Outside the city, we can not only breathe clean air and enjoy the views, but also look inside ourselves. Psychotherapist Vladimir Dashevsky tells about his discoveries and how nature outside the window helps in the therapeutic process.
Last summer, my wife and I decided to rent a dacha to escape from the capital, where we spent self-isolation. Studying advertisements for renting country houses, we fell in love with one photo: a bright living room, glass doors to the veranda, about twenty meters away — the lake.
I can’t say that we immediately lost our heads from this place when we got to it. The village is unusual: gingerbread houses, as in Europe, there are no high fences, only a low fence between the plots, instead of trees, young arborvitae and even lawns. But there were land and water. And I am from Saratov and grew up on the Volga, so I have long wanted to live near the water.
Our lake is shallow, you can wade, and there is a suspension of peat in it — you can’t swim, you can only watch and fantasize. In the summer, a ritual developed by itself: the sun set behind the lake in the evenings, we sat on the veranda, drank tea and admired the sunsets. And then winter came, the lake froze over, and people started skating, skiing, and riding snowmobiles on it.
This is an amazing state, which is impossible in the city, calmness and balance arise simply from the fact that I look out the window. It’s very strange: no matter whether the sun is there, rain or snow, there is a feeling that I am inscribed in the course of events, as if my life is part of a common plan. And my rhythms, like it or not, synchronize with the time of the day and the year. Easier than clock hands.
I have set up my office and work online with some clients. Half the summer I looked at the hill, and now I turned the table and I see the lake. Nature becomes my fulcrum. When a client has a psychological imbalance and my condition is at risk, a glance out the window is enough for me to regain my peace. The world outside works like a balancer that helps the tightrope walker keep his balance. And, apparently, this is manifested in intonation, in the ability not to rush, to pause.
I can’t say that I use it consciously, everything happens by itself. There are moments in therapy when it is completely unclear what to do. Especially when the client has a lot of strong emotions.
And suddenly I feel that I don’t need to do anything, I just need to be, and then for the client I also become, in a sense, a part of nature. Like snow, water, wind, like something that simply exists. Something to rely on. It seems to me that this is the greatest that a therapist can give, not words, but the quality of one’s existence in this contact.
I don’t know yet whether we will stay here: my daughter needs to go to kindergarten, and the hostess has her own plans for the plot. But I am sure that someday we will have our own home. And the lake is nearby.