Oxygen Moments

"You have been blessed with a burden, my daughter." - Steve Gruwell to Erin Gruwell (Scott Glen to Hilary Swank) in Freedom Writers (2007).

Day 164. Peak experience! I went to an amazing workshop on resiliency today. It focused on the "Heroic Journey" as a method for teaching clients resiliency. The presenter uses movies to explain the elements of the archetypal heroic journey. She kept recommending the movie "Freedom Writers." I was channel surfing during the commercials while I watched the Tour, and lo! and Behold! Freedom Writers was just starting. Think the universe could have been ever so gently suggesting I watch it? The movie just ended. I watched the whole thing. If zazen has taught me anything, it is to pay attention to the universe.

One of the exercises at the workshop was to think about an "oxygen moment." It was defined as a time when we felt one or more of the following: empowered, competent, confident, peaceful, hopeful, cared for, safe, did our best, or felt scared and faced down the fear successfully. In groups of three, we shared our "oxygen moments," including vivid sensory detail of them. At the time, I spoke about one of my many mountain biking oxygen moments. The ones where I faced a really technical section of riding and survived without bloodshed.

After watching Freedom Writers, a more resounding oxygen moment came to my mind. It happened this week in a session with a client who is very precious to me. We first worked together 12 years ago. She was 17 at the time, the daughter of an extremely wealthy businessman. She had a brilliant mind, keen intellect, and lively brown eyes. Before or since, I had never worked with a client who had endured such profound and ongoing verbal, psychological and physical abuse. Before or since, I have not worked with a client who acted out her abuse in such violent and extreme ways. Against herself. Through a raging eating disorder and horrific acts of self harm. We connected. We worked together a very long time.

My client lives in another state now, where she attends graduate school with the loving husband she met during her undergraduate program. They are back in Oklahoma for about a month to assist his mother, who is undergoing chemotherapy. She called and asked if I "remembered her" and could see her for a few times while they are in the state. It has been about two years since we last saw one another. I said of course, and we scheduled an appointment last week.

My client had grown into a young woman. She and her husband plan to pursue mission work when they complete their studies. After catching me up on the past few years, she requested that we have a few sessions to focus on some anxiety difficulties associated with being in graduate school. She had been diagnosed with a chronic illness a year ago, and also asked to work on some coping skills for dealing with her symptoms. She then brought up the issue of payment, noting her student insurance did not pay for out-of-state services. I asked her to think about an amount that would be manageable for her and her husband, and let me know next week.

We met for a second time this week. After explaining that she does not receive any financial help from her (millionaire) father, she hesitantly said that after speaking with her husband they thought they could afford $25 per session. I said okay, I would set her rate at that for the four or five times she could come before returning to school. Tears welled up in her eyes, and I quietly asked what she was feeling. She said, "Gratitude. I thought I could only see you one time, because that is all we could afford. It means so much to get to see you again."

Tears welled in my eyes as well. I believe in doing pro bono work at my practice, and sometimes err on the side of barely making our monthly overhead. This interaction, however, was about so much more than applying my "principles." It was about a connection. A lasting connection. A relationship forged, literally, in blood, sweat and tears between us. A relationship that had nothing to do with the hundred dollar fee her father paid me at one time. It had to do with a commitment to my client. The fidelity of our relationship. The explicit and implicit promise dating back 12 years that said I would be faithful to our work as long as she was. And sometimes when she wasn't. Sometimes I was the Hope Holder and the Promise Keeper when she couldn't be. Neither of us knew that our connection would span over a decade. We couldn't anticipate that she would find her way back to our work as a young woman struggling to maintain her financial independence. She asked; I answered; we made it happen. We both felt grateful.

I hope that I am blessed with a burden like Erin Gruwell. The burden of caring - passionate caring - about something that matters. A burden that carries the risk of changing and growing and hurting and moving and losing things that are important to me. Like the Buddha. Not to become famous. Not to become rich. To become alive.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc