Multiple Choice

“How do I choose love if I hate myself?”, ‘Sherri’ (not her real name) asked me yesterday during her therapy session.

I said nothing but could feel my eyes soften and water slightly. (Who does not know that feeling?!)

She continued. “My stomach sticks out. I have a zit on my chin. The guy I hooked up with on Friday has not texted me back. He has posted stuff about other girls. All of them are prettier than I am. I feel like such a loser.”

Sherri looked down at the ground, shoulders slumped.

Her sense of disconnection from herself was palpable.

I asked, “Where in your body do you feel sensations”?

She looked at me puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“All feelings have signature sensations in the body. You feel like a loser. What are the sensations in your body associated with that feeling?”

Sherri said, “I don’t feel my body. I feel numb.”

“Ahhhh. Yes” I said quietly. I deliberately inhaled gently and audibly and exhaled in the same way. I invited her to take an inhale and exhale with me.

She did. We did.

‘Notice now what you feel in your body’, I said softly.

“Wow. I actually feel my body!” she said, as she lifted her gaze and looked in my eyes.

I smiled.

She smiled.

​And then we began our session.