One of the first things I discovered was that there was really no playbook for how to be a therapist. As with meditation, it had to be figured out from the inside. There was no script to

follow when sitting with a patient, no “right way” to handle things, only a set of ethical guidelines and a trust that listening “with a third ear” would help shape a useful response and serve a useful purpose. Each person, each visit, and each issue required an improvisatory spirit that kept me on my toes, much as I had felt when practicing mindfulness on my first silent retreats. I have had wonderful teachers, supervisors, and therapists, but, even in my first days, while still in training, once the door closed and I was alone with my patient, no one knew what I might do or say, least of all myself.

In our culture, we often have trouble distinguishing selflessness from submission, but they are very different things. Lukas was inclined to keep his feelings bottled up, but this scenario could not go on forever. His feelings were coming out in spite of himself, and his marriage needed more contribution from his side if it was to thrive. I think Lukas wanted his husband to understand what he needed without having to articulate it. There is a risk involved in speaking up, the age-old risk of loss of love. I didn’t think Lukas gave himself enough credit in his relationship; I didn’t think he valued himself enough. I meant it when I told him it was up to him to educate his partner. Sex was one important theater for this kind of exchange; I doubted that it was the only one.

Radical self-inquiry is the path to seeing habits and patterns. Questions that drive us toward that insight are endlessly helpful:

• ‘What parts of me are being projected onto the other person?’ 

• ‘How do I reclaim those parts of me?’ 

• ‘What do my reactions say about me?’ 

• ‘Why do I do what I do?’ 

• ‘Why do they do what they do?’ 

• ‘What need for love, safety, or belonging might they be trying to meet with their irrational behavior?

Pattern disrupting.

I know I am always whole theoretically, but I don’t always feel that way, I feel half sometimes, I feel fragmented sometimes, messy. Being whole includes owning all of that as me. When I am feeling fragmented or limited, seeing any of my friends in their wholeness reminds me of my own capacity. And as I stand in my wholeness, which includes being more honest with myself and others about what I want and who I am in the world, it exerts a pressure on others, both to receive me and to become more whole in themselves. This disrupts those

familiar diminishing patterns in my friends and in myself, the internalization of a world that has rejected every aspect of my identity at some point. Counter rejection. Still I rise. And new patterns become possible, more interconnected and interdependent patterns that rely on being open.

Seeking first to understand, diagnosing before you prescribe, is hard. It’s so much easier in the short run to hand someone a pair of glasses that have fit you so well these many years. But in the long run, it severely depletes both P and PC. You can’t achieve maximum interdependent production from an inaccurate understanding of where other people are coming from. And you can’t have interpersonal PC—high Emotional Bank Accounts—if the people you relate with don’t really feel understood. Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal of security to go into a deep listening experience because you open yourself up to be influenced. You become vulnerable. It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have to really understand. That’s why Habits 1, 2, and 3 are so foundational. They give you the changeless inner core, the principle center, from which you can handle the more outward vulnerability with peace and strength.