Touching One Another

Touching One Another

My client touched something in me today.

I enjoy the adventures of being a therapist. On any given day I can find myself on a road headed anywhere. I love listening and journeying with others. While being open to the journey is fun sometimes you have to guide and sometimes you have to put your foot on the brakes. But often you get to go along and just observe the scenery and road maps of people’s lives.

So when my new client began talking about the stress of his job I recognized the road. I have been on that road many times. There are some crazy managers out there that should be given a profit by pharmaceutical companies because they impact the health and well being of employees. And there are a few companies who should be investigated because of the number of employees that seek medical and mental health intervention. Being stressed by the manager is a common phenomena.

Just as I was settling in to the familiarity of the story, however, more unfolded. My client mentioned many escape home by going to work or escape work by going home but at home another battle awaited him. His wife is fighting cancer. And then she is challenged by acute allergic reactions. On any given day she can have a reaction. And it’s nothing for him to check his wife to make sure she is breathing. And before I know it we’re on a road I’ve never seen and it spirals downward and there seems to be no bottom. And now we’re in a hospital. And his wife is in critical condition. And we stand on the other side of the door waiting for doctors to tell us if she is alive.

And as the story continued to unfold a tear trickled down his face. And then a second one found gravity and came forth. And that one was joined by a third. And then there were no more tears. Instead he began to shake. There was silence. He was trying to hold back the dam. He was trying so hard he was shaking. And in the silence I felt the incredible weight of his burden. I felt the tears trickling down my own face and I prayed. I desperately prayed that this time he would be strong for me, the therapist, because I knew that if the dam broke I would not be able to hold my end of this client therapist relationship. And I can’t find anything to hold on to because the pain is so heavy and disorienting. I was so morphed by his pain that I too could not speak. We were dangerously on the edge of sanity and it took us a while to find our way back to safer grounds. And then we found another road. But I cannot forget how close we teetered to the edge.

As we are coming up on Martin Luther King Holiday I am reminded that King touched others by showing them his own humanity. King spoke to those who were hostile to him as though they had the capacity for compassion and understanding. He believed that hearts and minds could be changed. I think perhaps we all have the ability to touch others. King stated the obvious, that blacks were human beings and as such deserved to be treated with respect and dignity. We should not have to wait any longer for our civil rights. We deserve to be able to sit anywhere on the bus and at the counter. We deserve to have the same tools to pursue happiness. Through organized nonviolent protest the global world saw how black were treated in America. Our story now had an audience. Through peaceful demonstration our story showed the ugly face of racism. King along with others of the civil rights era pricked the conscience of white America.

Maybe by touching one another we can slowly break the chains of racism in America.