Honey, I Need A Shrink!

Tuesday morning kid drop (before the late bell, just let me say) and I celebrated myself with an extra hot, fully loaded pumpkin spice latte...extra pumpkin...extra spice...extra whip...extra everything please.  Staff meeting in 30 minutes and I was winning. Today was my day.  Traffic was backed up to China in usual Miami style.  The past three years of the 305...cars at a dead halt. I can cross this intersect in my sleep…day after day after day after day, while the nice people in both lanes wave me forward.  With a wink I blow kisses and smiles back at me.  Rainbows in the sky and music in my ear.  

However, as fate would have it or because I (not my guy) was at the wheel of my sparkling newborn 2015 Ford Explorer, this lovely woman (let’s call her Ms. Meanypants) in the middle of an epic game of Candy Crush on her iPhone, decided to deflate my happiness balloon by slamming into my car and then blaming me.  All this before Runner Girl had enjoyed even one tiny sip of pumpkin.  By the way...I got the ticket.  Meanypants apparently had the right of way...Facebook checking , Candy Crush playing, texting or not.  Foot off the gas, head down were only minor details.  At after-school pick up, my 6 year old blue-eyed darling erupted into spasms and volcanic shrieking.  Every mom and teacher piercing my very soul with their stares.  In the perfect ending to my no good-horrible-rotten day, as I cleaned out my recently smashed up Black Beauty and grieved her dent, I threw my $400 key straight into the dumpster, followed by a desperate search through moldy food and some orangy-brown stuff that’s still haunting me. At this point, I grabbed for the dark cloud above my head.  And whispered…"Honey, I may need a shrink.” 

Mama said there’d be days like this.  And when the tough days come.  The tough go to therapy.  Maybe you don’t need to go for a particularly cruddy day...because crud happens...but 95.9% chance you do need to go.

My man and I swear by it.  We tell anyone and everyone, “Get to therapy!”  And we don’t only preach it, we practice it.  Yeah, for the past 9 years of our happily ever after, we have gone to counseling...together.   At this point some of you are freaking out.  Because those of you who are close to us already know that my boy and I are pastors...for the past 13 years already...our entire relationship.  We are counselors.  Taking the hurting by the hand and walking alongside them is our job and our calling.  But who ever heard of a pastor who needed a shrink?

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times.
Always with the same person. (13 years strong!)

And guess what?  We all have stuff.  Doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or how perfect or imperfect your growing up was.  You have stuff.  And when we get married, that stuff gets messy.  Because now we share our stuff and we have to deal with our stuff and we have to let somebody else see our ugly, gross, hidden, unresolved, lingering, stinky stuff.  And life gets tricky.  

Please if you do go to counseling, ask around for the right one. We once went to a guy who closely resembled Santa Claus, with a gigantic wooden cross hanging from his neck. I kept wondering when the vampires were coming. And he kept asking if I was crying or laughing. Sorry Mr. Claus I'm not quite sure myself.

Some smart and amazing therapist once said, you will push each other’s buttons (dating, engaged, married).  Life is not all about us.  And relationships cause us to grow up.  Healthy relationships look like putting another’s needs before your own…buying flowers, writing a note, words of affirmation, figuring out their needs and wants, thinking about another before you think about yourself. Unhealthy relationships, failed relationships resemble putting ourself first, thinking about what makes me happy, looking out for Number 1, unforgiveness, tantrums, pouting,  and failing to give of ourselves. 

Faith helps.  Prayers help.  Jesus is the answer.  But there are some things.  Deep, hard, difficult issues that we can’t figure out on our own…can’t get over…keep remembering and repeating and allowing to steal our thoughts and our happiness.  It is good to be heard and to receive perspective from another.  A safe place and a safe person to share the things that you’ve never told another soul or to search for the answers you can’t seem to find.  Therapy has been the game changer and the marriage saver in our lives...the perspective shift that has kept our relationship over and over and over again.  So whether it’s the meanypants who smashed your car or the x-spouse who is out to rain on your life parade, see a shrink.  It will make you happy.  I’m pretty sure that God looked at therapy and He saw that it was very good.