Harness healing power of talking with a friend

I have a paid friend. The title isn't original; it comes from a non-pecuniary naturally grown friend who had one for himself.

I pay my friend the usual and customary fees for a therapist, and it is worth every penny. He does what the gratuitous friends do. He listens, he doesn't judge; he gives wise counsel. He lets me talk about anything I want. We could talk about sports, the weather or affairs of state, but mostly we talk about my state of mind. I get to put into spoken words emotions and fears that are often semantic orphans. They are feelings without words. I am aware of them, I sense them, I am burdened down by them, but my professional friend permits and obligates me to put them into the domain of the brain's language areas and turn them into sentences. By transforming right-sided feelings into left-sided words, a person is able to define and thereby deal with the origins of the feelings of doubt, worry and sorrow.

Friends do a lot, paid or free. They let us bring thoughts to life. Conversation is essential for human-to-human interaction. Males and females do it differently. It seems that guys can't do it as well, or at least they need a club, or some rod or a cup of suds in their hands. Women, on the other hand, do it over lunch, over the phone or over children. It may be they were taught by their mothers to chat. Someone has noted that mothers talk to their infant daughters more than to their infant sons. Men grow up in relative silence and often perpetuate it with their buddies.

I am a lousy golfer, get seasick, and I am not partial to crowds, so I spend my money for my paid friend instead of green fees, boats, or season tickets to games. For those not so inclined I would suggest other forms of conversation. Start talking with friends you already have about feelings and see if you notice a difference.

Conversing friends heal. There is an interesting lesson from the Bible told in Mark. After Jesus calmed the storms of the Sea of Galilee, in the very next chapter he comes ashore and he calms the tempest in the mind of a mad man who occupied tombs and who howls and cuts himself with a stone. His illness was cured by expelling demons. This man, now of sound mind, wants to follow the Great Healer, but he is stopped. Instead, Christ tells him to return to his friends and talk to them. "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee."

The continued therapy was to talk with friends and speak of feelings of gratitude. There was no mention whether the friends were paid, but the idea is the same. Talking to other human beings about emotions has curative powers.