I just realized that I have been engaged in talk therapy for more than half of my life. As such, I want to say without equivocation that therapy has positively shaped who I am, improved my relationships and made my career more satisfying and impactful.
I am grateful to my therapists who never (to my knowledge) phoned it in. These folks consistently show up ready to support me and always give me more than my money’s worth.
Some people may wonder why people who function as well as I would continue to dig deeper and spend more energy and money on therapy. Surely you no longer need it, Scott?
Perhaps it is more want than need these days. In my early thirties, I desperately needed therapy to understand how to be a better husband and father, things my dad could not teach me because of gaps in his own upbringing. Having learned the fundamentals, though, it has never ceased to amaze me how much more there is to learn about this most intimate, wonderful and often vexing of relationships. Marriage can always get better (or worse) and that means it requires regular maintenance. The same is true, to a lesser degree, of my relationships with my parents, siblings and our children. My therapist and I talk about all of that probably 30% of the time.
Know this, however: my relationships with the folks in my family tree of origin are not perfect. Like many, I have struggled to understand and deal with them (and they, me) to varying degrees of success. In fact, my relationships with just about everyone else, by and large, are a lot easier. It took many, many years of therapy to say that out loud and know that it is altogether normal and healthy – for me.
The other 70% of my time is spent learning how to get out of my own way. Like it or not, it has taken a lot of effort to stop doing what wasn’t working and start doing what I was avoiding. Sometimes, I think of it as reinventing myself. Other times, it’s sloooooowly accepting what has always been true – that I am worthy of love and, therefore, entitled to living clean, sober, creative and happy. In ACA, we refer to this as letting go of our “malignant self doubt.”
I know from talking to others, listening to podcasts, TED talks, reading books, being a teacher, attending 12-step meetings, being in men’s groups, etc that the lack of self-worth and self-love is the greatest ailment we face. It is the crisis of our age and it is, unfortunately, not getting better.
So, one of the big reasons that I remain in therapy is to discover and improve not just me, but the multiple and complex relationships in my life. As a creator and teacher and as a fellow human being, I am a channel (just like you) of energy and my responsibility is to use therapy to clear that channel of anything that might inhibit my ability to send and receive love. And that’s an awesomely important job in a world that needs our love, right? I think so.
But there’s more…
In addition to my weekly therapy, I attend one 12-step meeting and chat with three men for an hour each about life. This is in addition to my ongoing dialogue with Beth, a bunch of close friends and my kids.
I find self-development fascinating, yes, and that helps a lot. But my mission, the thing that keeps me going is to love more and act out less. And the truth is I need support always to do so in a world that can be extremely toxic. I cannot do it alone. I need people like you, God and a frigging great therapist.
