Things People Have Told Me Part 2

August 19, 2026

When a psychologist meets a new patient, gathering background information is essential. We ask about medical history, education, family, career, relationships, and social life. We inquire about illnesses, losses, marriages, divorces, children, work, and the many events that have shaped the person sitting before us.

Yet even after all the questions have been answered, something is often missing.

A human life cannot be fully contained in a clinical history. There is always some unexpected detail —small or enormous —that reveals a dimension of the person no questionnaire could ever capture. It may be a talent, an adventure, an encounter, an eccentricity, or a secret source of pride. It is often the very thing that makes this person unlike anyone else on earth.

For that reason, after completing the formal history, I would ask: “Now, please tell me something unusual or special about yourself—something I would never know to ask.” Patients sometimes looked puzzled, so I offered an example: “For instance, perhaps you once joined the circus.” That example usually did the trick.

Joining the circus was a sufficiently far-fetched example to get across the idea of what I was looking for. It gave them permission to move beyond diagnoses, jobs, family problems, and symptoms to tell me something surprising. After hearing that example, most people would pause and roll their eyes up into their head. It was one of those “hummm” intervals. You could see on their faces when their answer came to them.

Over the years, I received wonderfully varied responses: “I met Elvis Presley when I was a child.” “I am a skydiver.” “I was the homecoming queen.” “In the new house we bought, I found a like-new baseball in the bottom of my closet signed by Mickey Mantle, and I sold it for eight thousand dollars.” “I can touch the tip of my nose with my tongue.” “I sing solo with a blues band.” “By myself, I hiked from one ridge of the Grand Canyon all the way to the other.” My favorite was a fellow who said when his false teeth were being made for him, he got so hungry for a steak that even though he was toothless, he found a way to eat one. “What in the world did you do, sir?” I asked. He was sheepish at first, then said proudly, “I padded into the bedroom after my wife went to sleep, took her false teeth out of the dish she was soaking them in, and put them right into my mouth. Then I grilled me the best stake I ever had in my life. Worked like a charm!”

Each answer opened a little window. For a moment, the person was no longer merely a patient with anxiety, grief, depression, or marital problems. Here was someone who had fallen through the sky, stood beneath the lights of a stage, met Elvis, reigned over a homecoming parade, or possessed a surprisingly talented voice, and another who was so desperate he became the ultimate in resourcefulness. These revelations were not always clinically important, but they were humanly important. They reminded me that no one should be reduced to the problem that brought them into the room.

For years, I used the circus as my example. Eventually, however, I grew tired of it. After asking hundreds of people whether they had ever joined the circus, the phrase began to feel worn out. Someone explained such a circumstance like this: “I chewed the sweet out of it,” so, I decided I needed a fresh example. Then, I replaced the circus with an example of winning the lottery.

The day I decided to use my new example, a lovely middle-aged woman arrived for her first appointment. I took the usual history. We discussed her family, her health, her work, and the difficulties that had brought her to see me. Then came the moment to unveil my new and improved question.

“Please tell me something special or unusual about yourself that I would never know to ask. For instance, perhaps you once won the lottery.”

She thought for a moment, her eyes rolling to the ceiling. Then she said, quite matter-of-factly: “I have never won the lottery. But does it count that every summer I join the circus?”

After hearing that answer, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

After years of mentioning the circus without ever encountering anyone who had actually joined one, I had finally found her—on the very day I stopped asking. Life has a wonderful sense of timing.

We often imagine that the remarkable must be somewhere else. We search for it in dramatic events, distant places, rare achievements, or improbable good fortune. We keep changing the question because the old one seems to have produced all the answers it ever will.

Then the extraordinary walks quietly into the room and sits down in front of us.

The spiritual message may be this: every person carries a mystery we have not yet discovered. Beneath the familiar surface of a life is something unexpected, untamed, and astonishing. No one is only a diagnosis, an occupation, an age, a failure, or a grief. Every soul has joined some circus. Every soul has walked a high wire, entered a ring of uncertainty, performed beneath unfamiliar lights, or learned to balance what once seemed impossible.

The sacred task is to remain curious, to seek the sacred within everyone, and to realize that each person we meet is an expression of the Divine. 

Spiritual Practice

Review the questions you typically ask of another soul that inquires about their soul.

Inquiry

What do you think would be the best question for someone to ask you, for them to know something from the depths of your soul? 

Prayer

Dear God, 

For this humorous story, I am thankful. It reminds me of the serendipity of life and how the spectacular comes through if we only ask.

Amen