self-nourishment in times of despair
I grappled a lot with identity, self-worth, purpose and meaning after developing a chronic illness and quitting design as a job. I recognised my life then was unsustainable – I felt like…
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the isolating experience of my migraines
Migraines are a strange illness. People who have not had it before think it is “just a headache”. If you can move around and accomplish more than half of your usual activities,…
66 months
on my (lack of) emotional maturity
I told a close friend recently that I see myself as an emotionally immature person. She was surprised, saying that I tend to have a harsh assessment of myself. I am not…
55 months of weighing the costs
When we got together I told her I would like to celebrate a monthly anniversary. At first it was because I was hugely skeptical of our relationship, and in general I was…
whom creative products and creative living emerge
With his sensitive openness to his world, his trust of his own ability to form new relationships with his environment, he would be the type of person from whom creative products and creative living emerge.
the locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility, lies within himself
So I have come to feel that the more I can keep a relationship free of judgment and evaluation, the more this will permit the other person to reach the point where he recognizes that the locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility, lies within himself.
Can I be strong enough as a person to be separate from the other
Can I be strong enough as a person to be separate from the other? Can I be a sturdy respecter of my own feelings, my own needs, as well as his? Can I own and, if need be, express my own feelings as something belonging to me and separate from his feelings? Am I strong enough in my own separateness that I will not be downcast by his depression, frightened by his fear, nor engulfed by his dependency? Is my inner self hardy enough to realize that I am not destroyed by his anger, taken over by his need for dependence, nor enslaved by his love, but that I exist separate from him with feelings and rights of my own? When I can freely feel this strength of being a separate person, then I find that I can let myself go much more deeply in understanding and accepting him because I am not fearful of losing myself.
If I can create a relationship
If I can create a relationship characterized on my part: by a genuineness and transparency, in which I am my real feelings; by a warm acceptance of and prizing of the other person as a separate individual; by a sensitive ability to see his world and himself as he sees them; Then the other individual in the relationship: will experience and understand aspects of himself which previously he has repressed; will find himself becoming better integrated, more able to function effectively; will become more similar to the person he would like to be; will be more self-directing and self-confident; will become more of a person, more unique and more self-expressive; will be more understanding, more acceptant of others; will be able to cope with the problems of life more adequately and more comfortably.
I become a companion to my client
Thus the relationship which I have found helpful is characterized by a sort of transparency on my part, in which my real feelings are evident; by an acceptance of this other person as a separate person with value in his own right; and by a deep empathic understanding which enables me to see his private world through his eyes. When these conditions are achieved, I become a companion to my client, accompanying him in the frightening search for himself, which he now feels free to undertake.