Ideally, psychotherapists themselves first undergo psychotherapy. Doing so, psychotherapists are better able to hold both their own brokenness and their own wholeness. Before we can accept others, we must learn self-acceptance.
Psychotherapists ideally hold clients in "unconditional positive regard" and "meditative equipoise." These terms suggest great spaciousness, porousness, awareness, acceptance, unshakable love, understanding, peace, stillness, silence, wisdom. These therapists' qualities ideally remain stable, despite the variability & severity of problems and personalities of their clients.
Obsessing about our needs, our brokenness, how we didn't receive unconditional love as children, is an endless wallowing in misery. It's also backwards. To heal, an inversion must occur.
Unconditional love does appear to be the very core of human life. But our wholeness, authenticity, true happiness - all appear to be proportional to the degree to which we embody, we are the source of, unconditional love. Indeed, when a person feels utterly miserable, the best thing she can do for herself, is to help others in similar or worse situations.
Traumas do hurt, traumas do crack our armor, and mercifully, the cracks do light our darkness. But our authenticity is in shining - being unconditional love.
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| Springtime at Luxembourg Gardens, Paris |
John, I love this. Geri
ReplyDeleteVery nice
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