When you go to as many conferences led by therapists as I do, you’re subjected to lots of speakers beginning their talk by telling you to close your eyes, get comfortable, and pay attention to your breathing. Some try to lead you on visualizations that include forest glens, peaceful waves on the beach, warm sunshine, and gentle breezes.
I refuse. Don’t tell me to relax and don’t remind me when I’m at a conference, that I’m not on the beach.
I still won’t relax on command, but I have learned the value of relaxation therapy.
One day a client came into the community mental health clinic where I worked, checked in with the receptionist, and, instead of sitting in the waiting room till I came to get her, went straight to the lady’s room and slit her wrist.
She had slit her wrists many, many times before and had dozens of hospitalizations for suicide attempts. She was the toughest, most frustrating, most hopeless case known to all the staff at the clinic and given up on by all. She had just been transferred to me. When I heard what she had done, I also began to believe she was beyond help.
Someone had seen her do it, wrapped her up in paper towels, and called an ambulance. While waiting for it to arrive, they brought her to sit in my office. I didn’t know what to say and the client was in no mood for talking.
Feeling pretty anxious myself, I led her in a simple relaxation exercise, softly telling her to breathe in and out, slowly and deeply. I did it for me as much as her. Soon the medics were there and they took her away.
One thing led to another and I didn’t see her again until a couple years later. I had taken my car in for an oil change and she was the mechanic. She told me that was the last time she had been hospitalized. “I’m sorry I did that,” she said. “As soon as I spoke to your receptionist, I started having a panic attack about having to meet someone new. When I started to breathe the way you told me to, my anxiety was gone right away. Whenever I get that way, I breathe that way instead. I don’t need to try to kill myself anymore.”
That’s why people do relaxation therapy.
Some therapists begin every session with a relaxation exercise. They make it the cornerstone of their therapy. I don’t do that because I figure my clients come because they want to tell me their story, not to listen to me drone on, boring myself half to death. If they wanted to frolic with the forest animals in a leafy glen, they wouldn’t be sitting in my office. I chose to use relaxation therapy with that woman because there was nothing else I could do. Relaxation therapy enables us do nothing.
Relaxation therapy and its close cousin, mindfulness, is very popular these days. Hardly a week goes by when I do not get a flyer advertising another mindfulness workshop. I got suckered into attending a mindfulness workshop a couple of times. The first thing they want me to do is get comfortable and close my eyes.
I’m positive I was not the first therapist to try relaxation therapy out on that woman. With as many therapists and hospital visits as she had, she certainly had to endure hundreds of hours of monotonous voices counting down from ten. She may have felt the same way I did about it and never followed along. If she had, and if she had found time to focus on her breathing every day, it might have lowered her baseline anxiety enough so that when something really scary happened, like going to see a new therapist, she wouldn’t freak out. Then, if she did freak out, relaxation would have been second nature.
To be able to relax in any circumstance at a moment’s notice is a skill everyone should have. If you don’t know how to do it, you should learn. It’ll take you five minutes before you catch on and a few more minutes a day to keep your skills. You don’t need to see a therapist to do it, which is why I still don’t do it very much with clients.
As powerful as relaxation is, I don’t believe it alone is all you need for a thorough life transformation. In my client’s case, there was something else that made the lesson stick. Something much more mysterious and ungovernable.
It’s called kenosis.
Kenosis is a Greek word that means emptying out your own will and replacing it with something new. AA talks about hitting bottom; but just hitting bottom and experiencing consequences is not enough. In my client’s case, she had hit bottom many times before and it never did her any good; but this time when she hit bottom and lost her will, something else came along that made more sense and gave her a way to carry on.
She discovered that, by taking a few deep breaths, she could make herself feel a little better. But she never would have known that as vividly had she not first been totally emptied out. The two movements, together, adds up to kenosis.
So, is there such a thing as kenosis therapy? I don’t think there can be. I don’t think you can deliberately let go of your will at will. It has to happen to you for it to be real. When you find yourself at the end of your rope and you let go and grab another rope, you’ve experienced kenosis.
I also don’t think another person can do it for you. No one can cut you off the rope so you have to grab another one. It would be unethical, not to mention, mean.
By the way, I had my own kenosis moment that day when I felt powerless to help her and tried a therapeutic method I loath. In normal circumstances, I still loath it, but I’ll use it sometimes now, when things start to get real hairy.