To find your real self, focus on delight

When I treat patients with OCD, we focus on understanding and listening to the “real self”. The real self is, always, the opposite of the feared possible self. We ask “who are you, really?” What are your values? How do you spend your time? What would an “alien” be able to infer about you? 

Again and again, in these sessions I find myself drawing on my training in attachment and trauma. The most powerful sessions take place when I focus on my patient’s skills, wisdom, creativity, drive, passion, curiosity, playfulness, and goodness. Reflecting to them my delight in who they are and their unique capacity as we explore their real self. 

Each time I go through I-CBT with a patient, I find that after we reach the “real self” part of the treatment our focus shifts. Now, instead of focusing on their fear of the week, whatever doubt is plaguing them, we focus on their real self. We don’t have to rationalize, conceptualize, dispute, neutralize, or resolve the doubt. We focus on the wisdom, capacity, and aliveness of the person sitting in the room with me. 

When we are connected with this void, our attention is entirely placed our need to validate our own sense of value and worth using our accomplishments, other’s opinions of us, or any other factor to provide feedback that not only do we exist, we have a right to the things we need or want. 

When we’re not connected with this void, our attention moves more freely as we negotiate the world with confidence and self-assurance. We know who we are and we can make decisions that are congruent with this image of who we are. 

Obviously, we all want to feel the second. And yet. 

I have spent years exploring what to do with this void. Do we have to fill it? Are we bringing light to the darkness? Are we doing trauma treatment? Attachment repair? What does it mean to connect with our sense of self? 

I’ve learned there’s no single answer, but I’ve also learned that the more we are connected with our own desire, pleasure, and aliveness, the less shits we give about the void. 

So how do we connect with our own aliveness? 

I’m glad you asked. 

When is the last time you lost track of time because you were enjoying yourself?

What would you do if you had a week, infinite resources, and no obligations?

When was the last time you had an orgasm?

What is your favorite texture/fabric to wear?

What is your favorite color?

What is your go-to song?

What do you most enjoy eating?

When is the last time you really laughed?

When is the last time you moved your body just for fun?

When is the last time you helped someone because you wanted to (not because you needed to)?

When is the last time something beautiful moved you to tears?

When is the last time you were kind?

When is the last time someone was kind to you?

When is the last time you were held?

When is the last time you held someone?

I’m not trying to send you into a shame spiral or a sadness spiral if the answer is “a long time ago” or “I don’t know”. But I do want you to start thinking about this, to start gathering information. Even if it was a long time ago or you don’t know, I want you to start thinking about your own preferences, your own delights. 

When you think about them, notice what happens to the muscles in your face, your breathing, your thoughts. At first, it might be hard, it might not actually feel good, that’s okay. We’re practicing. Now I want you to imagine a world where the thing you were practicing was delight.

What I have learned over and over again is that doubts and fears shift when our attention is trained on delight. 

Now instead of having the fear du jour, patients would begin telling me about their victories, the steps they took this week. The adventures. The risks. The growth. The pleasure. The joy. Our sessions began to shift to something that felt alive. Instead of spending 45 minutes a week talking about how they’d probably be okay, we started to dream, to imagine, to expand. Unexpectedly, I started to feel differently about these sessions too. Now I wasn’t just feeling an altruistic, “I’m holding space for people” joy, but actual delight in the creativity, capacity, and uniqueness of my patients. 

And you know what? My own fear and imposter syndrome started to go away too, as I focused on my own real self. The one who is playful, loves her patients, connects with their power. I felt my own capacity for connection and I started to live in a world where everyone I was interacting with had so much power and potential and get to delight in that.

Toward the end of the I-CBT, we ask a question “what would you be doing if you weren’t focused on the doubt?” For me, the answer has been: I’m writing this , I’m watching my patents go out into the world to live their lives, watching them take down structures of oppression and violence, I’m playing music and rock climbing and salsa dancing, and laughing. In short, I’m living.