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When the benefits of depth psychotherapy happen it can feel as if our mind/body system finally opens and relaxes into a deep, calm sense of well being that has always existed. Thoughts, feelings and sensations flow more easily through awareness and there can be an abiding experience of quiet joy. The ups and downs of life are known and felt deeply but are experienced with equanimity, watchfulness, and clarity. In spite of the waves, all is exceedingly well.
Growing up emotionally neglected is like nearly dying of thirst outside the fenced off fountain of a parent's warmth and interest. Emotional neglect makes children feel worthless, unlovable, and excrutiatingly empty. It leaves them with a hunger than gnaws deeply at the center of their being. They starve for human warmth and comfort.
- Pete Walker, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, from his book "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving." The prospect of talking with a therapist may at first appear daunting and dubious. It may seem to fly in the face of self preservation and rugged individuality to make oneself vulnerable. The fact is, however, human beings have been successful in their basic evolution precisely because they evolved in groups - what is too much for one nervous system is doable with two, as it were. Indeed, "one for all and all for one" is no joking matter. It works. And so does psychotherapy, especially if it has remained grounded in the search for personal truth and authentic expression of that truth, and not lost its way in a maze of manualized protocols and techniques that serve interests other than human learning, healing and growth. Cumulative knowledge and method are quite obviously components of meaningful psychotherapy. But the path of personal discovery is, like everything in nature, an organic one and never a straight line, much less one deadened by statistical predictability and control. Instead, psychotherapy is an healing art - alive, creative, and unique to the individual - an artful practice that opens an often mysterious, paradoxical path that leads toward freedom and expression of the human spirit.
Do you want to be a positive influence in the world? First, get your life in order. Ground yourself in the single principle so that your behavior is wholesome and effective. If you do that you will earn respect and be a powerful influence.
Your behavior influences others through a ripple effect. A ripple effect works because everyone influences everyone else. Powerful people are powerful influences. If your life works, you influence your family. If you family works, your family influences the community. If your community works, your community influences the nation. If your nation works, your nation influences the world. If your world works, the ripple effect spreads throughout the cosmos. Remember that your influence begins with you and ripples outward. So be sure that your influence is both potent and wholesome. How do I know this works? All growth spreads outward from a fertile and potent nucleus. You are a nucleus. - John Heider, "The Tao of Leadership" A scapegoated child knows depths of private suffering that can only be described as hellish. They are born with the biological need for care from people who hate them. It is like being thirsty, and the only person who has water instead gives you sand, then mockingly laughs. The scapegoated child is attacked for trumped-up charges, mercilessly punished, and then denied appeal. They are constantly invalidated in their perspective. The family's goal is to convince the child that they are the sole reason for the family's unhappiness. The child may come to believe that life is only worth living if they can figure out how not to be who they are.
- Jay Ried, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor You are worth getting to know. More than that, you are worthy of knowing yourself. Through our lives we can learn to see ourselves as limited in dimension. We can assume roles both professionally and socially, taking care to play these roles to the best of our ability.
Sometimes our past experiences have shaped us into a protective shell where trust, vulnerability and openness are avoided for fear of further suffering. There is no shame in this, and those who experience this kind of reaction to their circumstances are far from alone. In the digital age perhaps we show people a side of our lives we wish them to believe we live, because we wish to believe we live them too. Now, more and more, our deepest selves are subconsciously shamed into remaining unseen by others in favor of false happiness. Technology, while not inherently harmful, undoubtedly works to keep us distracted from the difficult emotions, traumas and inescapable issues that we keep buried underneath, and as a result, we may fear getting to know who we truly are. But beneath this seemingly scary layer of discomfort lies who we truly are - a person of inconceivable dimension, who is infinitely interesting and possesses boundless potential. Knowing yourself in new ways leads to a more effective and meaningful life. In fact, letting go of the resistance to who we are can reveal the meaning of our life - as if it were always there. Our courage to endure not-so-good days is rewarded with knowledge, power and purpose. One of the greatest challenges to deeper meaning in life is the reluctance to open ourselves up - to be vulnerable around others. This is understandable. Vulnerability traditionally is labeled as weakness. But what you may be beginning to understand is that true strength, not to mention true connection, comes from vulnerability. Consequently, when we allow ourselves to be known, we are better able to know others. Our connections grow deeper, our relationships more meaningful, and our place in the world more defined. When we feel this sense of belonging and resolve the fear of true, deep connection, we are better able to wholeheartedly trust and thrive. Thus, the way out is in. And you do not have to make the journey of self discovery alone. When the world acts upon one in ways one would not otherwise choose, it can induce a challenge to one's sense of safety and rightness. Sometimes these are small experiences that cause frustration or moments of anxiety. Other times, these are more impactful experiences that can shake one's core. In either instance, psyche offers a capacity to meet such challenges, represented here by a poet who was intimately familiar with the life threatening kind of challenge. And while it is no weakness and can be very healthy to "wince and cry aloud", this gentleman found a way to meet life on life's terms:
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. - William Ernest Henley, English editor, poet, writer, and critic, who faced a life-long challenge from serious physical health issues. Oh, let me flow into the ocean
Let me get back to the sea Let me be stormy and let me be calm Let the tide in I want it to rush over me I'm flowing under bridges Then flying through the sky I'm traveling down cold metal Just a tear in a baby's eye Let me flow into the ocean Let me get back to the sea Let me be stormy and let me be calm Let the tide in I want it to rush over me - Peter Townshend, British songwriter and musician When the mind is haughty, sarcastic, full of conceit and arrogance, ridiculing, evasive and deceitful, when it is inclined to boast, or when it is contemptuous of others, abusive and irritable, then remain still like a piece of wood.
- Shantideva, Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar from the 8th Century. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." He screwed up his face in an expression of disgust.
"And yet," said Susila, "in a certain sense the advice is excellent. Eating, drinking, dying - three primary manifestations of the universal and impersonal life. Animals live that impersonal and universal life without knowing its nature. Ordinary people know its nature but don't live it and, if ever they think seriously about it, refuse to accept it. An enlightened person knows it, lives it, and accepts it completely. He eats, he drinks, and in due course he dies - but he eats with a difference, drinks with a difference, dies with a difference." "And rises again from the dead?" he asked sarcastically. "That's the one question the Buddha always refused to discuss. Believing in eternal life never helped anybody to live in eternity. Nor, of course, did dis-believing. So stop all your pro-ing and con-ing (that's the Buddha's advice) and get on with the job." "Which job?" "Everybody's job - enlightenment. Which means, here and now, the preliminary job of practicing all the yogas of increased awareness." "But I don't want to be more aware," said Will. "I want to be less aware. Less aware of horrors...less aware of hideous sights and loathsome smells - even some of the delicious smells...less aware of my fat income and other people's sub-human poverty. Less aware of my own excellent health in an ocean of malaria and hookworm, of my own safely sterilized sex fun in the ocean of starving babies...And here you go, asking me to be even more aware than I am already." "I'm not asking anything," she said. "I'm merely passing on the advice of a succession of shrewd old birds, beginning with Gautama and ending with the Old Raja. Start by being fully aware of what you think you are. It'll help you to become aware of what you are in fact." - Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher, from his novel, "Island." |
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October 2026
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