A life-changing moment with my therapist

A few years ago I had an interaction with my therapist that has gone on to shape my life in profound ways. I was engaged to my now wife, and in a state of mental anguish. I was suffering from incessant, obsessive ruminations regarding the engagement, and the leap I was about to make. I was worried about whether my choice to marry my partner was the 'correct' one. This is in fact a fairly common source of rumination, and some people designate it as a form of OCD known as Relationship OCD (ROCD). For me, my anxiety took on a spiritual dimension. I remember telling my therapist that I wish there were a divine, omniscient being that could somehow 'rubber stamp' my decision and thus provide me with the security I felt I needed going forward.

It was then that my therapist uttered the five words that changed my life. She said to me: "You have the rubber stamp". I'll say that again with emphasis: "YOU have the rubber stamp". In other words, I do not need anyone else, divine or otherwise, to say what I should or shouldn't do when it comes to such an immensely personal decision. The autonomous locus of choice lies within myself. I have the power to affirm the validity of my own decisions. 

Such a simple concept, yet to the anxious mind a source of immense, emancipatory wonder. We are each gods in our own domain. I am delighted to say that the decision to marry my wife was the best one I have ever made. I know that she is the one that god has chosen for me, because in making the choice I became my own god. If such language seems blasphemous, feel free to change the word 'god' to 'guru' or 'expert'. We each are the experts when it comes to our own lives. And we each get to have the power to decide whether the choices we make turn out to be the correct ones. It didn't happen by magic or accident that I made the 'correct' choice in marrying my wife; I work hard every day to make sure it was the correct choice. I put work into my relationship. 

I hope this little personal anecdote can serve as comfort to those who are suffering in the way that I did, and still sometimes do. I do not believe there is a being in the sky judging us. I believe our power lies within ourselves.