What does being Inspirational really mean?

I’m writing this as I go through a mini health crisis. More of a scare, really, though it did involve the need for surgery. This is happening during my most recent 300 hour yoga teacher training and I’m trying to stay abreast of it all, while having to sit (or lie!) on my butt. I’m trying to be on all of our required Zoom calls and participate as best as I can while the training is going on, in real time. It’s been so good for me to be there, in that community, and imagining myself doing yoga again before too long. I’m so lucky - my situation is being fully resolved by surgery. I know it could have been much, much worse.

Messages have been flowing in through my phone. “You’re so inspiring!” is a frequent one and one that has, honestly, thrown me off a little. It’s causing me to think a lot about what it means to actually inspire others and how different that looks than my younger self ever understood. I thought being inspiring meant that you stood up tall, having achieved a certain status, achievement or level of accomplishment, and could help others map out their ability to do the same.

It’s been so interesting to see that people are often sending me these messages when I am actually at my most vulnerable and the idea of being inspiring is certainly the furthest thing from my mind. What’s more in mind is something along the lines of, “I hope I don’t look or sound like a complete fool right now!” It’s causing me to think about what is inspiring and what inspiration even means.

“Inspire” has two definitions according to Oxford - “to fill someone with the urge or ability to feel or do something, especially something creative” and “to breathe in air; inhale”. It’s interesting that to “fill someone with the urge to feel/do something” and the act of inhalation are definitionally linked. I’m starting to understand that when we show up in our vulnerable, genuine selves, that does seem to allow other people to ‘inhale’ or get filled up with the experience of taking in another real person. Maybe seeing another as genuine and true to self creates an urge in ourselves to show up in genuine and truthful (and creative!) ways.

What’s cool about this idea, to me, is that being inspirational to or inspired by someone else takes nothing more than showing up and being willing to be seen. And that being inspirational or inspired by allows us to connect to our creativity and connection to others in a way that allows for continued growth and evolution. It takes real bravery to show up in vulnerability, for sure, but what a huge payoff for all involved. Maybe my younger self had it right all along - being inspiring is about standing up tall, having accomplished something. But what has been accomplished is having developed the ability to try to be yourself in a society that often does not want us to be ourselves. And that this is especially hard but also especially needed when being yourself might be risky or vulnerable. How interesting that being genuinely yourself is truly the most inspiring thing of all.

Thoughts on yoga and clarity

I’ve been spending the last 6 months working on another yoga teacher training. I went into it planning to solidify my skills enough to provide more yoga to clients through one-on-one sessions and workshops. That’s been evolving, for sure, but what has been more profound is the calmness and clarity that has arisen from the practice. There’s a new understanding of what it means to be with myself and other people. I have so much more impatience around distractions and superficiality and so much more joy over genuine moments of really seeing and being with the people and the world around me. I have so much more joy in really seeing and being with myself.

I’ve been so interested in trying to understand what about yoga, of all things, could be part of this alchemy. Why would moving my breath and my body through these structured poses and practices be causing such a profound shift? I think I’m beginning to realize it’s because yoga, as I’m sure is the same for many other practices, is all about understanding yourself much much better. You notice how you breath, how you feel, and what happens to your emotions when and after you practice. You tune in to how subtle changes in movement and breath and relating to others in the room, leave you feeling that day and in subsequent days. And you definitely notice more about the stories you carry and the influence those stories have on your patterns in moving throughout the world. Through the practice, I’ve found a greater tenderness with myself and a much greater awareness of how what I’m accomplishing doesn’t matter at all. One day, I’m able to accomplish so much and the next day, maybe nothing. How curious that hasn’t ended up being the point. Instead, what has mattered above all else is the ability to be a better companion to myself and all the important people in my life, including my dear clients.

Reflections on "The Patient" on Hulu, created by Joel Weisberg and Joel Fields

*Major Series Spoilers!*

I’ve just finished watching the new Hulu series, “The Patient”, staring Steve Carell and Domhnall Gleeson, and like so many others, am feeling gutted by the ending and the ultimate failure of the therapist, Alan (Steve Carell), to find a way to save his own life. It was heartbreaking to be given a moment of release in the form of Alan’s reunion with family at his son’s shabbat dinner, only to be thrust back into the violence of Alan’s death. The show’s ending was the natural conclusion of an impossible situation. The writers were certainly skilled enough to give their audience a great deal to think about with regard to the narrative, including many aspects of character and action to ponder. I will be turning the events of the series over in my mind for some time to come. However, the focus of this post is on the experience of being ‘ therapist’ and the show’s creators’ masterful depiction of certain aspects of what it means to be a therapist.

Unfortunately, Alan was doomed from the moment he received the call on his answering machine from a new patient (Sam, posing as Gene) reaching out for help. In fact, Alan may have been doomed far earlier than that, at the point in which he entered his profession with a strong conviction that therapy can help people change and become the people they truly wish to be. There’s a very interesting interaction in episode 1, during which Sam (then Gene) shares Alan’s frustration that their experience together may be superficial, glancing off the surface of engagement rather than creating depth of connection. Alan points out that he feels Sam (Gene) is not opening up enough. Sam replies with obvious emotional pain, “I’m trying, I’m re[ally].., I’m trying”. Alan responds, as so many therapists would in a similar situation, with genuine empathy over Sam’s struggle. With all sincerity and conviction Alan replies, “In my experience, anyone who has come this far, who has made the choice to come to therapy, and keep hammering at the hard things, they can be helped.” This statement sealed Alan’s fate. It created hope in Sam, a hope that in spite of his devastating secret and his awareness that there was something terribly, terribly wrong with him, he could change. Alan’s belief in the power of change, along with his skill as a therapist, set a series of events in motion that would ultimately lead to his death.

This moment lead me to consider the dangerous (painful!) work of therapy that we, as therapists and clients, enter into hour by hour in the confines of the private space that is the therapy session. “The Patient” concretizes this experience in an explicit, very action-oriented manner, but the truth is that clients seeking fundamental change are always entering the fraught territory of the psyche and bringing us along with them. Hopeful, as we’re hopeful, but engaging in a process with an uncertain conclusion that necessarily requires accessing parts of self that have been hidden for very good reason and oftentimes, for a long while.

At times, there is a very real experience of life and death struggle within the confines of the session time. On the side of life is the life of the self, the experience of being truly free to live without the traps and devastation of the past, as Sam tries to move beyond the reality of himself as killer into his life as person capable of meaningful, deep connection with others. On the side of death is the entrenched experience of self, maintaining its iron grasp and causing a devastating block to the freedom of being who one truly is. For Sam, the death side of the struggle represented the absolute corruption of the promise of the free self, wrought by his continued killing of fellow human beings.

As therapists, we seek the technical prowess, intelligence, wisdom and sometimes luck(!) to be able to share this journey with our clients, experiencing the darkest recesses of their selves with them, moving through the emotional and/or physical devastation of the past, through a shared darkness and toward a new state of well-being. We use hope and our belief in the possibility of change to provide us with fortitude on this journey and fortunately, generally find our way to reach the other side in safety. Occasionally, we aren’t able to complete this journey together. Perhaps poor therapeutic fit, interruptions in the therapy itself, missteps in technical application, or intra-psychic devastation that is too great to be sufficiently healed may prevent that completion. Luckily, the stakes are not generally as high for us as they were for Alan and Sam and we are left free to move on, to other therapists or for therapists, themselves, to moments of reflection and learning and then other clients. Remaining hopeful and ready to begin the work again.