Intentensive week is over!

Week one of my two year Masters program is under my belt. Hallelujah! It was exactly as they communicated it would be, intense. I haven't sat in a class room for 20 years and being back for 10 hours a day all week was challenging.

This class was really about the basics. It focused on the History of Marriage and Family Therapy, the terms used and the personal responsibility each of us has to being as healthy as possible in order to coach and help others.

A couple of the things that stood out most to me where focused on our perspective. Dr. T walked into class with a poop mask on his face. He danced in to the song..."I got the power..." It was very funny and very engaging to try to figure out what the poop head had to do with MFT.

His point was this....there are uncomfortable, scary, awkward people and situations all over our lives. He calls the people the poopheads. He explained that our natural inclination is to move away from the poopheads in life...and those poophead situations. We have two basic impulses, the strong one which is typically the easiest to respond to, like flee from awkward scary moments. Or the weaker impulse to draw near to it and see what ways we can grow through it. He used the analogy of the poop being uncomfortable, stinky, icky, get away from it now. OR the poop can be fertilizer and grow us and change us and produce new life in us.

So, the poop head illuminated a lot of truth to me. It really was a spiritual metaphor as well. He drew Jesus as an example. That Jesus never was one to move away from awkward people or the poophead people. Instead he always drew near to them, sought to understand them, loved them. He urged us to look at the poopheads in our lives and consider our responses.

I love this analogy. I love the principle of yielding to the Spirit, our weaker impulse over our flesh, stronger impulse. I love the picture of Christ putting others over himself.

Dr. T worked hard to dig up things in our lives that we might be moving away from, instead of embracing. He challenged us to lean into the USA (uncomfortable, scary, awkward). He pressed us about being open to changing our perspectives and being willing to grow.

I learned a lot this week about MFT but mostly I learned about places in my life where I am standing off protecting myself from authentic change and authentic love. I am starting to think this Masters program may be much more about personal growth then me ever helping anyone.