Ellen S. Wright, LMFT

by Ellen Swann Wright, LMFT

Over the last month, I have attempted to create new aspects of my business. I wanted to diversify my work so that I would not be dependent solely on insurance. I did this out of the knowledge that it was time for me to begin engaging again as a speaker, experiential group leader, educator, and consultant—not just as a therapist operating quietly from my little corner of the world.

I made that decision BEFORE my major insurance payer stopped paying me.

At the same time, I began doing something else that does not come particularly easily to me: I started asking people for help. Something I never do, and something that frankly, is a problem for me to do. I asked people to share my blog posts. I asked them to join my mailing list. I asked colleagues to refer people to me. I began writing emails and reconnecting with people. I started introducing myself in a new community and telling people what I was building. I reached out to schools, organizations, businesses, former colleagues, friends, and professional contacts. I tried my best to network instead of remaining safely tucked inside the practice I had already built.

And when I began reaching out, amazing things started happening. I did hear back from people. Old relationships reemerged. New connections formed. People offered ideas, encouragement, introductions, and opportunities. There were moments when the world felt remarkably responsive.

But I also began noticing something else. Not every call I put out received a response. In fact, many of them didn’t.

Emails went unanswered. People expressed interest in something and then disappeared. People said they would share something and did not.. People told me they wanted to participate and then didn’t register. Plans remained uncertain. Professional inquiries sat unanswered.

And because I was doing something that was already difficult for me—asking—the silence affected me more than I expected.

Then crisis hit.

My major insurance payer stopped paying me. I continued seeing clients. I continued submitting claims. I continued doing the work. But week after week, the payments did not come. Eventually, more than a month had passed.

At almost the same time, I was trying to complete the credentialing process that would allow me to expand my practice and create another source of income. One final document sat waiting for review. I could see it. I knew what needed to happen. But I could not make anyone review it.

So I waited.

Meanwhile, I was trying to arrange reliable childcare. That wasn’t working either. I contacted people. Plans fell through. People became unavailable. Again, one ghosted me without saying a word. Another silence.

Then there were the smaller things that aren’t actually small when they arrive on top of everything else. A mouse ran through my house. I contacted the people responsible for addressing it and waited for a response. Still no response, even at the time of writing this blog post. My son had a difficult day at school, and the vice principal called me in the middle of one of my therapy sessions. The next morning, he struggled with algebra for thirty minutes while I sat beside him trying everything I could think of to help.

That morning, something in me broke open.

“I need help, I thought. Why am I not being given help?“

I cried. I cried hard on my porch and hollered out those words.

There wasn’t anything particularly graceful about it. I wasn’t sitting serenely on my porch contemplating the impermanence of human suffering. I was tired. I was scared. I was disappointed. And I was deeply aware of how many things in my life required another person or another system to do something I could not do for myself.

But as I sat with it, I realized something else. When I am struggling, I do not always need someone else to fix the struggle. I think what I wanted from people more than anything was much simpler.

I wanted them to notice and care.

I wanted someone to notice that I was working incredibly hard and that things had become difficult. I wanted someone to care that I was scared. I wanted the people I reached toward to acknowledge the reaching. I wanted some indication that my call had been heard.

Sometimes help is action. Sometimes help is money, childcare, information, advocacy, an introduction, or someone doing the thing they are responsible for doing. But sometimes help begins with something far more fundamental: I see you. I heard you. I know this is hard. I care.

Perhaps that is why silence became so painful.

My usual response when something isn’t moving is remarkably predictable. I do more. I send another email. I make another call. I explain more clearly. I work harder. I create something else. I find another solution. I am incredibly resourceful and creative.

If the world doe not respond, apparently my nervous system has historically concluded that perhaps I should simply call louder.

But this time I noticed what was happening. I was not just disappointed anymore. I was depleted.

So I said something different.

Enough.

Enough, Ellen.

I have sent enough. I have explained enough. I have asked enough. I have worked enough. Enough for now.

And then I went to lunch with my friend Joann.

Sitting there talking with her about everything that had been happening, I said something I have said many times in my life: “This too shall pass.”

I believe that when things are going well. When life is beautiful, when things are flowing, when I am joyful and everything seems to be coming together, I know: this too shall pass. Not pessimistically. Impermanence doesn’t diminish joy. It reminds me to notice it while it is here.

And when things are painful, uncertain, frightening, frustrating, or simply exhausting, I know the same thing: this too shall pass.

The difference this time was that I was trying something new while I waited for it to pass.

I was asking for help.

And asking for help meant I had to confront something else: asking does not guarantee receiving.

Sometimes people respond. Sometimes they do not. Sometimes they want to help but cannot. Sometimes systems move painfully slowly. Sometimes people do not know what to say. Sometimes they are overwhelmed themselves. Sometimes people really do not like you and they pretend that they do. Sometimes the answer is no. And sometimes there is simply silence.

I began thinking about what I have come to call the transfer of relational discomfort. (I like to create concepts, it is one of my things)

Sometimes responding to someone is uncomfortable. We don’t know what to say. We need to say no. We don’t want to disappoint someone. We don’t have the capacity. We tell ourselves we will respond later.

Not responding may temporarily relieve our own discomfort, but the discomfort doesn’t necessarily disappear. Sometimes it transfers.

Now the person waiting is left wondering: Did they hear me? Should I wait? Should I follow up? Is the answer no? Should I make another plan? Did I do something wrong?

I realized I had been carrying a tremendous amount of that uncertainty. And then another question emerged: What if I don’t have to hold every unanswered call open? I can ask. I can reach. I can tell people what I need. I can make the call. And then I can release. Release does not mean I do not care. It doesn’t mean the answer doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean I stop wanting help. It means I stop organizing unlimited amounts of my energy around WAITING for a particular response.

And sometimes I need another word before I can truly release: Enough.

Enough is the boundary that says, I have done what belongs to me. Something interesting began happening after that. Things moved. Not everything. And certainly not all at once. But things moved.

One of the professional contacts I had reached out to responded with her availability, and we scheduled a time to meet. It reminded me of something I already know from growing things: a seed can be growing before anything is visible above the soil. The absence of visible movement does not always mean that nothing is happening. Sometimes a seed simply needs time.

I heard from the editor reading my book. During the silence, I had wondered what was happening. It turned out she was halfway through my manuscript. More evidence that the seed was growing.

After my son’s difficult day, I called his teacher and asked that we move his IEP meeting forward. Instead of waiting until November, we are now working toward meeting in October. I could not solve everything for him at the kitchen table that morning, but I could call in the people who are supposed to help support him.

Then, finally, the credentialing document I had been waiting on was approved THIS MORNING. The process I had been unable to move was suddenly moving again, and I completed the next step toward expanding my practice to Virginia and North Carolina in a significant way.

And then I learned that the insurance problem that had prevented my claims from processing has apparently been corrected! The claims themselves are still stuck, which means I have to resubmit them, but for the first time in weeks there was something concrete I can actually do.

None of this means that everything is fixed. Some people still have not responded. Some things I hoped would happen have not happened. There is still uncertainty. There is apparently still a mouse somewhere in my house. And there are still places where I need help. And today, I am running my group with only one participant, but she will have exclusive service!

That may be one of the most important things I am learning: to keep moving with the flow of life, knowing that this too shall pass. I am also learning that asking for help does not guarantee that I will receive it from the people I ask. Sometimes help comes from somewhere else, in a form I wasn’t expecting. My work is to keep noticing, remain open enough to receive it when it comes, and continue. And through it all, crying helps. A lot. I highly recommend it.

This hurts, and that moved. I still need help here, and help arrived there. This remains unresolved, and that finally closed. I am disappointed, and I am receiving.

All of those things can be true at the same time.

There was another lesson hidden inside all of this too. Silence and stillness are not necessarily the same thing.

Some of the things I thought weren’t moving were moving outside my field of vision. My editor was reading. A seed I had planted through outreach eventually produced a response. A system problem was being addressed. A document was eventually making its way through a process I could not see.

That does not mean I should wait indefinitely for every unanswered call. Nor does it mean that silence cannot be painful or that people shouldn’t communicate with one another when they can.

It simply means: I do not always know what silence means.

And perhaps I don’t need to.

I can Send. I can do what belongs to me. Make the call. Ask the question. Submit the application. Extend the invitation. Say what needs to be said. Plant the seed. I can Release. I can acknowledge that I do not control what another person or system does next. I can say Enough when I notice myself trying to compensate for someone else’s lack of movement by spending more of myself. I can Receive what actually arrives—even when it doesn’t look exactly like what I had been asking for. And then I can Continue.

Yesterday at lunch, when I told Joann, “This too shall pass,” I knew that the difficult season would eventually change. What I didn not know was how quickly I would begin seeing evidence of movement. But perhaps that isn’t the point. The point is that I didn’t need today’s movement in order for yesterday’s statement to be true.

This too shall pass.

The beautiful things will pass, so I want to notice them while they are here. The difficult things will pass, so I do not want to mistake them for forever.

And while I am here—in whatever season this happens to be—I can keep practicing something that remains remarkably difficult for me. I can ask for help. I can allow myself to need other people. I can notice who responds. I can notice who cares. I can receive care even when it doesn’t solve the problem. I can release what I cannot control.

And when I have done what belongs to me, I can say:

Enough for now.

Then I can remain available for whatever comes next.

Because this, too, shall pass.