Yesterday, I got mad at my therapist.
Last night, I messed up with my kids.
This morning, I felt completely broken and lost.
Then I took a nap.
And somehow… things seemed okay again.
I’m not fully back on my feet yet. But I did discover a few things about myself—things worth writing down before they quietly disappear. So this is me, taking notes.
Part 1: Therapy
Yesterday was my second session with my therapist. She’s been helping me a lot—especially with understanding myself and figuring out what I actually want from this life.
She was so active, so engaged, that I started to feel like she was more passionate about finding my truth than I was. Or at least more impatient about it.
And that made me wonder:
Am I avoiding it?
Am I procrastinating?
Am I not taking my life seriously?
(If I’m not… why does she bother?)
At the beginning of the session, she told me that this time I would be the one talking most of the time, and she would mainly listen. She said I would find my answers in the words I stumbled over while responding to her questions.
Sounds like standard therapy. Fair enough.
I told her how lost and confused I feel lately. Somewhere in that explanation—without really planning to—I mentioned three things. Three things that represent my deepest fears. Not the only fears I have, but the symbols of fear itself in my mind.
I don’t avoid thinking about them completely. In fact, whenever I think about fear, these three show up immediately. And then, just as quickly, I shut the door on them.
It’s like having a dark room in your house. You walk toward it, see the scary pictures on the door, panic, run away, and promise yourself you’ll never go back.
And then you go back again.
Unconsciously.
Every time fear appears.
So… here they are.
My three fear symbols: ghosts, snakes, and airplane crashes.
I know.
I know how this sounds.
They’re irrelevant. Illogical. A little stupid, even. I won’t defend them. But they are mine—and somehow they’ve been quietly growing stronger over time.
My therapist asked which one I feared the most.
After a few seconds, I said that I can think about ghosts or plane crashes and stay aware of my fear. But snakes?
Just thinking about snakes makes my body react. My skin crawls. Something in me screams no.
“Well,” she said calmly,
“Then we’ll start with the snake.”
What?!
Didn’t I just say I don’t even want to think about it?!
She asked what kind of snake I was afraid of. How big it was. What color. What it looked like.
I felt deeply uncomfortable.
I realized I had never held the image of a snake in my mind long enough to actually see it. I had been terrified of something I barely knew.
And she didn’t let me escape.
“This session,” she said, “we’re going to look closely at this fear. To see what’s underneath—and how to move through it.”
At this point, I started doubting everything.
I came here to find my life purpose.
Why are we talking about snakes?
Then she gave me a “mission”:
to research snakes, get close to one, observe it, communicate with it… maybe even make friends with it.
I refused immediately.
Not out loud—but very clearly inside.
She gently added, “You can wear as much protective gear as you want.”
In my imagination, I put on a full astronaut suit. Head to toe. Then added an extra invisible layer of air around it—just in case the snake wanted to touch me.
She asked,
“Do you want a cage for the snake? A weapon, maybe? A dart gun?”
Wait. A cage?
Yes.
Let’s put it behind glass.
Actually—let’s put a glass wall between us.
Zero physical contact. Ever.
She sighed.
“Well,” she said, “then you don’t really need the astronaut suit, do you?”
Fair point.
She asked how I felt now.
I told her my heartbeat was back to normal. The glass wall helped.
“Wonderful,” she said.
“Next time you feel afraid, you can imagine a glass wall between you and the fear.”
And she was right.
It was working.
Still, I refused to move closer to the snake for the rest of the session—no matter how many times she encouraged me.
At one point, I heard myself say out loud:
“I don’t want to go into that dark room without protection.”
And suddenly it hit me.
I was openly saying I didn’t want to face my darkness. I knew it was there. I knew it affected me. But I believed I could live just fine pretending not to see it—while carrying it with me everywhere.
I came to therapy demanding answers.
And when my therapist actually tried to help, I got angry.
I wanted her to leave me alone—with my fear, far away from me.
I say I want truth, but I resist the very thing that would reveal it.
I felt like an asshole.
I remembered John from Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (Lori Gottlieb). I hated him for half of the book. And now… I hated myself in exactly the same way.
“So why did you come to therapy in the first place?”
If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn’t feel this lost.
I’m hiding my fear from myself.
Running from it.
While dragging it on my back the entire time.
I refuse to turn around and ask the most basic questions:
Who are you?
Why are you here?
Since I wouldn’t approach the snake, my therapist suggested borrowing someone else—someone who could.
And somehow, without really thinking about it, I chose my husband.
He’s not especially close to snakes. He might even be afraid too. But I knew one thing for sure: if I were in danger, he would protect me.
So I stayed outside the room, watching him approach the snake.
Through the glass wall.
My therapist asked if I was scared.
“No,” I said honestly.
Distance—and glass—worked wonders.
That was when the session shifted—from fear in my body to fear in my voice. She asked me to do something unexpected.
She asked me to sing to the snake.
Sing.
I had absolutely no idea what to sing to a snake. I couldn’t even make a sound.
After a few nudges, I managed an “Om” sound—like in meditation. No melody. Just vibration in my throat, amplified by my nose (my mouth was still shut up).
The singing request felt awful.
Not fun.
Not spiritual.
Just deeply uncomfortable.
Throughout the session, she kept asking me to sing in different situations. Sometimes I was genuinely angry about it. But I still did it—barely. Single sounds. No emotion. No enthusiasm.
At the end, she asked if I had any favorite songs in my life.
“Up until now,” she added.
I couldn’t escape anymore.
The first song that came to mind was Ave Maria.
She asked if I could sing it.
Absolutely not.
I don’t even know what language it’s in.
Then another song appeared: Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. I knew the chorus. I could sing it.
Still, my body resisted.
Was I afraid she would judge my voice?
Or was I judging myself?
Then she said something that stayed with me.
“You’re blocked at the throat chakra. That’s why you can’t express yourself freely—through speaking or singing.”
She suggested I pay attention to that block. To gently work on releasing it.
“It might help your writing too,” she added.
I nodded.
Three days earlier, I had written “activate throat chakra” on my manifestation board for the new year. I just set it for a goal in a particular activity I plan to do this year to improve myself in the landscape of linguistic.
Coincidence?
Message from God?
I don’t know.
I never thought of myself as blocked—mentally or spiritually. But I can see now that there’s a part of me that resists expression. Especially through voice and music.
Maybe that’s something I’ll need to look into this year. Thank you, my therapist.
As writers, our deepest fears and greatest desires often lie in the shadows, the parts of ourselves we keep hidden. Yet, it is in these shadows that our most compelling stories reside.
(Nancy Levin)
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