As I drove off from my session with a client in the talking cure, a phrase stayed with me, echoing in my head. He said “it’s intense, you know, talking with you”. I replied, yes I know and he asked if I felt that too.

Of course, I was there, I didn’t check out from the conversation. Like Jung said “the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances. If there is reaction, both are transformed.”.

The only way there couldn’t be a reaction, is if one or both are not present. If someone checks out from the meeting.

When in therapeutical session, no one really can check out. The client is going through the talks that is stimulated by his thoughts and the therapist is integrating the words in order to make a clearer picture. So yes, there is transformation on both sides.

Why do we feel the strong urge to be heard?

What is the catharsis of the talking cure?

Everything is energy and whatever we experience has its own charge. The charge accumulates in the system and if we cannot release it somehow, we feel… overcharged. In the situation of two people face to face, there is an exchange of this energy. There might just be one person talking but there is resonance because the words are being perceived by the consciousness of the other person. We verbalise the things that we might not even know we think or feel. When the words come out they become tangible and we experience their meaning as they roll over our tongue. The feeling of release it brings, the catharsis, is the liberation of the accumulated charge inside of us. If the words are being met, we feel held. We feel belonging.

One of the worst pandemics we have experienced for several years now is the one of loneliness.

So there is a definite need to express ourselves and to feel that we are heard, that we belong.

Imagine that there are all these people, walking around with an overload of charge inside of them. That creates frustration and when we try to suppress it, we feel depression.

The body is blocked and tight and maybe even numb in some parts. The mind is maybe overly agitated or on the contrary, foggy and slow. The heart has no idea how to connect to the body and the mind so there is a soulless feeling creeping on. Loneliness. No one can help because we are caught in a rather isolated state.

The talking cure helps to release this. It’s the reason we relax, it’s the reason we cry.

Some form of catharsis is essential or we end up acting out in one way or another.

Here’s the idea I want to leave you with:

If we rely on the other to bring us into a state of catharsis, we become dependent on other people’s availability but also willingness to do that for us. What this means is that the relationships can be uneven. With a professional, it is supposed to be like that and this is why we pay them. With family, friends, acquaintances, this is not the case.

We have all had someone in our life who plays the role of the saviour. And we have probably at some point been in that seat too. It drains the relationship.

There is not really an exchange of energy and we don’t nurture the other. The feeling of isolation grows stronger since the connection is broken.

The reason we get to this point is because we do not know ourselves.

We have not realised that we can bring catharsis home.

I cannot stretch the importance of taking the action of routine enough. Because as long as you don’t do it, you will actually never be convinced that it is so.

You need to take action.

You need to start three things:

Meditation

Writing your thoughts down

Releasing the physical charge in the body through movement

These three actions are catharsis for:

The emotional body

The mental body

The physical body

I would say that the number one advantage with this is: you will feel better.

And the second is : it won’t cost you anything.

It won’t cost you money, it won’t cost you the relationships you might ruin.

There is only benefits to installing a routine in your life.

The one thing that is essential though and that cannot budge: you need to commit.

When you manage to create a routine for your own release of charge (the ups and downs in your daily life that simply need to be let go), you will find a stronger sensation of peace inside which leads to creating a space to let other people in. But for real. Not to sooth your agony.

The whole reason to my online course, The Self Image Project, is to kick start this work

If you are finding it hard to create and stick to a routine, if you might have tried but then you easily fall into old habits, this course is for you. It will explain how your mind functions so that you can see why it’s so hard to install new habits. It will explain how you became how you are today as an adult and it will finally help you create what you need to bring a new and healthy routine into your life.