“Yes,” I honestlyreplied.
“Good. I’m thrilled to hear that you hadn’t denied yourself that release.” He paused and the awkward silence soon dissipated. “What are your plans fortomorrow?”
I mentioned that I had to go to work but looked forward to the baseball game on TV tomorrow night. We talked about baseball some more, which was all easy stuff for me to talk about. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him about my restlessness and what seemed to be extra tension. I tried to find an opening in our conversation to fit it in, but I wasn’t good at this. But it was like Russell knew that I had something on my mind. I wondered if his astute observation was from his background inpsychology.
“Is there anything on your mind that you’d like todiscuss?”
“Uh,” I drew it out as if I had to think about it. And I did quickly think about it to be sure that I wanted to talk about it.I needed to trust him.“Yeah, but I don’t really have my thoughts gathered about ityet.”
I was giving him a way out. If he pushed, I’d talk. If not, I could wait and see if these feelings of restlessness would settle and go away on theirown.
“Let’sdiscuss.”
Shit. Okay, I could talk. This would be for the best, afterall.
“Okay, I might just be overthinking everythinglately—”
“Ryan, don’t minimize what you’re thinking or feeling. Thoughts and feelings don’t require anexcuse.”
I thought about that for a moment. Had I been making an excuse and minimizing what I had beenthinking?
“It’s just, something isn’t making sense to me. I thought I had stress and tension under control before the session yesterday. I mean, I had tension before, I guess, but the session had helped it. I guess what I’m confused by is that the tension today and tonight seems so much worse than it had been before our session. Does that makesense?”
Russell didn’t say anything immediately, and in an effort to avoid more awkward silence, I spoke upagain.
“I thought that the tension would be less now because it went away for a while yesterday. But it cameback.”
I hoped I hadn’t sounded like a pussy. Or awimp.
“What you’re experiencing makes sense, Ryan. Your body, and mind, received something yesterday that it needed. Something that it hungeredfor.”
How did heknow?
“How do youknow?”
“Because of what you just said.” It was quiet between us on the phone as I retraced my words. “Ryan, you admitted that after our session, the tension you had felt had been eradicated. The need that your body and mind hungered for had been satedtemporarily.”
My need? Was this something I truly needed? Was this what I had been looking for or had needed all of mylife?
“Time has now elapsed from our session, and your mind and body are returning to what you’re used to, or coming down, as it’s often called. So, now what’s happening, is that your mind and body want more of that taste you gave ityesterday.”
“I do want more,” I quicklyadmitted.
“You’ll get more, but in time. You need a few days to recover. Not just physically, Ryan. Mentally you need some time toreflect.”
I didn’t argue with him, but I did feel a little better knowing that Russell knew what was up with me. Oddly enough, I still felt the need to speak up and talk through mythoughts.
“How can my body be hungry for being hit? I had enough of that to last a lifetime. So, I don’t understand how it needsit.”
“Ryan, it’s simply not the physical portion that your body needs and wants. It’s what your mind is getting from the impact session. Emotionally, you received something very important from the session. And because of that, you hunger formore.”
“Do you know what it is that I’m getting emotionally? Because I don’t and it’s driving mecrazy.”
“I have a very good suspicion what it is. Perhaps after our next session I will becertain.”
I sighed and looked up at myceiling.
“In the meantime, I’m going to email you some links to either articles or videos that I’d like you to watch over the next few days. Each evening, let’s get on the phone and discuss what you’ve watched or read thatday.”
