Many moons ago, I wrote a list of 12 Prin­ci­ples that were the basis of my under­stand­ing, both of my life and of my coun­selling prac­tice. I’ve been think­ing about pulling them together into a small book that I could give to new clients.

I’ve decided that I’d, at least for now, tackle each of the top­ics here, in the blog. We’ll see how it goes.

2. It is impos­si­ble to live life free of anx­i­ety. There is the anx­i­ety that comes when decid­ing to shift one’s way of being—the anx­i­ety of change, of pain, of growth. And, there is the anx­i­ety of try­ing to stay the same, in denial, pre­tend­ing. Shift­ing, to me, seems the bet­ter choice. From there, I can be inti­mate, and choose to love well.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight.â€

One of the things I’m most inter­ested in is the idea that we can shift both our under­stand­ing of how life is, and how we relate to our­selves, to oth­ers, and to the world.

But the weird part is that we are fight­ing against our natures—our egos—which are highly invested in keep­ing us stuck in society’s view of “normal.â€

The prob­lem comes when we think our ego view should trump what’s actu­ally happening

Zip­pity, do dah to you, too!

While I could be accused of exag­ger­at­ing here, it seems to me that most of my clients have a pretty com­mon view of how life ought to be. I call it the “Blue­bird of Hap­pi­ness†model. I coined this one after think­ing about the lit­tle car­toon blue­birds that flit­ted about in car­toons I saw as a kid. My favorite one is shown here: uncle Remus and the blue­birds, from the Dis­ney movie, “Song of the South.â€

This par­tic­u­lar model ele­vates hap­pi­ness to the pin­na­cle of life.

The odd part, of course, is that it is impos­si­ble to define hap­pi­ness. Hap­pi­ness is highly sub­jec­tive, and from per­sonal expe­ri­ence, and work­ing with clients, it’s also some­thing that seems to be always just out of reach. The founders of the United States got it right—they listed unalien­able rights, one of which is “… the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness.â€

Hap­pi­ness is some­thing we chase, but never quite catch. It’s “out-of-reach-ness†is what causes our anxiety.

Any­way, here’s a list of the expec­ta­tions most of my clients implic­ity or explic­itly have:

Now, you may be think­ing that this very long para­graph doesn’t apply to you at all.

And I’m not really say­ing that every per­son believes all of these things. What I am say­ing is that most peo­ple that I’ve met over my five plus decades are pretty much stuck in this gen­eral belief sys­tem.

It’s one or more of these themes that bring clients in for ther­apy. Ini­tially, almost all of them come with the agenda of fix­ing oth­ers.

So I hear a lot about things that hap­pened 20, 30, or 40 years earlier—how abuse they were, how their par­ents did them wrong, what a strug­gle it’s been, and how, even to this moment, no one will coöper­ate with them.

They’re so caught in the drama that they miss the pattern.

One per­son I know, for exam­ple, gets into a “blam­ing cycle†about every six weeks. She tells me of the lat­est affront—and it always has some­thing to do with oth­ers not agree­ing with her per­spec­tive, or demand­ing that she change—and how she’s not going to put up with it. What changes is the spe­cific “unfair­ness†she is presently mad about.

What she misses is the pat­tern of being affronted every six weeks.

Until she can step back and see the pat­tern that she is cre­at­ing, she is doomed to repeat her dis­sat­is­fac­tion. Her approach, 100% of the time, is to lit­er­ally or fig­u­ra­tively leave the rela­tion­ship. And then she gets to do it all over again, with some­one new, or she cre­ates a new sit­u­a­tion with some­one old.

It seems to me that the work of adult­hood is to chal­lenge our pre­sup­po­si­tions.

In other words, to exam­ine what we believe in the cold light of reality.

Now, this is not to sug­gest that you do life the way oth­ers want you to. That’s what got you into this mess in the first place.

This is a pre­scrip­tion for direct per­sonal obser­va­tion, and clear­headed eval­u­a­tion of the results you are get­ting regard­ing the choices you are making.

And the only way you dis­cover what works is to do it.

Our approach, then, is twofold.

As I wrote in my book­let, “The Watcher,†your goal is to cre­ate an alter­na­tive voice, another per­spec­tive, a clearer, more direct, and ele­gant approach to life. With time and with prac­tice, this voice becomes the dom­i­nant voice in your head, and the process of choos­ing effi­cient behav­ior becomes simpler.

But as with any new learn­ing, the learn­ing curve is the steep­est at the beginning.

Ther­apy gives us the oppor­tu­nity to look at our beliefs through the eyes of another—someone who is not invested in defend­ing those errant beliefs. There is also the oppor­tu­nity to explore other ways to enact our lives. This sort of work gives us the tools we need to deal with the anx­i­ety that change cre­ates. We move from expect­ing end­less hap­pi­ness to under­stand­ing that life is really about acceptance.

We start from a place of accept­ing where things are, drop the end­less bitch­ing, accept our­selves as we are, and then make bet­ter choices.

There’s noth­ing par­tic­u­larly com­pli­cated about this view. It just requires per­sis­tence. Once you under­stand that “the way it is, is the way it is,†once you fully land in this moment, you are sud­denly aware that with­out pre­con­ceived notions your options are end­less. It is the one and only way out of the labyrinth. Labyrinths require courage, cre­ativ­ity, and mak­ing friends with your anx­i­ety, so that you can dis­cover the way out.

And hav­ing a guide that has con­quered a labyrinth doesn’t hurt, either!