The Most Surprising Thing I Learned About Love While Working As A Therapist

My heart has a thousand corridors filled with file folders. Not one drawer is false. They each expand into accordion fans, filling , spilling, overflowing.

In my nearly ten years of working in the chair I have collected approximately 327 files, each with a name that is known, felt and cherished.

The heart, my heart, keeps growing.

Love is not a finite resource.

It is not scarce, nor distracted. It expands, and fills.

I wonder when my chest will cease to hold so many names?

Never. I know, never.

So many thoughts, memories, and stories in one psyche.

I work within a chamber of secret vulnerabilities.

I have yet to welcome a person in who is not lovable.

I have yet to see a human unredeemable.

I have worked with violent men, incarcerated spending their life locked away for deadly crimes. Yet, they too had a story.

A story of the child within them. Sick, harmed, fearful.

When I put soft lumps of clay in their deathly hands, they sculpted gentle waves and caves dedicated to the womb of their mother. Until a part of them remembered love, and they too softened like the sea.

For it is love that shatters the chains we place upon our altars.

It is love that rocks our fears to sleep.

When I wake in the middle of the night from a night terror, it is picturing my loved ones that calms my breath and lulls me back to the pillow.

A truth…

When we meet someone continually and consistently with love, no matter what they have done, what they do to try and escape it, it transforms them.

It restores a broken spirit.

It licks at the wound, and sews it closed with yarn made from hope.

Our grip on self hatred falters in the face of love.

My eyes have watched so, so many of us grasp at self punishment with two hands.

“I deserve it. It must have been my fault. I provoked it. I am unlovable. There IS something wrong with me.”

Accountability is welcome in my chamber of vulnerabilities, but the gluttony of self blame is not.

Accountability asks for love in the form of truth.

We love ourselves most with true words and the willingness to walk into the deep internal woods of the self.

My heart expands with each new client. When I think surely it is not possible to love another human, I do, with ease.

Yet this love is different than the love of my family or friends. Because I am a ghost within it .

They will never know all of my angles and sharp corners as my husband does. They will only know my empathy, my thoughts, and my presence.

Which means, love can be selfless and true, simultaneously.

Our heart never tires of it.

Where hate shrinks and shrivels, love lightens and expands.

On a recent trip to France, I hiked 50 miles through Brittany ending in Mont St Michele. The last 5 kilometers of this walk My heart demanded visitation with all those I love. My family, my friends, all came into focus and each step forward left a wish in the fertile soil.

Then it was my clients. I saw each face, considered their needs and dreams and left a trail of dream drops along that hallowed ground.

They are always with me.

As a therapist , (I would say as therapists but I will speak for myself only here), we love.

Our job, at its core, is not only to analyze with the mind, but to listen with the heart. To offer love in return. To swap shame, embarrassment, and self loathing, with the warm weaving of love.

The biggest surprise is the ease at which I can love again. I can not be overfull with love. My love for one does not diminish my love for another.

It is always the same, stable, powerful source.

There are varying types of love of course.

Love that is romantic, which is for my dear husband. That sees all of me, and all of him. That is sensual, deeper than the ocean pits, and vital to my life.

Love that is familial, that is layered, complex, weathered, and like a sailor, either stronger because of it, or a mere memory lost at sea.

Love that is friendship, that is playful, present, and liberating.

Love that is supportive. Love that listens, nurtures, understands, and empathizes. This is available to all. All people. All parties. All inhabitants of this vast earth.

When we are faced with hate, the antidote is to love yourself more wildly and unabashedly in the face of it.

My offering today is to not let fear syphon away your love. Because love can not be bested. Love is here, infinite, and available.

You can find it within yourself, waiting like a cat curled near the fire. Comforting and gentle.

There is enough for us all. There is enough for us all. There is enough for us all.

There is room for more, there is room for plenty, there is room for you.

*Rebecca is a writer and Art Therapist from New York, working in private practice in Lucca Italy. The founder of Spirit House Lucca offering Spiritual retreats and gatherings in beautiful Tuscany, Italy.