I want to share my feelings and experiences lived through the intensive Gestalt therapy. Perhaps for someone my story will be relatable, clarifying something in their own life. Gestalt therapy, in my opinion, is one of the most effective methods of therapy. The main result of therapy is a change that allows me to live my life freely, with a sense of choice and responsibility for everything that happens to me. You have no idea how difficult it can be to take responsibility. It’s much easier to blame my husband, children, parents for the fact that nothing works out for me, that I’m afraid of everything and I’m constrained by this fear and therefore I don’t do anything, I don’t strive for anything, I don’t want anything. I lived for a very long time with a certain idea About Me. And this idea determined (and still determines) my capabilities, it is based on my beliefs and values ​​that my parents, significant people, once tried to instill in me. I have learned some things, but some I haven’t even chewed, and from time to time I am simply sick of what my colleagues, interlocutors, and close people are trying to impose on me. Apparently the time has come for overcrowding and you want to cleanse your body. This whole idea of ​​yourself as “good” instantly turned into some kind of illusion, a myth. The need to be “good” for me turned out to be so limiting and restraining in the free expression, first of all, of anger, irritation, indignation, refusal - all those feelings that are usually called bad, that I stopped feeling not only anger, but also warmth, love, joy. I ran past life without dwelling on my feelings. It turns out that I was stuck in my illusion and at the same time isolated myself so much from the people close to me that in moments when I felt resentment, anger, irritation, I rejected them. I made them responsible (and maybe I still do) for my feelings. The ban on “bad” feelings led to the fact that I stopped feeling completely. And the anger accumulated, accumulated, accumulated. And by the ninth day of the intensive it had already accumulated so much. And yet, anger helped me go to the session with Elena Burtseva. It was not at all easy to feel in a competitive situation. It was also insulting, I wanted to give in, give up everything, anger and indignation rolled in. From the session I remember that the process of me rejecting others is connected with my withdrawal into myself. I look away and focus on myself, while I begin to think: “What do I feel?” and the most interesting thing is that I find it difficult to answer the question. When I am in myself, I do not see the other, I lose contact with him and I myself get lost. By breaking contact with the other person's eyes, I interrupt my feelings and move past them. Then anger arises at the interlocutor, the therapist, that they do not understand me, that they want something from me. And at these moments I am at a dead end, I feel like I am stupid. At this stage, Elena’s words that something important was happening now, that this was what was needed, cheered me up and supported me. They helped me move forward in the session. The next moment that I remember was my story about how the night before the group and I were walking home in the evening and I was happily shouting along with Nadya’s son (a member of the group). Elena Burtseva picked up this story of mine and offered to express my anger with sound. And that was what I desperately needed at that moment. The scream was so strong that some of the group were scared. And I felt better. I felt relieved. The next step (very important) was to tell the group member I had chosen why I was angry with him. And this was a lot of experience for me. To say, looking into a person’s eyes, about your “bad” feelings and see his reaction and experience the reciprocal feelings of another, do not fall apart and maintain support in yourself. In personal therapy, it was important for me to concentrate on what is happening to me, to stop at sensations and feelings. And there was and is colossal energy, internal upliftment. I definitely wanted to fill the minutes of silence with conversation. Thus I avoided!!!