Having a therapist of my own, I recognize that it’s often hard to picture your therapist outside of the therapy chair. My colleagues and I joke about the “therapist in the wild”, the person beyond the familiar chair, out buying groceries, raising children, living a life of her own. And, that rings true to me as I encounter spaces where I’m both a human and also a therapist. One particular version of this “in the wild” part of me is one who arrives in medical waiting rooms. She knows the forms, the gowns, the language. Her body begins bracing before her name is called.
These days, when I’m not in my office chair, my calendar holds more of these visits than I’d like: MRIs, ultrasounds, mammograms, the dentist, dermatology, oncology reviews, the OB-GYN… some of my least favorite places to be. I don’t know how I drew the embodiment cards I got in this life, but medical spaces have become familiar territory in roles of both patient and caregiver. I've learned how much of a person’s story can enter a room without anyone asking about it.
That knowing lives in my work as a therapist. When I sit with people navigating illness, diagnosis, injuries, or caregiving for someone they love, I listen for the life unfolding around the medical details: the interrupted plans, the shifting relationships, the loss of control, the new language acquired, the quiet effort of getting through another appointment.
And the person who still wants to be themselves through all of it.
I know what happens in me as I pass through those infamous sliding glass doors. My body tightens. My soul clenches. Some familiar instinct beckons me to become more robot than being: protect, stay safe, obey. Get through as unscathed as possible.
But over the years, I’ve been learning how to bust through those doors (literally & metaphorically) to bring more of me in. To notice when I’m succumbing to holding my breath and wonder what might help me exhale. Beneath the fluorescent lighting, the manufactured artwork, the furniture chosen for its wipeability, there are still people. There is an abundance of possibility and life within these spaces. You just have to look from a different angle to see it.
Just this week, I had a procedure to remove a mass. A history of sarcoma and carcinoma in early adulthood means these discoveries tend to receive prompt attention. The surgeon initially suggested surgery under anesthesia to obtain good margins. I was able to negotiate starting with an outpatient procedure with a simple row of stitches and glue as a starting point. After discussing the options, we agreed to begin with an outpatient procedure. It felt invigorating to ask questions, name my preferences, and help shape the plan. Some wild, living part of me needed to know I still had a voice within these walls.
After the negotiations, it was scheduled, and I tucked it out of sight, beneath the other pressing things of life. As the appointment inevitably approached, I had a decision to make: tough it out, or take up space. I engaged in the “sacred pause” that I often talk about in my sessions with clients, just long enough to wonder… what would it look like to give myself a little more care around this?
Of course I procrastinated, but the day before I texted my dear friend Haylie, a fellow counselor who works with chronic pain and one of the bravest people I know in the work of inhabiting a body. Her reply came through: “We’ve got this 100%”. Something in me softened. Already, the appointment had begun to change shape.
In the waiting room, Haylie read aloud words from Megan Devine. The reading opened a conversation about strength and resilience: how much a person can carry, what it costs, and what it might mean to let ourselves be carried, too.
On our way into the procedure room, we snagged Hershey’s Kisses (which remind me of my late grandmother) and queued up a familiar playlist. A few small comforts crossed the threshold with us.
The nurse and surgeon caught our vibe and relaxed into a posture that in spite of the purpose of the gathering, we were there determined to create a good time. We asked questions, learned things, and found ourselves in a lively conversation. Curiosity and mischief pulled up chairs beside the scalpel.
There was gauze and blood and stitching. An odd specimen we opted to see… because apparently our curiosity extends that far. And, there was also banter, laughter, and the unexpected pleasure of gathering, making something warm out of a moment I had dreaded. We leaned into the experience rather than tightening, and created a space where women were in connection together for a moment in time, transcending what was… to what could be.
Let’s keep it real, my foot was shaking uncontrollably. I recognized the old fear my body carries in these rooms. And yet, my heart was steady. Haylie held my hand, and I felt held within a container of something we were making together. Rather than engaging with distant strangers, we embraced the nurse and surgeon as if we were all on the same team. I felt accompanied. I could ask a question, make a joke, admit something hurt. My personality had somewhere to go. There was spaciousness rather than a sterile appointment to endure.
We made a little meaning together, too. Around the removal, we wove in a sacred ritual: imagining what I was ready to release, what is no longer serving me that I no longer wished to carry. There was something tender about giving an experience I hadn’t wanted a meaning I could engage with. The scar will forever hold this story when I brush over it in the future.
I walked out with stitches and glue, and a beautiful memory.
We don’t always get to choose what brings us through those sliding glass doors. There are appointments we would give anything to erase from the calendar. Days when getting through takes everything we have. And admittedly, I have those days, too, when I arrive, brace, endure, and go home.
And I want to remember this memory alongside those experiences. It has helped me discover that in the stories that we don’t get to choose in our lives, there is space for human connection, relationship, and meaning-making. To leave a little room in my imagination for what an appointment might hold… A song that knows me. A friend who helps me soften. A posture of curiosity rather than tension. A little chocolate that carries the memory of a grandmother’s love.
Perhaps you know that strange smallness, too. The way your voice changes in a medical room. The effort of remembering your questions once someone walks through the door. The wish for someone to see how much it took to get you there.
I wonder what you might want to bring with you. What would help you feel accompanied, or give some familiar part of you a little room? It might be something as quiet as asking for a pause. Wearing your own warm socks. Having someone waiting for your call afterward.
I keep returning to my shaking foot and my steady heart. How both belonged. How fear could be present while something new was happening around it: a hand to hold, familiar music, laughter in a room where I had expected to brace myself. Small things, perhaps. Yet they help make a place for the person inside the gown. The one with a history, a sense of humor, preferences, fears, and a whole life beyond this appointment.
Now that room belongs to this memory, too. My body will never unknow that day and memory with the warmth of a kind friend. The way that another appointment on the nurse and surgeon’s schedule became a co-created gathering of women engaged in delight, banter and a shared enjoyment of a playlist.
This week, the care we gathered became the core memory of what I carried home. My body needed tending. So did the rest of me… tender, shaking, curious, a little wild. This week there was room for her.
It turns out that therapists outside of their chairs can be vulnerable and brave too. And how they live their lives impacts the space they make for those same parts of their clients as well. May you know that there is room for you, also. If any of these experiences resonate with you, my door is open. lindy@lindypearsoncounseling.com You are welcome here. All of you is welcome.
With love and gratitude to my dear friend Haylie Schwartz, a counselor whose work includes chronic pain, for her companionship, care, and play. What helps you bring a little of yourself into these spaces?