I was recently asked to summarize my thoughts about
therapy: why one would want to enter into therapy, what we do in therapy, and
the nature of the therapeutic relationship, according to the way I have come to
understand it. Of course there are many reasons to be in therapy, including the
treatment of very difficult conditions such as clinical depression, anxiety
disorder, suicidal ideation, PTSD, OCD, and so forth. But most of the questions
I receive are more existential in nature, not related to a specific clinical
diagnosis, but more to what the Buddha referred to in his first noble truth as
the anguish or dissatisfaction we feel when we lose touch with the great
mystery. Please keep this in mind as you read through my reflections, and seek
professional help if you are struggling with one of these clinical diagnoses.
For each of us, there are times we feel there must be more
to life: we feel stuck, lost, hopeless, restless, bored, confused, or that
something is just "off." Perhaps we've gone through or are in the
midst of a major life transition: a change of career, the ending of a
relationship, the death of a friend or family member, a disturbing health
diagnosis, or a profound loss of meaning or purpose.
Or maybe there is no catalyzing outer circumstance that we
are aware of: we're just feeling exhausted, unclear, or unsure of what we're
doing here and what is being asked of us. We sense the possibility of feeling
more connected, more alive, and being more intimately engaged with ourselves,
others, and what is possible. We have some vague intuition that there is a
miracle taking place here and that we have some role to play, but we can't
quite access it. We long to engage in the play of lover and beloved, to dance
in the mysteries of inner and outer nature, to rest in the beauty of a sunrise,
and to stand in awe at the wonder of life as we sense it raging inside and
around us. Or, we are completely hopeless and do not sense this possibility;
but still, here we are. And the longing and burning are at times our only
companions.
We wonder if we are burdened by our past and if there is
anything we can do about it. We hear about things like healing and spiritual
awakening, and long to engage in these mysteries, but are unsure what they
actually mean, and how they might be relevant in our busy modern lives of work,
money, family, aging bodies, tired minds, weary hearts, and unending to-do
lists. We are aware of a call deep within: an authentic desire for presence,
purpose, meaning, and true intimacy, but somehow these experiences remain just
out of reach.
In response to this inner call, for thousands of years
curious and courageous women and men have sought counsel from shamans, priests,
guides, lamas, yogis, healers, rabbis, dervishes, and their modern
counterparts, psychotherapists and spiritually-attuned counselors and teachers.
Because most of our early wounding arose in interpersonal contexts, many
believe that it is best explored, unwound, and untangled within a relational
matrix. The path of individuation (becoming who you truly are) is unique for
each of us and it is often difficult to explore fully on our own. The terrain
is shadowy, slippery, and at times hidden, and without a guide or fellow
traveler, it is only natural to get lost, distracted, and side-tracked along
the way.
Developmentally, each of us had to disconnect from certain
aspects of ourselves in order to maintain the tie with our caregivers, to avoid
the devastation of shame, and to fit into a world that was not able to hold the
majestic, creative brilliance of a young, fiery heart. This neural groove of
self-abandonment required us to split off from important dimensions of who and
what we are, disavowing our native sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and the wild
uniqueness of our true nature. As young children, we had no other choice than
to sequester this material into the unconscious, doing whatever we could to fit
in and align with the collective, often at the expense of our own individuality
and creative, soul-based self-expression.
We took this step not because we were neurotic,
pathological, "lost in our story," "caught in the ego," or
because there was something essentially wrong with us, but in a way that was
intelligent at the time - in fact massively creative - in order to ensure our
own psychic (and sometimes physical) survival. We are wired to do what we must
to receive whatever affection, attunement, and mirroring was possible, in order
for our young brains, hearts, and nervous systems to grow. Coming to confront,
hold, and integrate this split-off material as adults - often in very
challenging ways in our relationships - is a critical dimension of the journey.
Each of us comes into adulthood with a particular narrative
that is the lens through which we perceive ourselves, others, and the world
around us. In part we inherit this narrative from our parents - and in part
from the collective itself - creatively crafting it as a way to make sense of
early empathic failure, lack of mirroring and attunement, insecure attachment,
and developmental and situational trauma of all kinds. Together, in an ongoing
relationship, with a skillful, attuned, empathic "good other," there
is a unique opportunity to re-author, re-imagine, and rewire these pathways and
begin to consciously participate in a life oriented in a wise mind and wide
open heart.
Rather than organizing the therapeutic relationship around
the elimination of your symptoms - or even orienting it in "solving your problems"
(though relief and solutions can and do occur along the way) - we become more
interested with your ongoing discovery of wholeness, with the unfolding of your
unique journey of individuation, and the experiential discovery of a life of
meaning and purpose. We work together within the relational field to transform
and re-organize the ways you have come to see yourself and the world that may
no longer be serving the deepest longing within you, and discover together a
sacred dimension of reality that is always, already here, not dependent upon
you first resolving all your symptoms, transcending your vulnerability,
eliminating difficult feelings, clearing up your past, perfecting yourself,
transforming all of your neurosis, or "completing" some mythical spiritual
journey.
Instead, you are invited to discover the vast space around
your emotional world and life circumstances, and the experiential realization
that the freedom you are longing for is actually here now. You need not leave
yourself, apologize for what you are, go on some self-transformation project,
or abandon yourself any longer. Buried within your neurosis is immense wisdom;
a rich, abundant, open field in which the raw materials of the sacred world are
already present and awaiting discovery. This space is not separate from who you
are and is overflowing with qualities of love, compassion, luminosity, and
presence. In other words, even your "problems" cease to be
"problematic" any longer, but instead become allies on the path and
portals into a new life.
Buried inside your difficult emotions, limiting
self-narratives, disturbing bodily sensations, feelings of existential anxiety
and depression, and even within a sense of meaningless and purposelessness,
there is intelligence, wisdom, and creativity; a non-ordinary gold hidden
within the darkness. These symptoms and disturbing energetic movements are
psyche's attempt to reach you, to remind you of something you may have
forgotten, and to invite you to recommit to what is most important. Not what you
thought was important or were told was important - you are no longer able or
willing to live someone else's life - but by way of a direct, fiery, and
compassionate confrontation with the life that is moving within you.
We all lose touch with the wholeness of our true nature
along the way, especially in the busyness of our inner and outer lives, in the
maintaining an array of spiritual and other identities, and in the unending and
exhausting lifelong project of self-improvement. Together, in the safety of an
attuned, resonant field, we can come to (re)discover and explore the guidance
that is appearing (albeit often in disguised forms), erupting inside and around
you, and how you might receive and most skillfully respond to the signs,
symbols, and messages that are longing to reach you. No matter where you are,
you can start now, in the safety and magic of the present. Even though at times
you may give up on love, please know that love will never give up on you. It
will search for your into eternity, spinning and shapeshifting unending forms
in order to reach you and seed you with its qualities.
Engaging on the path of the heart, healing, and awakening
with another human being as a fellow traveler and guide can be immensely
helpful, as we all have unconscious organizing principles, self-narratives, and
unmetabolized somatic and emotional wounding that may be standing in the way of
our living a life of natural freedom, intimacy, sacredness, and aliveness.
Research over the last few decades has consistently suggested that it is the
relationship between client and therapist (or student and teacher) that is more
impactful than any particular theory or technique.
In others words, it is not technique that heals, but
relationship; more precisely, a specific type of relationship organized around
spaciousness, presence, and empathic attunement. When all is said and done, in
my experience, it is love that heals. But just what this "love" is we
must discover for ourselves. Of course as therapists we all have a toolbox of techniques
we can turn to, but in the end love is the ultimate medicine. As Freud once
said to Jung, “… psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love.” When all
was said and done, even the old man knew.
In good therapy, we enter into a crucible together that in
many ways is beyond time and space. Together we bear witness to the wild
reality that you are not a project to be solved or a broken person who needs to
be healed in any conventional sense. You are a mystery to be lived, a pure form
of the absolute as it erupts into the relative, seeding this place with your
wildness, your heart, your brain, your body, your creative uniqueness, your
raging sensitivity and vulnerability, an unprecedented assembling of color,
texture, of dark, and of light. It is the honoring of this eruption that will
serve as the foundation for the therapeutic container and journey.
