A session with my therapist took an unexpected tack.
From my diary for 2019-11-28:
I was talking about Robert McAfee Brown‘s complete transference of anxiety onto the issue of liberation theology. I am dumbfounded that transference actually works. What anxieties do I face in attending to the here-and-now?
I said contemplation of the concrete present is what gives me confidence or courage, and enables me to step out and take risks. As I said this, I felt courage, and felt the corresponding warmth in solar plexus, and enjoyed it. So why don’t I do this more often?
If I had more courage, this could spell an end to procrastination and indecisiveness. In both cases, this involves a willingness to abide untoward emotions, just as a soldier must do when he heads into battle. I would do more for myself — Somehow, when I think this, the words “for myself” are always there. — and accomplish. I might actually want my own place. I might quit smoking.
A doubt has been: just because that’s MY source for courage, is that THE source for courage? Dare I tell others, this is THE source for courage? I have no way to know if it is. But I can tell my story, that this works for me.
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