Ice Skating v. Scuba Diving
A client recently experienced a rupture in a long-standing friendship; one that unfolded through the threads of misunderstanding, political division, and the unconscious projection of inner wounds onto the other. What surfaced was not just disagreement, but the age-old struggle of two psyches attempting to be seen through their own stories.
For years, this friendship has carried both light and shadow. Her friend often held a posture of moral certainty, a lens through which she viewed the world with strong conviction. And for years, their values seemed to align, both resonating in similar world views.
However, the bond was also deeply spiritual. Together, they explored the esoteric and the ineffable, embracing psycho-spiritual principles that speak to the soul’s longing for meaning. Both had been a witness to some of their most difficult moments, offering not only presence, but cocoon-like care that helped each weather emotional storms.
Over the years, this client has walked the path of inner transformation with great devotion, learning to discern between vulnerability and humility and arrogance and righteousness. It’s one’s own work to ‘do’ per say, and we accept people as they are, but it also posed difficulty for her to connect with her friend in a reciprocal manner. During session she identified a “quiet boundary”; subtle, but present, between her own emotional vulnerability and her friend’s capacity to meet it, with a shared humility. She realized there wasn’t anything ‘there’ any more to mine for.
Until recently, she noted the air of grace, novelty, and mutual dreaming shared between them. Yet something shifted in the wake of the most recent election season. Miscommunications, unspoken grief, and unskillful dialogue created a new energetic field, one that closed the space where connection used to live. Connection often needs humility and vulnerability.
When she shared this with her partner, recounting how yet again she had offered the tenderness of deep connection only to meet a surface that would not open, he said gently, “Baby, you just gotta ice skate with her. There’s no more scuba diving.”
She became teary eyed and compassionate, frustrated and relieved to know, she is not built for ice skating. She longs for the deep dive, for the dark, wondrous, pressure-filled places where true transformation occurs between “right and wrong”. Yet, she also understands the wisdom in knowing when to stay on the surface. There is safety there, and sometimes it is necessary for the preservation of the heart.
This is therapy; the emotional, the complex, the paradoxical. Honoring the sacred mirror of projection, the way shadow reveals itself through relationships. Learning to value those who can see their own inner landscapes reflected back through the people, places, and dynamics of their lives and integrate it, remaining curious. There is rarely a singular answer to any one issue, whether in politics, in caretaking aging parents, or navigating the wounds of labor and livelihood. There is always a both/and. Therapy aids in finding rest, not in certainty, but in paradox, in the mystery that holds all truths with compassion and curiosity.