Chapter 4

She closed the journal and folded her hands neatly on top of it. The silence was deafening. Her breathing slowed with each passing second. Her head hung downward. She couldn’t look up. She just couldn’t. It was one thing to write those words. It was another thing to read them aloud. Her voice had been steady when she started but her throat quickly tightened; choking the words in an effort to stop them from coming out. A few times she had to stop because she had forgotten to breathe. A couple of times she had to stop because the words were just too difficult to say and hear. She hadn’t cried. As hard as that was, she did retain some dignity.

“You can look up, you know.”

Her head didn’t move as she sank back farther into the chair. She felt a chill and pulled her hoodie around her. The chair’s leather arms strained to hug her; providing some comfort and assurance.

“Please look up. It’s okay.”

She was afraid to look him in the eyes and see the judgement. She slowly raised her head and met his gaze. The soft blueness of his eyes showed compassion. She quickly broke eye contact. Unsure where to look next, her gaze slid towards the window.

“There’s no judgement here. That was a very powerful piece you wrote. It provided me with a lot of insight.”

The leaves were a tapestry of fall colours – vibrant yellows, reds and oranges. The colours were a stark contrast to the cold grey morning sky. She could see a few leaves were turning brown; signalling the beginning of the end of fall and the coming of winter. How she hated winter.

“Sarah?”

“Sorry. I was noticing that some of the leaves were starting to turn brown. It reminded me that winter is coming.”

“Yes. It’s kind of a given. The seasons come and go. We just have to enjoy them and what they bring.”

“Except winter.”

“Well. Winter does have its charms too. The air is crisp. A fresh blanket of snow can make even the most ugliest places seem pretty. Even if only for a short while.”

“Right. Sure. Somehow I’m guessing you’re a skier and you love driving up to the mountains.”

“No. Not a skier and I hate winter driving. But I can still find the beauty in what is around me.”

Good god. Who could find beauty in piles of cold snow? Answer, a male Pollyanna. She rolled her eyes as she imagined him swooshing down a mountain of fresh powder – long, lazy slaloms as he descended the mountain.

“You do that a lot.”

His voice interrupted her daydream. Sarah’s mind turned back to the discussion at hand. “Huh?”

“I said that you do that a lot.”

Sarah stared at him blankly.

“You roll your eyes a lot.”

She knew she did it a lot. It was a reflex action. She didn’t have a poker face. Her Ex claimed that he just had to look at her face to know what was really going on behind her deep brown eyes. Sometimes it would get her into trouble; especially at work. She worked hard at trying to keep a relaxed, placid face. However, she was never successful.  She did not have a ‘resting bitch face’.

“So. Like I said, you’ve written a very powerful piece. How did you feel afterwards?”

“It was hard to get started. I really struggled. Seeing them….. reading them out loud just made my reality that much more depressing. But, at the same time, I also felt a little…….uh…..” Sarah paused. She was struggling for the right words.

“Just say whatever word comes into your head. Don’t worry about wordsmithing your feelings.”

“It was calm or, maybe, relief. Maybe both? Once the words were written down, they were out of my head.”

“Well, it is a release to get something out that has been bottled up inside of you. Why did you refer to them as secret shames?”

“Because they are. These are feelings that I’ve never shared with anybody and I am ashamed of how I let things get to this point in my life. I have nobody to blame but myself.”

“This isn’t about assigning blame. It’s about seeing things for how they are and then doing something about them. You have nothing to be ashamed of. People are living through much worse every day and they survive.”

She rolled her eyes again. Great. More Pollyanna-isms. She wasn’t expecting any sympathy but she really didn’t need somebody telling her that life wasn’t so bad and there were people worse off than her. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. She stared at him; unblinking.

“Look. We need to be straight with each other if this is going to work. Your life is not that bad. You have a job and you have a roof over your head. I know you aren’t happy. But I just want you to realize that your life is precious and it is worth living. Okay?”

She could feel herself turning red with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. She regretted writing that part and now she really regretted reading it aloud. Thoughts weren’t actions. They were only thoughts. She opened her mouth and was about to say that. She stopped herself and then nodded.

He gestured towards his phone.

“Yes. Okay.”, her voice was flat.

“That didn’t sound too convincing. As we go through this process, I want you to remember that, if for some reason, you ever feel that your life is not worth living, you will call me.”

Sarah pleaded, “Please, forget about that. Just let it go. They were just words to show how I was feeling.”

“But I can’t. I don’t think they were just words. What kind of doctor would I be if I let it go just because you say so?”

Dr. Bancroft put air quotes around the word ‘just’ for emphasis.

“Can you please agree that you will call me if you start thinking that way again?”

She nodded.

He gestured towards his phone again.

“Okaaaaay. Yes. I will call you. Can we let this go now?”

“Yes, I can. Can you? Can you let go of the past and embrace today?”

Sarah didn’t respond. At first, she thought it was a rhetorical question. Then she realized it wasn’t and Dr. Bancroft was waiting for an answer. She didn’t know what to say. Sarah shrugged.

Dr. Bancroft looked down at his notepad and took a deep breath. Curious, Sarah tried to read what he had written. She was pretty good at reading upside down. Unfortunately, he was a little too far away and the notepad was tilted up slightly away from her. Probably a technique they taught in med school. He looked up and caught Sarah straining to read what he had written. She blushed and quickly turned her gaze towards the fall leaves.

Time passed. She sat there, expecting him to say, “drum roll please” and then reveal what they’d be working on first.

“So what would you like to work on?”

She snorted in disbelief. “Huh? I thought you were going to tell me.”

“No. I said I have an idea. But I also want to hear your thoughts.”

She paused. She was about to blurt out “Everything!” But how do you fix everything and avoid your deepest hurts in the process? She opened her mouth to ask and then shut it.

He could see the struggle in her eyes; fleeting glimpses of pain.

“Let me give you some advice. Any decision you make is the right decision because you made it for yourself. So, now that I’ve said that, pick your poison – so to speak.”

She stared at him; frozen. The pressure of making a life-altering decision descended upon her. No words would come.

“Okay. Would it be easier for you to identify a topic if I told you that we will agree that if it turns out that the topic isn’t working for you or we find something else deeper to dive into, then we’ll change it? Does that help?”

She exhaled and nodded.

He tilted his head slightly towards the phone.

“Okay. That sounds like a plan I can live with.”

Sarah paused – not for dramatic effect but because she didn’t know what she wanted. She cleared her throat and leaned forward. Her voice was barely audible.

“I want to be happy. I’m tired of being unhappy. I’m tired of wallowing in misery. I always put everybody else’s needs ahead of mine; regardless of how it impacts me. In the end, I end up being unhappy because the choices aren’t made for me. I’d like to work on deciding what is best for me and doing it.”

“Okay. So what do you think it will take to make you happy?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t be here if I knew that, would I? I just know that I live in sadness. All I see is darkness. I want to have light in my life.”

“Fair enough. It’s just that being happy is very general and it’s subjective.” He used his fingers to put air quotes around the word happy.

Sarah snorted when he used the air quotes.

Dr. Bancroft ignored her and pressed on.

“Only you can define what happiness means to you. Only you can decide when you’re happy. Nobody else can be the gauge for that. It’s normal to think that all other things will fall nicely in to place when one bad thing is fixed.”

“But?”

“There’s no but. You can have happiness. It’s up to you to choose it. All of these life events are of your choosing. Just know that there’s no quick solution.”

Sarah looked at him. Maybe happiness would mean that she would be able to get up every day and actually look forward to the day. Maybe happiness would mean that her life hadn’t gone to shit. She felt the tears begin to well up. She turned her head away so that he couldn’t see the effect his words were having on her. She wondered why happiness had eluded her. It was such a basic thing. She wondered why he was making it seem like it was such a big request. She reached for her bag and started rummaging through it in search of some tissue. She caught some movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Here.” Dr. Bancroft was holding a box of tissues. She quickly reached out and grabbed two. Sarah wiped her nose. Her voice was muffled by the tissue.

“So all of this is my fault?”

“Yes and no. You made the choices that you did for whatever reason. But it’s not about blame. So let’s stop thinking in terms of blame. What we are going to do is recognize the path that you’ve taken, be objective about your decisions, and then learn to not go down the same path again.”

Sarah didn’t know what to think or feel. She sat there, numb, used tissues wadded up in her hand.

“I see.” That was all she could muster to say.

He looked down at his notepad. She could see he had circled words on the page. One word had many circles around it. She hoped it wasn’t the word ‘crazy’ or ‘hopeless’.

“Shall we continue?”

He didn’t wait for her response.

“Here’s what I think we should work on.”

Sarah reached into her bag for a pen and then flipped to an empty page of her journal; preparing to write down what he was going to say.

“It’s okay. Just listen. I will email everything to you afterwards.”

Dr. Bancroft held up his index finger.

“Number One. You need to trust your instincts and say ‘no’.”

Sarah nodded. Okay. Trust instincts that have gotten me to this point in my life.

Dr. Bancroft held up his middle finger.

“Two. You need to be able to have the difficult conversations. It’s not easy but the words need to be said. You can’t keep things inside you. It’s not healthy. It doesn’t benefit you.”

Sarah stopped nodding. In her mind, difficult conversations were synonymous with conflict. She wasn’t good with conflict. Her whole life was about avoiding conflict.

Dr. Bancroft continued, “And three. You need to recognize how far you’ve come. Celebrate your successes.”

Sarah stared at his hand with three fingers raised. He looked like a boy scout; ready to recite his pledge. She let him continue.

“To start, I want you to look back at some of the decisions you’ve made that you know weren’t in your best interests. I don’t want a laundry list – just a few. Look at some of the big decisions you’ve made in your life and the outcomes. Don’t be hard on yourself. Be objective. What was the issue? What did you decide? How did you arrive at the decision? What was the outcome?”

Sarah nodded, “Okay. I think I can do that. It shouldn’t take me too long.”

“I’d like you to practise self observation. I want you to be yourself, as you are now. I don’t want you to change what you’re doing. I know we’re looking at things through a different lens. I want you to use all of your senses to explore how you feel physically, mentally and emotionally. I want you to write every day in your journal.

I want you to pay attention to how you are feeling when you are making a decision. I don’t want to hear about the small decisions – like how you decided between eggs or toast for breakfast. I know that right now, every decision seems like a big one. That’s because you’re stressed and depressed.”

Sarah opened her mouth to protest. Dr. Bancroft held up his hand.

“I want you to focus on what you would consider bigger decisions. I also want you to pay attention to the clues from your body; especially when you feel the tension rise in your shoulders. I want you to take 10 minutes at the end of each day and answer some questions in your journal. I’ll send them to you.

At the end of the week I want you to set aside 20 minutes, read through your journal and sit with what you discovered during the week. This will be a time for you to see if any patterns emerged. Then I want you to write about your observations. When you’ve finished writing those, I want you to sit quietly, breathe, and remember what you have accomplished this week. Then…..

Sarah interrupted, “There’s more?”

“Yes. Then I want you to recognize yourself for what you bring. I want you to look at positives.”

Sarah sat there, taking in everything that Dr. Bancroft was saying. Could it be that simple? It’s never that simple.

“The other exercise I want you to do is to practice breathing and standing in your space.”

“Okay. Breathing and standing. Got it.”

He raised his eyebrow but this time his lips didn’t turn up slightly. He continued.

“This is what I want you to do as you prepare to start your day, before a meeting, or if you see things going the old way and you feel a need to shift momentum. I want you to reflect briefly on how you trust your instincts; stand-up shoulders gently back, then breathe into your belly and take a deliberate step forward planting your feet firmly on the ground, shoulder width apart and rest your hands on your hips.  I want you to say aloud “I am strong, I am centered, I am connected” and breathe into your belly again.”

“I put my hands on my hips like Wonder Woman, breathe and say that?”

He chuckled.

“Sure, if that image works for you. But make sure your face doesn’t look like you’re preparing to go into battle.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yes. That’s it for now. I will email everything to you. I’d like to see you in three weeks. Same time.”

He flipped the pages of his notepad and gracefully scooped up his phone as he stood up. He extended his hand.

Sarah reached out and shook it.

“Three weeks?”

“Yes. That should give you some time to work on the exercises.”

He pivoted on his heel and walked away.

Sarah sat in the chair and watched him walk away. She turned to stare out the window. She watched as the wind tugged the leaves off of the branches and scattered them all over the yard below creating a carpet of randomly placed leaves. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there. Her phone vibrated. A quick glance showed it was the email from Dr. Bancroft with the subject line ‘Practice 1″. He was quick. She wondered if he already had that written up and ready to send. Was it really that simple. Just put your hands on your hips and be who you want to be and everything will be fine. She put the phone and her journal back in her bag, stood up and headed towards the elevator. As she pushed the elevator call button, she thought to herself, “I guess we’ll find out.”