(This is Part 6 of a series. Go back to Part 5.)
The fourth principle of helpful intervention is love and appreciation.
People who are fortunate enough to come out of their childhood with a basically positive self-image seem to have a real head-start in leading a productive and fulfilling life. On the other hand, it would appear that within almost everyone who is troubled in some way is a center or centers of self-rejection.
Of course these are not absolute terms. Each of us is some mixture of self-love and self-rejection, and our innermost essence, when we come in touch with it, is found to be shining with pure love.
Nevertheless, there are virtually always parts within us that feel rejected, unwanted, unloved, unappreciated, and it is those parts that tend to cause our distorted or dysfunctional ways of thinking, feeling and acting. It almost goes without saying that this is especially true of the narcissistic and the strutting; else why the need for the puffery?
We've briefly surveyed various ways that have proved useful in contradicting distress, but the most powerful contradiction of all, it seems to me, is the love, caring and compassion of a fellow human being. And that is where the therapist or helpful friend comes in.
It's not that skill isn't needed. Subtle skill is very helpful, though in my opinion that skill has far more to do with deep listening and a natural response arising from it than with some precanned technique. But even the greatest skill would be of little use without the sense of compassion and appreciation that backs it up. That's what fundamentally moves a person from death to life.
For instance, about ten years ago I had the privilege of working with Byron Katie as my helpful friend. And it's true, there is something absolutely brilliant about Katie, and in her hands the four questions take on even more power than they usually have. But I have to say, it was the sense of her profound love and compassion, as the background or context of our discussion, that really made the difference for me.
One of my greatest therapists was my ex-wife Tonia. No, she didn't study psychoanalysis or family therapy. But she had something else, much more important, an ability to love without qualifications. The discovery that I could be loved that way was absolutely transforming. She truly rounded my sharp edges with her gentleness.
This same principle is what animates the practice of tonglen (discussed elsewhere). We breathe in suffering, whether that of a specific person or group or all suffering everywhere, and in our breathing out of love and serenity to them it also comes to us. We feel it. As we send love out into the world we are, as the Dalai Lama has said, the first recipient.
That is how love is, contagious. Just as hatred and judgment are contagious, so are love and appreciation. The more we give them to others the more, at the very same moment, we receive that same love and appreciation internally. The greatest therapy of all, then, may be developing our own capacity to love.
—jim sloman, 10.24.06
|
