Robot Therapist

Fourteen days into my vacation, the last day, begins with my feet propped on the thick brick wall enclosing Grami’s front porch, a place full of childhood memories. Over a hundred years ago, Great-Grampa set these red bricks by hand. Next to the front door, a plack placed by the Morton History Project declares this home a Morton Historic Home.

Sitting in this historic location, I’m halfway through a 2000 page Complete History of Education. The journey takes me all the way from 3500 BC, through ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and China, through Roman Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation, to the New World.

Uncle Greg is fascinated and dumbfounded with my interest in this book.

“I’d rather watch TV.” Shaking his head, he returns to his baseball game.

Hours later, I pop the book closed. The musty odor jumps into my face.

The Cincinnati Reds are crushing the Chicago White Sox, 7 to 4. Standing between Greg and Grami, I announce. “Finished.”

“She just read that big book that’s been in the downstairs bathroom my whole life.”

“Well, she is a Robot Therapist.” My 95-year-old Grami laughs at herself as she tries to brag about me and recall my actual occupation, Aerospace Engineer.

“Oh, Mom, you mean Rocket Scientist.”

She may be more correct then she knows. I live with PTSD, paralysis and chronic pain, all resulting from a near fatal car accident 17 years ago. I lost my mother and the use of my left arm. I work through pain and guilt and fear, compounded by childhood trauma, to come to my Flying Lessons. They are a tangible list of ways to think and be. They taught me how to soar above my pain.

We are robots, blindly walking through life. Hiding our pain. Lying to ourselves, to those who love us and to God.

I am fine. I don’t need. It’s not my fault.

The lies leave us isolated.

So how do we shed that robot mentality? How do we show up? How do we authentically give our true selves to ourselves, to our community and to our God?

I offer my Flying Lessons to you.

They are for you who suffer. They are for you who bury your pain. And they are for you who want to love the suffering well, when there is absolutely nothing you can do.

Take a moment and look.

Where is the resistance? What makes you defensive? Where do you feel it in your body? What does it remind you of? Are you scared? Or angry? Or sad? Or do you feel nothing at all?

Maybe it’s too big to grab on to. Can you locate a boundary? Is it cloudy? It may fade into the next. Try to find the core. Does it radiate? Is it sharp? Dull? Heavy? What color is it? How bright or dark is it? What does it smell like? Can you taste it?

Does it ooze through your fingers like Jell-O? You’re doing great. Stay with me. Place your hands on your lower abdomen. Take in a deep breath. Feel your core fill with life.

Now see it. Really see the pain. It will not destroy you. You will not fall apart. That is a lie. Say it out loud.

“That is a lie.”

The demons shrivel and shrink at your sight.

I am your Robot Therapist.

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