The journey back to yourself
It is clear in my role as a psychotherapist, that a big aspect of my work is to guide my clients on a journey back home to themselves. To reacquaint people to themselves as they have lost this intimate connection somewhere along their way, whether through trauma, poor attachment, wounding interpersonal relationships, and/or the normal struggles of life.
I to had lost my way, lost myself and am, and may always be, continually wandering along the path back home.
People often say “just be yourself” as a way to help a friend or loved one calm down about a social situation or a performance. But who is that you may ask, as I once did too?
There are many, many theories of “Self” both in the psychological literature and research and in the spiritual world. In some yoga traditions, self is Atman, part and parcel of the whole, self is a drop of water and the universe is the ocean. In Buddhism, there is no static, permanent entity of self. In Gestalt Psychotherapy, the self is always changing in relation to the thing it comes into contact with. You may have your own philosophical understanding of Self. I could go on and on.
Here is what I have come to know in my own being and what I hope to help clients come to feel and know. The deeper and more intimate moment to moment connection we have with our inner world of thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, reactions, the more we feel a consolidated sense of Self, of who we are in the world. The stronger that sense of you, of self, becomes, the less bothered and buffeted about we are by the things that happen to us and the people in our lives. The more OK we feel. The more we have a sense that we can cope with our life and what may or may not happen in it. The easier it becomes to know what we want, to be able to make decisions, to know who is a good friend and a good partner for us. To be able to say “no” when we need and “yes” when we want.
Essentially, by walking along side my clients and gently drawing their attention to their emotions and to their physical sensations, they become more and more attuned to and in touch with themselves, with their sense of Self. By having those emotions and sensations be seen, heard, welcomed and accepted by another person, my clients come to know themselves. It is a remarkably simple and yet complex and, most definitely, profound process. One which I am so so honoured to facilitate and one which, if you dear reader are interested in, I would love to facilitate for you.