likeability.
What Therapy Isn’t:
Therapy isn’t just for those who wear their vulnerabilities for all to see. It’s especially for those who dress sharp, keeping their fears and sorrow undercover.
Therapy isn’t easy. There are very few rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something after all. Something completely and totally brazen: to hypothesize and synthesize what happens to your heart.
Therapy isn’t cheap. It’ll cost you blood and sweat (figuratively speaking, my CPR and first aid training is out of date), the unveiling of things you’d prefer were kept hidden, and every ounce of your courage.
Therapy is a gift that demands you surrender not to it, but to what breaks your heart.
“It’s difficult boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do it; folly, do you see? You have to risk everything.”
–Zorba the Greek
So how does it even begin? And how does therapy go? Are there chaises to recline on like Victorian damsels in distress? Will we endlessly circle how your parents (particularly your mother) fucked you up? And most importantly, will I make you cry? (I hope so, but probably not for a while).
Hesitant Curiosity
Searching for Profound Solutions to Decoy Problems
Therapy begins like almost everything in our life: as relationship. We don’t know each other. You don’t know yet if you can trust me, if I will have the answers that you’re desperately searching for.
But you’ve come, committed to figuring this shit out, come hell or high water. You’re not overly hopeful about the process, but willing to give it a shot. I’m intrigued, curious about what makes you tick.
So, we sit together.
You’re intent on not charming me. I’m intent on peeling back the layers you wear with such ease. We begin by shifting through your decoy problems. You’re searching for a safe haven to test my trustworthiness, while I search for the secrets of your heart hiding in plain sight.
Leaning In…
…to Being Vulnerable AF
You’re pissed when you realize that I will just let the silence hang.
It forces you to answer when you don’t have an answer at the ready. You’re irritated with yourself as much as me. Why am I not charmed by you? (you begrudgingly remind yourself, that that’s the point and what you’re paying me for, but still!) And what the hell am I doing with all these questions and introducing all these metaphors?
I’m happy to answer (if you’re brave enough to ask): I’m examining the reverence with which you guard your heart, and all the reasons why. I’m mapping out the boundaries of your inner landscape, paying attention to fragments in your stories, and searching for the tidbits you most want to hide.
Surprisingly, you’ll find yourself intrigued by all these questions you had never thought to ask. Looking at your history askance, wondering what other secrets may be lurking underneath the mask you have grown so comfortable in.
This relationship feels profoundly weird. It’s uncomfortable, like an itch you can’t locate to scratch. But you think, just maybe that you might actually like therapy. There’s so many exciting correlations you never thought of before. Maybe this is actually going to be useful.
The Heartbreak
The Part You Fear & Long for in Equal Measure
When we finally arrive at your heart, you’re dazed by the secrets you forgot you had been keeping. The revelation of each is so bright and unexpected, that you don’t notice at first how the knowledge burns. Then, the old, familiar temptation to bury the pain deep comes.
You seriously consider leaving therapy. Why the hell are you doing this? You have a damn good life, everyone says so. The problem is that you’re not grateful for what you have. This journey into the heart is privileged nonsense. You should just get back to the daily grind, work harder, love more, and you’ll be happier.
But simultaneously, a new impulse arises: what if you stayed? Stayed with the swirling emotions, stayed to see what else might be revealed when your heart finally breaks open to reveal what it has been holding for so long. What if you finally allowed yourself to feel the heartbreak, and not just lock it away?
If you can tolerate it, “shit,” as the kids say, “is about to get real.”
Discovering Healing
By Staying with the Pain
All this time, you thought that the heartbreak would be the hardest part. Your nightmares had detailed it in cinematic detail. You imagined everyone you loved leaving, all your success turning out to be a total sham, and realizing in the end that everything was completely and totally meaningless. But heartbreak, well, it’s not so bad. It’s all retrospective. Things happened, some you remember, some you can only piece together based on the way things are now.
But no one ever told you how healing hurts so goddamn much. It never even occurred to you. You never imagined you could feel this much pain, or, bizarrely, this much joy. Your heartbreak has become a living, breathing thing, you find yourself tempted to name it, just to bring some order to the immense energy it commands.
You have never felt this alive.
You’ve never felt more like dying.
You keep trying to make it make sense, but it doesn’t. Everything you do, only seems to make it worse, so you sit still with your fragility and the frustrating limits of being human.
Reflective Action
The Beauty of Incompetency
It is infuriating, this being vs. doing. You know how to do so many, many things, except this--this being present with yourself (a completely ridiculous notion, you tell yourself in your more agitated moments).
Your entire being aches to do something, anything, though you’re not even sure what exactly you want to do, never mind what you need to do. You wish I would give you a to-do list, or at the very least a road map for all of this. I steadfastly refuse (though I do tell you it’s because there isn’t any road map for awakening to yourself, despite religion and philosophy’s many claims).
You hate the incompetence, but you remind yourself that you’re trying something new. You’re trying to see underneath all your beautifully wrought artifice. You keep trying until you forget to try, and at some point, through no effort of your own, something new and entirely unexpected emerges.
Emerging Changed
An Ending You Never Could Have Anticipated
You may believe in magic now. Which is totally and utterly ridiculous.
There’s no other word for what this change feels like. It’s completely and totally life altering, in the most ordinary way. None of this is drastic, but you can taste the difference.
There’s complexity in everything, and you the champion of translating the intricate into the understandable are at a loss to explain this change. Metaphors come short.
All you know is that your heart feels wide open, in a way that feels profoundly safe. And that your mind has never been as sharp as it is now.
“What the hell does all this mean?” you finally ask me, ready to surrender the final vestige of pretending that you know what is happening, embracing confusion and delight simultaneously.
I’ll shrug, and remark offhandedly, “it sounds like you’re learning to love yourself.”
I like to imagine you’ll laugh. Or maybe cry. Or perhaps both. Whichever way, it won’t surprise me when you declare that you want more--to delve deeper, to follow the intrigue, to embrace the exploration of your heart’s Byzantine mystery.
It’s been my experience, that the ending is often only the beginning in this wild adventure of knowing yourself.
Before
- Everyone who’s anyone would say without hesitation: you have your shit together. But the core feels rotten. You know despite all your external success, you are deeply unhappy. The real question, that you turn over and over again, most frequently at 3 AM, listening to your partner’s soft snores, is: “why am I so unhappy?
- You fake interest in things that once brought you joy. On the bright side, you’re saving a lot of money on old hobbies.
- Criticism is the only thing you trust. Any positive feedback is deeply suspect, and your assumption is that it’s only offered as a way to get more from you than you’d ever willingly offer.
- You would never admit this to anyone, but you saw a Mr. Rogers clip on Facebook the other day, and you legitimately teared up. This is an issue, because you are most definitely not a crier--well, sometimes you can be--but lately you can’t even seem to drum up a single sniffle for the shit that matters. Your emotions are all out of whack. If you could feel into it you’d probably be pissed, but mostly you’re just resigned.
- It’s not that you don’t feel love, you feel deeply (in ways you can’t even begin to articulate.) But you hold yourself at a distance, uncertain whether you want to risk sabotaging your carefully crafted persona by letting others into your heart.
- Look, who doesn’t love Scotch neat or some artisanally grown bud? But lately, one drink or joint has multiplied, in ways you can’t keep track of. Shame fills you in how you’re using substances to soothe. A good night’s sleep is a distant memory and you find yourself hiding in away, hoping no one is paying too close attention.
After
- You’ve discovered the secrets of your heart (though not nearly all the answers). You feel, for maybe the first time in your life, wholeheartedly happy. It’s weird, but good, in ways you still struggle to articulate.
- You don’t fake feelings anymore, rather, you have developed your palette and are able to articulate what you feel to others when you feel it (for the most part, the more you discover, the more you recognize you don’t yet know).
- You positively glow with positive feedback. But what’s more, you push back when others hurt you. You tell people not only what you think, but what you feel. You tear up for kittens and pandemics alike, you don’t need to numb out anymore. You feel your feelings, which is as magical and as hard as it seems.
- You’ve discovered ways to take all the goddamn pressure off, discovering not only how much easier it is to enjoy yourself and your life when you do so, but also how much more productive you are when you do.
- You don’t hide anymore. Not thoughts, not your feelings, and most certainly not yourself. Your heart has learned how to be open--at least to those you trust and to yourself. And that as small as it seems, has made all the difference.
- Life feels more. Sharper, brighter, more cohesive. It’s not something that can be conveyed easily. It’s as if you are a puzzle piece, that finally found its place. All this seems something like belonging, not just fitting in.
There’s a story I’m telling myself about you. Subconsciously, as you’ve scrolled down this page, you’ve begun to list all the reasons I won’t be able to help you.
Maybe therapists before haven’t seen through your maneuvers (though you generally like to blame yourself for being too much or too little of something or another). Or maybe you think that if you’d just recommit to that self-care regimen that you briefly considered implementing you wouldn’t need to let someone else into all the secret places that you pretend don’t exist. And ideally, this might all just be something you’re totally overthinking and if you could just trick yourself into chilling the fuck out, then you can just continue to solely rely on yourself.
Those are some good excuses.
You can check my bonafides (tl;dr I will see through your bullshit); continue to do the same ol’, same ol’ that hasn’t worked and hope for a different outcome (aka, the definition of idiocy), or you can stop overthinking all of this and cautiously consider that there is someone who will see that you feel as deeply as you think and can help find words to describe the wild unknown inside of you.
And maybe, if you’re willing to take the biggest risk yet of actually opening up the unfiltered you to another person, you might discover that there are people who can keep up with your brain, so you can finally, finally risk giving someone unrestricted access to not just your heart, but your soul.
There’s a story I’m telling myself about you. Subconsciously, as you’ve scrolled down this page, you’ve begun to list all the reasons I won’t be able to help you.
Maybe therapists before haven’t seen through your maneuvers (though you generally like to blame yourself for being too much or too little of something or another). Or maybe you think that if you’d just recommit to that self-care regimen that you briefly considered implementing you wouldn’t need to let someone else into all the secret places that you pretend don’t exist. And ideally, this might all just be something you’re totally overthinking and if you could just trick yourself into chilling the fuck out, then you can just continue to solely rely on yourself.
Those are some good excuses.
You can check my bonafides (tl;dr I will see through your bullshit); continue to do the same ol’, same ol’ that hasn’t worked and hope for a different outcome (aka, the definition of idiocy), or you can stop overthinking all of this and cautiously consider that there is someone who will see that you feel as deeply as you think and can help find words to describe the wild unknown inside of you.
And maybe, if you’re willing to take the biggest risk yet of actually opening up the unfiltered you to another person, you might discover that there are people who can keep up with your brain, so you can finally, finally risk giving someone unrestricted access to not just your heart, but your soul.
Who is Ready
Look, Therapy for Thinkers is for you if you’ve been creating systems of meaning for years, successfully hacked pretty much any system you’ve met, and if--when you’re not making yourself be humble, you can admit that--you’ve been able to unerringly choose the path of success, but despite all that, you still don’t know how to be happy. Your intuition tugs you to the path of feeling, while your mind warns you of the dangers of getting in touch with what’s inside.
You are ready to live a life where you are finally open to everything- pain, pleasure, and the mix in between that we call happiness. You are ready for therapy if you are willing to confront the painful questions and commit not only your time, but your heart, to discovering what lives deep in your soul.
Who Isn’t Ready
Therapy for Thinkers isn’t for everyone. And no shade, there are many legitimate reasons for abstaining. It might not be for you if you aren’t willing or able to prioritize delving deep into what’s going on internally and discover ways to heal from it. It might not be for you if you are committed to figuring everything out on your own, and can’t get over the fear of letting someone else journey with you.
But most importantly, Therapy for Thinkers isn’t the best option for you if you aren’t willing, and yearning, to make some real changes, try new approaches, and get curious (instead of critical) about what is happening in your brain and in your heart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Now that you have all the logistical shit down, let’s start talking about how I can help you create a life you not only adore living, but a life filled with people who love the real, unvarnished you.
Seriously, dude what are you waiting for?
Step One:
Schedule a consult
Stop agonizing over all this shit, and book your free 20 minutes phone consult. As you do, you just might feel the thrill of knowing that this isn’t just setting up a phone call, but rather a symbol to yourself that you’re ready to seriously get to know yourself.
Step Two:
Fill out your questionnaire
Obviously, I am a lover of questions, and that starts here. Prior to our call, I ask you to fill out a ‘getting started questionnaire’ which helps us best utilize our relatively brief consult call. No need to prep, it’s just a few questions that helps us both focus on the core of what’s going on.
Step THREE:
Talk to Jenn
I’ll call you and we’ll explore if we would be a good fit to work together. If we are, we’ll get your initial in-person session on the books. If we aren’t, I will suggest a few referrals that I trust deeply and root for you in your journey to discover the heart of yourself.