Rob and I have been part of a conversation on Facebook with someone who still believes that specific factors are responsible for effectiveness in psychotherapy. Facebook is usually just a place to hang out with people who think like you do, and I’m not sure if I’m just lucky but I really enjoy waking to the expansive musings of my friends and the mostly nourishing and sustaining things that they share. (American politics aside).

This last conversation reminded me of when I was 9 and in a Catholic private hospital after having my appendix out deep in conversation with a creationist of similar age who could not hear the Darwinian dogma on which I was raised. It was finally the cleaning lady who put end to the debate by declaring that God made the world. And that was that.

So I’ve been musing about beliefs, and rather than sermonising on what I think, I thought I’d share a funny story.

I don’t believe the moon landing happened. Sure, if you show me the evidence, and I judge you have the authority to know, I can get to a place where I accept it probably happened, but in my core I have the quirky experience of not believing. Don’t get me wrong, I love that JFK made it happen, and “The Dish” is one of my favourite movies, but when I look into my soul I just don’t believe.

I was just a toddler in 1969 and language was not my strong suit. Only my brother who was 2 years older could understand what I said, so I doubt I was very focused on the hoopla of the day. I was busy drawing cats and wondering why my parents couldn’t see the importance of me having one, and socializing with lizards and sugar ants in our back yard. My world was comfortably small and fascinating. It wasn’t until years later that my parents gave me a box set of Gerald Durrel books that I found someone who understood my world.

As the years passed I heard of this moon landing thing that was televised live, but we couldn’t even watch a football game live, and my Dad, who was a sports teacher, would have to wait for the recordings to be televised. I’m not sure when we got a telephone, but it had to be more than 4 years after the moon landing, and it had wires. There were no wires hanging from the moon.

I think that my lived experience was one where the moon landing could not have happened.

It’s such a quirky thing, and my husband and family who were all older think it’s funny. In fact it’s become a party trick… “Ask Gabrielle if she believes in the moon landing” and then the snickers happen, including from my own children. My brother said he would get me a telescope so I could see the flag and all the stuff left behind. I said it would be enough for me to hear that he had seen… but he hadn’t.

When I’m with a client who has a rigid belief that is keeping them stuck in their problem, I am trying to sit with it, as I do my own quirky beliefs, and notice how we can actually get to acceptance of an alternate view, without really letting go. I think that is preferable to head butting, or making wrong.