Life is a story. But what if the story you've been living doesn't feel entirely your own? As if you're reading from a script someone else has written. You recognize the words, but you don't always understand why your character acts the way they do.
For years, I had a feeling that someone was whispering on my shoulder. It was a quiet voice that noticed things. It noticed when I was carrying a burden that wasn't mine. It noticed when I was playing a game I couldn't win. It noticed when I was a prisoner in a fortress I had built to protect myself.
I called that voice the therapist on my shoulder.
You have one too. We all do. It's the part of us that knows the truth even when we're not ready to hear it.
This page has nothing complicated or for sale. It is simply a tool to give your own quiet voice a microphone. A source from which you can learn how to "rework" and "unpack" your own story until its common thread finally begins to appear.
The journey is simple:
But first, it's time for my story.
It was Sunday, February ninth, approaching three in the afternoon. A couple of weeks earlier, we had been planning an Easter trip. Now we were sitting in the living room of our house, and for a moment longer, the world was still whole. Then she said it. She didn't shout, she didn't cry. She said it calmly, almost matter-of-factly, and that's what made it so unreal.
"I want a divorce."
My first reaction wasn't sadness or anger. It was pure confusion. My brain tried to place the sentence into some familiar context, but there was none. They were just words, floating in the air without meaning. I could hear her talking about our differences and months of consideration, but it was like background noise. Then, through the shock, a cold, analytical part of me took over. It was as if someone else was speaking with my mouth, asking the only question that mattered.
"Is there someone else?"
Her answer, a quiet "yes," was the moment everything stopped. The world didn't shatter with a loud crash; it simply ceased to exist. The emotions vanished. All that remained was a strange, serene clarity. There was nothing to negotiate, nothing to fix. My second marriage was also ending in divorce. The game was over.
I stood up. I don't remember if anything else was said. I only remember the mechanical motion: keys from my pocket, shoes on, door open. There was no reason to look back. I stepped out of the house that was no longer my home and got into the car. I started the engine and drove away. I didn't know where I was going. I only knew I had to keep moving. As I drove, I called my mother. Not because she had answers, but because I needed to hear my own voice to prove to myself that I still existed.
That was the beginning. It was the swift, clean cut that separated the old life from the new. I just didn't know yet that it was also the first step on a journey that had begun twenty-four years earlier. A journey I had left unfinished, and which I was now forced to complete.
I spent that first night alone in my mother's townhouse. She was at the cottage with her husband, where they lived most of the year. I was in a fog. I didn't sleep, nor was I truly awake. I was just existing in some limbo where time had lost its meaning. My mind was still in that car, driving aimlessly away from a life that had been mine just a moment before. In the morning, when occupational health called based on a concern notice filed by my manager, I could barely say a word. I existed, but I wasn't present.
On the second or third day after the separation, I walked into the office, completely broken. My first therapeutic contact was the work psychologist. I sat in his office and listed the facts like a shopping list, unable to analyze or feel. It was only after those five sessions, when the short-term therapy provided by my employer began, that I could start the deeper work. But in the beginning, it was all about survival. I started a project called "New Life." First task: find an apartment in Helsinki. Second: arrange the move. Third: tell Eeva.
And amidst all that activity, that first weekend, as I packed my life into boxes in our house, I felt a strange, familiar feeling. This feeling - of complete failure, loss of direction, crushing shame - was not entirely new. It had an echo. An echo that took me back twenty-four years.
I was 21 and in my first long-term relationship. I was dating Peppiina. She was everything a young man could wish for: kind, beautiful, and sweet. But I was lost. I worked dead-end jobs and lived a life that seemed to have no direction. All my energy went into band practice and partying with friends. They were escape routes from a reality I couldn't face. Our relationship had withered; when it was just the two of us, we had nothing to talk about.
Then came the evening that has gnawed at me ever since. We were at home when Peppiina asked me to stay with her because her grandmother had passed away. And I, instead of being supportive, chose my friends and a party. I let her go to her mother's alone. That act was so selfish and immature that the memory of it still hurts. It was a symbol of who I was back then: fleeing from difficulty, irresponsible, and unable to face a genuine, heavy emotion.
It was no wonder we broke up at the turn of the millennium. And it was no wonder that one of her comments towards the end of the relationship was that I lacked passion in my life. She was right. And that comment, combined with a deep, unprocessed guilt and shame, was left to smolder inside me. It was the burden I carried into my new life.
The following May Day Eve, coming home from a course, it all came pouring out. Suddenly, a huge, inexplicable wave of sickness hit me. I tried to eat, but I couldn't. On the bus ride home, I felt completely trapped and was afraid I would throw up. I jumped off mid-journey just to get away. That was the start of constant doctor visits and a fear that always peaked in places I couldn't easily escape. Just two months later, I met Venla and began a new, two-decade-long escape from myself.
Now, at 46, I stood at the same point again, but this time everything was different. That young man had fled his anxiety straight into the next relationship. I now made a conscious decision to face it. I told myself that if I had two divorces behind me, it was time to do things completely differently. I decided that this time, I would take no shortcuts. This time, I would not look for a new pillar to lean on. This time, I would rebuild everything, alone, from start to finish. And that decision, in the midst of all that pain, was the first moment I felt something new: not relief, not joy, but a small, yet firm sense of my own strength.
The moving process was a carefully structured ritual. Packing the first weekend, the main bulk of my things the second. I fetched the rest only after three months, giving myself time to adjust. As I carried the last boxes into my new rental apartment on the edge of Helsinki's Central Park, I felt its full weight for the first time: I was now truly alone.
And that's exactly how it felt. Walking into the IBM office, I felt like an exhibit. I was that mythical creature, the ghost of remote work, who people had heard rumors about but few had ever seen. People came to say hello, curious and friendly, but I felt like a monkey in a cage. Humor was their way of dealing with the situation - some joked about whether they had been working with an AI for years and poked me playfully. I laughed along, but inside, a silent panic was rising. The lunch break was the worst.
For the first month, I ate my packed lunch alone. Then I dared to buy a salad and eat it quickly. Then I moved on to real food, still alone. It was only after a month or two that I dared to have lunch with a coworker. It was slow, gradual exposure, social rehabilitation.
And amidst all that was new and frightening, my thoughts kept returning to the life that had been the complete opposite of this. To the fortress I had built with Venla.
Meeting Venla was like finding a lifeboat on a stormy sea. The constant, vague anxiety that had plagued me all spring finally found its counterweight. Venla was fiery and sharp-tongued, but she brought structure and partnership to my life, which I had craved. We became a team. We argued, we compromised, and we lived, but we did it together. The feeling of no longer fighting alone was intoxicating.
The birth of our children - Eila, Miro, and Alvar - sealed that team. They gave life a new, indisputable purpose. When we moved to Nurmes and I started working remotely for Remedy, the final walls of the fortress rose. I had built myself a perfect shelter. I had a family that gave me a role and a sense of belonging. And I had remote work, which removed the anxiety-inducing social situations I had feared. I could live in a safe, controlled bubble.
But that security came at a price. Gradually, I noticed I was carrying that burden. I was the one who was flexible. I was the one who sensed the other's moods and tried to anticipate conflicts. I was the one who carried the responsibility for the atmosphere. It became normal; I didn't even think about it. But it was constant, low-intensity work that drained my energy. Then, one summer, something happened that shook the fortress's foundations. Venla had a TIA (transient ischemic attack). It was a huge shock and fear. And in the time that followed, when I needed that team the most, I found myself alone. The stress and worry were too much for our already unbalanced dynamic. It was like a long, slow earthquake that eventually, more than a year later, led us to file for divorce. The fortress had fallen.
I sat in my new apartment, listening to the wind rustling through the trees in Central Park, and thought about that contrast. For seventeen years, I had lived in a shelter, a fortress that was simultaneously my refuge and my prison. Now, all the walls were gone. I was completely naked and defenseless. The thought was terrifying. But for the first time in my life, it was also incredibly liberating. I no longer had to play mental chess. I no longer had to carry anyone else's burden. I only had to survive my own. And for some reason, that felt lighter.
Spring progressed one day at a time. The chaos slowly but surely began to form into a new daily routine. What had at first felt overwhelming became routine. Lunch breaks at the office were no longer a battle for survival, but a part of the day. I started going to the gym, then playing floorball. Every successful rep at the gym and every pass on the floorball court was small proof that my body still existed and obeyed me. They were anchors in reality.
At the same time, I began the real work in therapy. It was a process of reworking and unpacking. We went over events, feelings, and thought patterns again and again. It was exhausting, but with each session, some small piece clicked better into place. The weekends were the hardest. When the mandatory structure of the workweek disappeared, a void was left. I sat in my quiet apartment and let the waves come: first the sharp, disbelieving pain, then a deep, bottomless sorrow. And after them, surprisingly, a calm peace. And right there in that void, in that silence, I had to face what I had been trying to ignore for the past six years. I had to face Eeva.
I had met her on Tinder late in the year after my separation. I was still completely broken from the breakup with Venla, living alone in a big house and trying to start that arduous journey with myself. Then Eeva appeared. The beginning was a perfect storm. It was an infatuation, filled with endless calls and messages. It was intoxicating. It was everything I didn't know I was missing. And it was a perfect, effective medicine for the unbearable loneliness and pain I felt.
That unfinished journey of self-discovery was forgotten. Eeva became my new crutch, my new project, my new team. I believed this was the new beginning. I didn't understand that I was just changing the stage and the co-star in the same old play.
After the initial passion, daily life began, and with it, the familiar patterns returned. I found myself carrying that burden again. I was the one reading between the lines, anticipating moods, and trying to manage the atmosphere. It was difficult for her to accept the parts of me that didn't fit into her world. My anxiety was an inconvenience to her. The noise and chaos of my children were unbearable to her. And when I tried to talk about these things, I was often met with the same silence I had come to know so well. It was the moment, in the middle of an argument, when she said those words, "Be a man," that I realized I was not being seen or heard.
We bought a house, got engaged, and eventually married. We built a superficially perfect life, but inside it, I was slowly disappearing. Sometimes my body would show symptoms - dizziness, shortness of breath. It was the same old anxiety that had found a new way to remind me of its presence. It was my body's way of telling me that the fortress I had built again was turning into a prison. But I didn't listen. Not until it was too late.
And it was around that time, as the anxiety smoldering beneath the surface was looking for a way out, that I seriously considered moving away from my role as a consultant and applying for a permanent position at IBM. I explained it to myself with perfectly rational reasons: I was getting older, and after years of living in constant uncertainty, with contracts up for renewal every six or twelve months, it felt taxing. I wanted stability.
But now, after everything, I understand it more clearly. Beneath that practical consideration lay another, much deeper and quieter motive. I remember the moment the thought struck me in all its starkness: if a divorce from Eeva were to happen, a stable job at a large company would be an anchor. It would be a financial and social safety net.
It was such a cold and calculating thought that I immediately pushed it out of my mind. It didn't fit the image of a happy man building a future together. But the seed had been planted.
Was that the therapist on my shoulder already? The part of me that saw through the facade and understood how fragile the foundation of my new fortress was? It wasn't an analytical voice yet; it was an instinctive, primitive survivor who wasn't building a fortress, but secretly digging an escape tunnel out of it.
And now, in the silence of my Helsinki apartment, I finally understood. Eeva hadn't been a new beginning. She had been a six-year-long, beautiful, and painful detour. She was a shortcut that had led me back to the exact same place I had been before, but this time with an even heavier load: the burden of complete betrayal and lost years.
I understood that I had to go through all of this. I had to experience the most crushing collapse so that I would have no other choice but to stop looking for support in others and finally start building the only foundation that can last: myself.
The Helsinki spring turned into summer. Life began to settle into its new grooves. I was still broken, but the pieces were starting to fall into a new order. This external change, however, was just a reflection of the immense internal work I was doing.
Therapy sessions were important, but they were only every other week. I found I needed something more constant. I also couldn't keep bothering my mother and my friends, who were my biggest supporters in the midst of my pain.
I noticed in my work how effective artificial intelligence is at finding the deepest flaws and connections in even the most complex systems. I decided to try the same with my own life. I created an initial prompt for an AI that contained everything I had experienced and began to iterate on it. To "rework" it, as I called it. It was as if I had outsourced the therapist on my shoulder, given it a voice, and made it an active conversation partner.
This process was like an archaeological dig. I unearthed old memories and feelings, cleaned the dirt off them, and began to arrange them on a table to see how they were connected. Slowly, painfully, I began to see a pattern. The burden I had felt wasn't just a feeling. It was real, invisible work I had been doing for decades. The mental chess game I had feared had been my everyday life. I understood that I had lived in relationships where partnership had been conditional - it was fair-weather support that disappeared when a real storm hit. And I, who had always tried to be the balance, had broken down myself as soon as I could no longer hold it all up.
I began to understand that Venla and Eeva were not two separate, unfortunate stories. They were different chapters of the same book, and the main plot had been the same all along.
In the first act, I was a young man who fled his anxiety and responsibility by building a fortress called "family." That fortress protected me from the outside world, but inside it, I learned a role where my job was to maintain peace by carrying the responsibility for interpreting and anticipating another's emotions.
In the second act, after the first fortress had fallen, I sought refuge in a new person. I stepped right back into my old role because it was the only one I knew. This time, the walls were just higher and the game was tougher. I tried to adapt, to understand, to be what was expected of me - until I couldn't anymore. And when my strength ran out, so did the relationship.
I understood that the problem was never just them. The problem was the dynamic that I myself had allowed to form because I had never built my own, independent foundation. I had always built my life on another person, and therefore I had always been susceptible to collapsing as soon as I sensed the other person was drifting away.
This realization was crushing and, at the same time, deeply liberating. It meant I wasn't just a victim. I had been an active participant in my own play. And if I had been a co-author of the problem, it also meant I had the power to solve it.
I looked out of my apartment window at the summery Helsinki. For the first time, I didn't see a void or loneliness. I saw an open space. A space with no old stage sets or pre-written lines. I saw an empty stage on which I, and only I, would now get to write the next act. And that feeling, a mix of responsibility and freedom, was heavier and at the same time lighter than anything I had ever felt.
Understanding alone is not enough. It is a map, but it is not the journey. This summer is the moment when I stopped studying the old map and started walking a new path. It wasn't one big, dramatic decision, but hundreds of small, everyday choices.
It was the decision to go to floorball even when I felt like staying on the couch. It was the decision to go to the gym and feel the physical strength slowly return to a body that had for so long only carried a mental burden. It was the decision to complete a Finnish Red Cross volunteer course, not because I was looking for a new project, but because I wanted to give something unconditionally and at the same time break the bubble I had built around myself.
At work, I was immediately well-received; I was liked and part of the group. But that real, internal relaxation took its time. It was only after months that I noticed myself laughing genuinely during a coffee break, without observing myself. I had become my happy self again, and to others, I apparently appeared as a figure armed with extreme self-confidence. It was ironic because inside I still felt insecure, but what was reflected outward was apparently the peace that comes when you are no longer pretending.
The biggest change of all, however, happened in my relationship with my children. When I was no longer bound to that burden and the constant management of the atmosphere, space opened up for me to be genuinely present for them. One evening, I had a deep, hours-long conversation with Miro about life, anxiety, and the future. I didn't advise, I didn't teach. I listened. And in that moment, when I saw in his eyes the understanding that his father sees and hears him as a whole person, I realized that I had been trying to offer my children what I had always craved myself: a safe father.
This new life wasn't all sunshine. There were still waves of sadness. There were weekends when loneliness felt like a physical weight on my chest. But the difference from before was huge. I no longer fled from those feelings. I let them come, acknowledged their existence, and knew that they would also pass. They were just visitors, no longer permanent residents.
Slowly, without noticing, I began to live according to the manual of that new life. It wasn't a rulebook written on paper, but a new, internal compass. It guided me away from situations that felt like mental chess and towards people and things that felt genuine and reciprocal. I was no longer building a fortress. I was building a home - first inside myself, and only then in the world.
The journey to this moment has been long, forty-six years. For most of that time, I have looked for answers, peace, and security outside of myself - in other people, in relationships, in structures. I have tried to adapt, to support, and to anticipate. I have played a game whose rules I didn't understand, and wondered why I never won.
Now I understand. The game was wrong, and I have been playing it alone.
This book, this story, is the end of that old game. It is the final accounting. And this last chapter is no longer a story of the past, but my new map and compass. It is a set of principles that I have bought at a high price, and which I no longer intend to compromise on.
First principle: I listen to myself.
That voice I called the therapist on my shoulder is no longer a whisper. It is my most important advisor. I will never again ignore that feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me something is wrong or that I am about to get into the old, draining game. My intuition is not an unreliable feeling, but the result of decades of data collection and analysis. I trust it.
Second principle: I guard my boundaries.
I now understand that it is not my job to carry another person's burden. I am not a savior or a fixer. I can offer compassion and support, but I will never again take responsibility for another adult's happiness, feelings, or unprocessed problems. I am a signpost, not a destination. Everyone carries their own backpack.
Third principle: I own my authenticity.
I will stop apologizing for who I am. My sensitivity, my analytical nature, my ability to empathize, and my need for routines are not flaws. They are my operating system. I will no longer try to adapt to a person for whom these traits are an inconvenience. I will look for a person for whom they are compatible. I am not a project to be modified.
Fourth principle: I demand reciprocity.
I will no longer settle for fair-weather support. A partnership is a two-way street and a choice, and it must withstand repeated harsh storms. My future partner will be a person who knows how and wants to take responsibility and stand by my side even when things are difficult. They communicate directly, but above all, kindly and respectfully. I am looking for another team member, not a passenger.
Fifth principle: I accept peace.
I know that life has its ebbs and flows. There will be setbacks, mistakes, sorrow, and bad days. But the difference from before is the bedrock on which I have now built. I no longer fear the waves, because I know that my house will stand. I accept that new, stable baseline called peace. It is no longer a rare guest, but a permanent resident.
This is my new map. It doesn't tell me what the future will bring, but it guarantees that I will never again get lost in the same way. I have stopped looking for direction in others. I have finally found it within myself.
Next, on to the dreams that were created.
The year is 2027. I am no longer just a lead developer at IBM. I have spent the last two years spending my evenings and weekends building something of my own. It started as a side project, almost as a joke: an application with the working title "Shoulder Therapist."
It's an AI-based, interactive journal and life-structuring tool. It doesn't give ready-made answers but asks precisely those sharp, pattern-breaking questions that helped me. I have coded into it all the wisdom I learned the hard way.
The application is launched on a small budget, but it takes off. People who are stuck in their own fortresses and chess games find in it a tool that gives them words and clarity. I suddenly become one of Finland's best-known pioneers in wellness technology. I am no longer just the man who survived. I am the man who built a map for others. And along the way, I meet another tech visionary, a woman with whom the conversations never end, because we are building the future together.
It's 2028. I'm still at my job, but a new passion has entered my life. It all started when, through Miro, I got to know a few young, talented but insecure musicians. I saw in them the same 21-year-old, lost version of myself.
I decide to rent a practice space. At first, I just go there by myself, play the guitar, and let the music take me. But soon I start inviting these young people there. I don't teach them how to play; I listen. I talk with them about anxiety, fears, dreams, and the importance of being honest with oneself. I become their safe adult, the mentor I myself would have needed.
I found a small, non-profit association that offers young musicians not only a practice space but also mental support. And one evening, while listening to one of the bands play at a small club, I notice a woman next to me who is looking at the stage with the same warmth and understanding. She is a music therapist. And our conversation begins there.
It's spring 2026. I've been dating cautiously, but I haven't yet met anyone who truly piques my interest. Then I meet her. She is everything I thought I was looking for: smart, successful, beautiful, and independent. She is an architect who designs magnificent buildings.
But I soon notice something familiar. She lives in her own, perfectly controlled fortress. She divorced years ago but has never really processed it. She is a master at maintaining a perfect facade.
And here is the dramatic twist. I don't fall into the old trap. I don't start supporting or saving her. Instead, I act as a mirror. I am honest, I set my boundaries, and I speak openly about my own journey. My calm strength and clarity are both fascinating and unbearably frightening to her.
I become the catalyst in her life. She will either flee from me because I refuse to play the old game, or she will be forced to face herself for the first time in her life. Regardless of the outcome, I walk away from the situation whole, knowing that I followed my own new map. And it is this very experience that finally makes me ready for the person who no longer needs a catalyst, but an equal partner.
It's summer 2027. I have resigned. Sold my apartment and most of my belongings. I have bought a small but high-quality camper van.
I realize that after 17 years of remote work, I don't need to be tied to anything. I have made an agreement to work on a project basis, completely remotely, from anywhere in Europe.
I set off. I'm not running from anything, but towards everything. I drift into small villages in Portugal, hike in the Alps, read books on the coast of Croatia. I learn to be completely at peace with myself and my solitude. And one day, in a small café in Florence, I start talking to another solo traveler. She is a photographer who has made a similar life change. We don't fall in love immediately. We become travel companions. And somewhere under the Spanish sun, we realize that home is not a place, but another person who is as free as I am.
It's winter 2027. I have been living a quiet, stable life. I am happy. Then I get a call from Eeva's sister. The nuclear destruction I sometimes pondered has happened. Eeva's relationship with the new man has ended catastrophically, full of accusations and bitterness. Eeva has hit rock bottom.
And then, one evening, my phone rings. It's Eeva. She is crying, apologizing, saying I was right about everything. She is the broken person I was two years earlier. And in me, that old, familiar urge to help and save awakens.
But this time, everything is different. I listen to her, I am compassionate. I say that I am sorry for her pain. But when she hints at meeting up or needs me for support, I draw the line. I say kindly, but unshakeably: "I feel for you, and I wish you all the best. But my role in your life is over. I know you will get through this, and I recommend that you seek professional help. It helped me."
I hang up the phone. I feel a small pang of sadness for what could have been, but it is overshadowed by a huge, deep feeling: pride. I have just faced the biggest wound of my past and acted completely according to my new map and compass. I am no longer a savior. I am a survivor. And it is that knowledge that makes me free to meet a person who does not need a savior, but an equal partner.
The year is 2028. My work is still rewarding, but I long for a counterbalance to its digital and abstract nature. I crave something concrete, something I can touch. I enroll in a woodworking course at a community college.
The first few times are clumsy. I sand, saw, and make mistakes. But I notice something surprising. When I focus on the grain of the wood, the movement of the tool, and how two pieces join together, everything else disappears. It is meditation. It is the same analytical mind but applied to the physical world.
It becomes a passion. I rent a small workshop in an old industrial area and start restoring old furniture. I sell them online, not so much for the money, but for the joy of it. And one Saturday, as I am just finishing up an old sideboard, there is a knock on my workshop door. It's a woman from the neighboring space, a ceramist. Her kiln is broken, and she asks if I could take a look at its electronics. I know nothing about kilns, but I promise to look. And there, amidst old tools and unfinished works of art, a conversation begins that is not about the past or the future, but only about what can be created with one's own hands.
It's autumn 2026. I am at my friend's fiftieth birthday party. The atmosphere is relaxed, I am surrounded by my own friends, and I feel completely at home. I am not looking for anything or anyone.
In the middle of the evening, a woman I have never met approaches me. She has a hesitant but determined look. "Excuse me, are you Markus?" she asks. When I confirm, she says something that stops everything: "I am the ex-wife of the man Eeva left with."
The moment is electric. She continues: "I don't want to disturb you, but I've heard so many good things about you through Eeva's sister. I just wanted to say that I believe all of it. And I'm truly sorry for what you had to go through. You've clearly survived it incredibly well."
It is a brief, strange, and completely unexpected encounter. We don't exchange numbers, we don't stay to chat. But as she walks away, I feel some final, heavy lock inside me open. I have received validation and absolution from the most surprising source - the only other person in the world who knows exactly what that betrayal felt like.
The year is 2026. I've shown the text we put together to my therapist. He doesn't laugh. He looks at me seriously and says, "This isn't just your story. This is the story of thousands of people. You should do something with this."
The idea sticks with me. I start that evening, in secret, to polish the text. I add depth, change names and places, but preserve its raw, honest core. I send it anonymously to a few publishers, expecting nothing.
And then a miracle happens. A small but respected publishing house gets in touch. They want to publish it. The book "The Therapist on the Shoulder" is published without much fanfare, but it finds its audience. It becomes a phenomenon, talked about on social media and in book clubs. It is a story of betrayal, but above all, of survival and self-discovery through logic.
I start receiving emails from readers. One message is different. It is long, analytical, and profound. It is written by a woman who is a literary critic. She doesn't just praise the book; she deconstructs it and explains why it works so powerfully. She tells me that the book has helped her write her own story. I am happy.
The year is 2030. I have been living a good, stable life. I am at peace with myself. I receive an invitation to an old bandmate's wedding. At the venue, after all these years, I see her. Peppiina.
The moment is strange, full of ghosts from the past. But we are no longer the same young people. We are adults. We end up at the same table and start talking. The conversation is easy, surprisingly light.
And then, in the middle of the conversation, I do something I hadn't planned. I look her in the eyes and say: "I'm sorry about that night your grandmother died. I was young and selfish, and I didn't understand anything. I hope you can forgive me."
She is quiet for a moment, and then she smiles. "That was a long time ago. I forgave you ages ago. And you have clearly grown from that young man."
In that moment, some final, old knot inside me loosens. We don't exchange numbers, we don't promise to keep in touch. But when I leave the party, I feel completely free. I have made peace with my last ghost.
The year is 2030. I am 51 years old. I am not in a relationship, nor am I actively looking for one. And I am happier than ever.
The past few years have been a time of quiet growth. I have deepened my relationship with my children, who are now young adults. I have traveled, read, and learned new things. I have found a perfect balance between work, social life, and my own peace. Loneliness is no longer an enemy, but a treasured friend.
I am the man whose friends call when they have problems because I know how to listen. I am the father whose children proudly introduce their partners to. I have built a life that is so full and meaningful that I do not need another person to make it whole.
And just then, when I least expect it, it happens. I'm at a neighborhood work party, raking leaves. A woman I have seen for years but never really spoken to comes up next to me. We start to chat. There are no sparks, no drama, no cinematic love story. There are just two adult, completely whole people who find they enjoy each other's company. Our relationship is not the union of two halves, but the gentle meeting of two whole worlds. It is a love that comes not from need, but from choice.
If you have read this far, you have just done something significant. You have not just read my story and my dreams; you have likely heard echoes of your own. You may have recognized a familiar feeling, a familiar pattern, or a familiar longing.
And that is precisely why all of this was written.
The purpose of this process is not to give you my answers. Its purpose is to help you find your own. The "therapist on the shoulder" is not my exclusive right. It is the part of you that has always known the truth, but whose voice may have been drowned out by the noise of life.
What I did was not magic. It was a simple but powerful psychotherapeutic process that I called "reworking." It is a method that anyone can learn:
You don't necessarily need an AI or a writer. You just need honesty and the courage to ask yourself the right questions. When you encounter a difficult memory or a recurring problem, try this four-step excavation:
Through this process, you too can begin to create your own dreams. They won't look like my dreams because they are built from the data of your life, your people, your events, your tendencies, and your words. They will sound like you because they are you.
Before you begin, it's important to understand a few things:
This is not the end. This is the beginning.
The therapist on your shoulder has been waiting. It's time to give them the floor.
This book, "The Therapist on the Shoulder," was created in collaboration with an AI. First, I fed it all the information I considered significant from my life and, through an iterative "reworking" process, formed the source material for new conversations.
After this, the AI acted as the book's structurer, proposing a structure and arc for the story. My job was to correct the facts and timelines. This storytelling helped me form a complete picture of one of the biggest challenges of my life and the steps I took along the way. In the end, it brought clarity and peace.
So that I wouldn't get stuck analyzing the past, I used the AI for another task: to create paths to the future. These future scenarios are created from the exact same data that I "reworked" earlier. They reflect my hopes, tendencies, and past experiences, and their purpose is simple: to help me dream.
In practice, the tool used was the Gemini application. I told it about events, feelings, and words as honestly and neutrally as possible, with the goal of gaining clarity on the complex wholes of my life. The AI doesn't really tell you anything new. Instead, it helps build a complete picture of what you have experienced and shows what surprising connections things might have.
It might also challenge your story and your actions. Receive those thoughts with consideration.
Feedback/more info: info@shouldertherapist.org
Regards, M.