Emily,

I woke up thinking about you this morning. I've been following your post and think of you often. In regards to your therapist and her somewhat unusual behavior, there's one thing that stands out to me.

When she talked about having to go to therapy in order to charge the fees for what she does, it made me think about believing in yourself.

We were talking about the Law of Reciprocity last night in a teleclass I'm taking. Basically it says that when you share your gifts, you must receive soemthing of equal value in return.

So whether it's money for the work that you do or love for the love that you do or whatever, something has to come back to you or you get out of balance. Think about relationships where you give and give and never get back and how draining that is.

The hard part for many of us, and I think Boomer women especially have a hard time with this, is receiving the gift that is coming back to us--whether it's money or love or whatever--because we were raised to be martyrs in a way. We were rasied to selflessly give.

What happens with that over time is that we begin to believe that we aren't worthy of receiving in some way. Then it becomes a big bug-a-bo and we get angry and that isn't acceptable either and we get depressed. (I know there are many biochemical contributors to depression that have nothing to do with emotions.)

My come away from all of this is that we have to come to a place where we can BELIEVE that we DESERVE to receive in return for what we give to the world and then to allow that good--whether money, smiles, love, kind words, etc.--to flow to us. And this takes time and practice to change our beliefs.

My second comment is that maybe you haven't gone backwards...maybe you've made some progress. Confronting that mean ugly 'voice' can be exhausting. It's almost like doing physical battle. So don't be so hard on yourself for needing a day of rest...just continue to move forward.

I certainly agree that you need to find a therapist that you are totally comfortable with and I know that there is one!

Blessings and smiles to you!