On the Healing Endeavor
It is a cold, wet day as I begin to write this. Here in Portland, crows are flocking and cawing as people bustle about. Spring had seemed to come early this year, and cherry blossoms are scattered on the ground from trees that opened to the sun too early, the wet and cold causing them to fall.
I wonder: are our hearts like this? Sometimes it opens early to the world, only for the cold and wet to bring our petals falling to the earth from heaviness. It is like this, at times. Unlike the trees, though, we may find ourselves afraid to open to life once again, not trusting that the sun will return, and certain that it will not stay. Amidst a cold and rainy day, my thoughts turn to healing.
What is the healing endeavor? As our body experiences breaks and cuts, so too it experiences psychic wounds that sometimes require guidance and care to help it mend. Doctors use casts, certain medication and ointments, exercises, etc. In therapy, too, we apply the cast of the therapeutic relationship and within it do a certain kind of healing work.
Our ointments, however, are the balm of self-compassion, of increasing awareness of ourselves and the world, and the loving-presence of the therapist itself. As this journey deepens with a guide we feel we can trust, who meets us where we are with acceptance and clear-seeing, something in us may begin to open again. Tentatively, at first, but increasingly assured.
Therapy is about relationship, and it is a specifically healing relationship, unlike the other relationships we often have in life. It is caring, private, and focused on compassionate awareness and insight, often with the “exercises” that can help us begin to meet the edges of our life. As our awareness increases and healing begins to occur, our hearts open increasingly to the world again, and a realization begins to dawn that we are not separate from our life. If anything, we are the world. It is this realization that therapy begins to offer as it approaches the psychospiritual depths it contains, showcasing its power as a complete way of tending not only our minds, but our souls, too.
The healing endeavor, then, is to increasingly let go of our barriers to ourselves and the world, barriers of action and the ones erected within ourselves. It is to realize, on a fundamental level, that nothing is “wrong” with us, even while we honor the need for self-development and healing in our minds and hearts. As the sunlight of awareness shines upon us and illuminates all parts of us, we grow in our strength to navigate our lives and the power of our loving acceptance increases.
As a therapist, my role is to help guide you on this journey. Being on the journey myself, I understand the contours of the path, though I do not know your path precisely. Through understanding and loving-presence, though, I can offer support for where you are on this journey, helping your heart and mind. This is often through depth psychology and mindfulness, emphasizing your experience in the present moment.
Ultimately, I believe that this healing endeavor leads to a deep presence of the heart in the world, and the recognition of the power of awareness and our own strength and capacity to navigate life’s many difficulties.
If this view of healing resonates with you, I invite you to reach out, and/or read more of what I’ve said on this website. To learn more about Hakomi Somatic Psychotherapy and Depth Psychotherapy, please visit the other pages I have written on them. Click on the “Contact” page to get in touch with me.
