The sunlight streamed through the blinds onto Chen Lizhou's face and his hands resting on his knees.

"Very good, keep it up," Nan Zhubin's voice remained gentle, "Now, shift your attention from your breathing to your chest—"

"Feel, when you think of that student, when you think about meeting him, what does your chest feel like?

"Is it heavy, tight, cool, or is there a faint warmth? No need to judge, no need to think, just feel and accept this sensation."

Chen Lizhou closed his eyes.

Initially, he only felt a faint heaviness, accompanied by a sense of blockage. It was somewhat similar to the feeling during previous Dissociation, vague and distant, like being separated by a thin membrane.

But as his focus intensified, and his breathing steadied, the heaviness gradually gave way to a faint, warm sensation.

He truthfully described his feelings: "At first it was a bit heavy, but then there was some warmth—now it feels a bit hot."

"Very good, keep feeling it."

Nan Zhubin said, "Now, shift your attention to your fingertips—feel if your fingertips are cool or warm? Is there a slight tingling or a faint tremor? Feel these subtle responses, they are all a part of your emotions."

Under Nan Zhubin's verbal guidance, Chen Lizhou's focus seemed to be guided, flowing to his hands.

The visitor's fingertips moved slightly, as if responding to the warmth in his chest.

His heartbeat seemed faster than before, no longer a calm, faint beat, but with a hint of urgency and strength.

"Now, feel your heartbeat," Nan Zhubin's voice emerged at this moment, "Feel the frequency of your heartbeat, feel its rhythm."

"Our guidance will stop here. Your attention has flowed from your chest to your fingertips, and back to your chest."

"As we said before—the chest is the area that carries the most emotional changes. And now, after a 'backflow' of attention, you can clearly penetrate those physical responses to touch the emotions themselves."

Whether the visitor can "touch the emotions themselves" or not, at least the consultant's guidance words should say so.

If the visitor cannot feel it, then further efforts can be made later.

However, observing Chen Lizhou's micro expressions feedback, Nan Zhubin felt that this guidance should have been relatively successful.

Chen Lizhou's breathing paused for a moment.

Nan Zhubin said, "Let's go and feel it."

This was the last sentence Nan Zhubin spoke during this guidance.

Time passed little by little.

By the time this set of guidance words ended, about four minutes had passed.

And after this last sentence ended, Nan Zhubin allowed Chen Lizhou to quietly feel on the sofa for another four minutes.

Then, Chen Lizhou opened his eyes on his own initiative.

"I feel very uncomfortable." Chen Lizhou took the initiative to tell Nan Zhubin, providing a rather vague answer.

"I don't know if this is the anxiety you mentioned, Teacher Nan." Chen Lizhou added, "But the discomfort I feel actually has two aspects."

During that brief time, Chen Lizhou seemed to feel not only his own emotions.

"Just like you said, Teacher Nan, on one hand, I'm very worried about losing control."

Chen Lizhou furrowed his brows and pressed his hand against his chest: "I think meeting this student might bring some unexpected changes to my current life, and I am not yet prepared to accept these surprises."

"I don't know what surprises, but regardless of what they are, I don't want to face them."

"Is this the subconscious you mentioned, Teacher Nan?" Chen Lizhou asked.

Nan Zhubin didn't answer directly: "Perhaps. When we might confront something we don't want to face, our subconscious will obscure those 'results'. "

"That's it." Chen Lizhou said.

He took a deep breath: "In short, I am avoiding this student. I actually saw his email once before, but at that time I directly ignored it."

"To ignore his emails, I even stopped dealing with the emails in my inbox during that period. Obviously, my job requires handling emails, yet now I am striving to maintain my work."

Chen Lizhou looked up, seemingly drawing analogies: "According to you, Teacher Nan, maintaining my work is actually maintaining my sense of control over life. So, by not reading this student's emails and thus not checking my inbox, delaying my work, isn't it a bit like abandoning my sense of control in order to avoid losing control?"

"But in doing so, it actually makes life more and more uncontrollable..."

Chen Lizhou mused: "It feels like a very weak escape..." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

...

Chen Lizhou's words brightened Nan Zhubin's eyes.

Because Chen Lizhou unintentionally revealed the essence of most psychological issues—a sort of hysterical inversion of priorities.

Just like the body needs to kill germs to "survive", raising the body's temperature to kill germs, the fever results in eventual death, unable to "survive" at all.

Chen Lizhou's current situation is trying to enhance his sense of control by "not losing control"—that is, ignoring the student's emails.

And for the sake of not losing control, he also relinquishes some control over life—by ignoring all mailbox messages, leading to an inability to maintain basic work.

The result of this is trying to enhance his sense of control over life, but instead, life becomes more and more out of control.

"In the beginning, I thought it was because I hadn't checked my emails recently, so I ignored the student's emails."

Chen Lizhou chuckled lightly: "Looking at it now, it's actually the other way around."

...

After a self-deprecating complaint, Chen Lizhou patted his face and said: "Didn't I say earlier that I felt two kinds of discomfort? One is this kind."

"And the other one—which I actually didn't realize at first. To be honest, this discomfort is something I 'learned'."

Chen Lizhou said: "Do you remember I mentioned before, asking Director Xing from the tech department about how he felt when he had to lay off his subordinates?"

Nan Zhubin nodded.

During their consultation today, they reviewed all the notes Chen Lizhou had recorded over the week.

Nan Zhubin naturally knew that besides recording his own physical feelings, Chen Lizhou also noted down the physical feelings of others when they encountered emotions.

"When I saw the student's email, my body reacted similarly to Director Xing's feeling," said Chen Lizhou.

"So, it made me even more conflicted. The two kinds of discomfort combined with various things I encountered recently in life led me to ask you that stupid question in the end."

"However..." at this point, Chen Lizhou paused, as if there were two selves within him.

One self wanted to say something, while the other self was desperately trying to stop this process.

Fortunately, this tug of war lasted only for two breaths.

"However—I feel that I might now try to solve it, even if just a beginning," said Chen Lizhou.

"Very good." Nan Zhubin nodded.

"When we meet here again next week," Nan Zhubin gestured around the consultation room, "I look forward to hearing what happens next."

...

"Then let's conclude our session for today." Nan Zhubin stood up, "Remember your phone."

"Thank you for your time today, Teacher Nan." Chen Lizhou stood up as well.

He took the phone that Nan Zhubin handed over and pressed the power button.

They had just reached the doorway of the consultation room when the phone started buzzing with a series of "ding-dong" notifications, almost making it slip from Chen Lizhou's grip.

Nan Zhubin's gaze crossed over Chen Lizhou, looking into the consultation room.

Then, exhibited a rare look of surprise.