A lot has happened in the past two sessions that it is a little hard to keep up, but I will try to get to the gist of them.
Session 3:
I was supposed to write 25 things that I am proud of about myself and I got to about 14 on my own. My focus was on things that I had done, but not really anything about who I am. In the session I finished the list looking at qualities of myself. This was good to see because while I think of myself as fairly confident, I realized that my confidence is found in my actions/results not in my person which explains why I feel down about the delay in my PhD work or lack of joy in my daily work.
We also discussed an issue I have been having about a friend. I love her to pieces, but she is ALWAYS late to meet me and even when we do get together after a very short time allotted for me to say what is going on with me, the rest of our time is usually spent on her. By the time I leave I am generally exhausted and wonder what benefit that was to me…. Sometimes I think that I should have a long talk with her, but then I don’t. So, Karen wondered what role is being fulfilled by this friendship and strangely it went back to my brother.
I love my brother to pieces too, but we do not keep in touch as we should and unless I am at home we really do not talk to each other. Despite my attempts to get him to come visit or sending texts now and then, I feel as if our relationship could be better but isn’t because I do not say anything to change it. In fact, I hold on to a lot of guilt about him from when we were younger, but the real truth is that it had little to nothing to do with me.
So, we ended with me being more aware of these issues.
Session 4:
Session 4 was a little bit different due to the “Face Plant” incident and matters that came out of that. As my previous post discussed, I really had a reboot on my thoughts and had written to Karen saying that I needed to stop our sessions to save money and get myself out of debt. She immediately tried to sort out what the source and problem was since it was such a quick change.
So, we talked in great length about the issues that came out from the “Face Plant” incident. My fight with R seemed to have triggered my great fear of losing friends, him not supporting me thus leading to being abandoned and rejected. Without my friends or him, I feel alone.
Karen pointed out how our money situation is often connected to our self-worth. If we let money determine our actions then we will never really be happy. This is true for me in that I overspend to try to console myself into a happy state. However, because I have so much debt, I have put my self-worth in a negative spiral. On the other hand, people who focus too much on having money put their self-worth into the amount that is in their bank account losing focus on their own being.
Furthermore, my current issue about debt is that I feel trapped. Karen pointed out that indeed I am not trapped, but it is merely a perspective that is not true. I can leave. I can go to jail. I can never return to the UAE. I can do a number of things to accept my financial situation, but it does not mean that I am trapped. I am only trapped in my mind and it is controlling my behavior. So, taking responsibility is one step to releasing my sense of trapped as long as I know it is a choice.
I really felt much better after this session with my outlook. The current plan is to finish out four more sessions since it will cost nearly the same if I do the full month or stop now. Then, I can reassess where I am at. Hopefully, I can find a way to continue, but if not I will take a six month break until my money is sorted, then return. So, we’ll see how it goes.
-T π
