discover what keeps you from recognizing what is best for you.” Busy people especially do not want to waste time. They want quick answers and a clear plan of action to solve their problems. They often squirm in their chairs when I suggest, “I want you to just pause and pay attention to yourself. And we’ll talk about it in our sessions.”
My clients, after many years of pain and frustration because they feel so stuck in their dilemmas, want me to cure them by providing some magical solution quickly. However, I do not see myself as the expert answer man, but as a man of many questions, like Socrates. I invite them to explore a fascinating world that they have ignored most of their lives: the inner workings of their minds. By looking outside themselves rather than inside, they have become stuck. Their distance from themselves has become the source of much of their suffering, although they may not be consciously aware of it. So I ask questions that will help them to become acquainted with themselves and explore their own unacknowledged wisdom. Truth, goodness and beauty lie within them, close to their hearts, if they will only come to recognize them.
My clients, especially the hard-working ones, want to know how they can change themselves, get rid of the behaviors, thoughts and feelings they do not like. They want direction and a recipe for change. I tell them, “You have it all wrong, backward, inside out.” I explain that they want to manipulate themselves by working from the outside in, changing their behaviors in order to change their hearts. Instead, the process of change and growth is an inside-out job which involves acknowledging and releasing the natural power and goodness within them. Change comes through self-awareness and self-acceptance at a deep level. It involves surrendering to the unrecognized power within yourself.
I tell my clients my view of therapy: “I do not see therapy as some self-improvement project, a way to create a better version of yourself. Instead, I view it as a way to come to know and accept yourself as you are, not as you wish yourself to be. Together we explore what keeps you from knowing and accepting yourself as good enough.”
Most of my clients see themselves as somehow defective and hopelessly entangled in problems. They feel helpless and hopeless, lacking resources to work out their problems. They feel imprisoned by the circumstances of their lives, unable to escape. I present an alternative vision, that they are a wondrous mystery to be explored and relished, not a problem to be solved. I invite them to undertake a journey of exploration with me to a little-known and fascinating land with untold riches. I invite them to travel beneath the surface to the center of their lives from which all their hopes, desires and values arise. They hold the keys to their freedom but don’t know it.
Like Socrates, the Greek philosopher, I ask questions to make my clients look within, to appreciate their own truth, beauty and goodness. The truth about themselves will set them free, if they will only make the effort to uncover it. Through my questions and our thoughtful explorations together, I try to impress upon them that they are not who they think they are. They are much more. In searching for the answers to these questions, I ask them to become observers of themselves and their inner worlds. In the process, I hope they gain a sense of their own transcendence, their freedom to just be themselves and escape the tyranny of the many roles they play.
1) WHAT IS YOUR TRUTH?
My questions focus on three areas that overlap in reality. First, I ask the “truth” questions. When clients sit in my office for a session, they sometimes tell me, “Nothing is going on, just the same old thing.”
Astonished, I respond, “How can that be? You may see nothing different around you but how can nothing be going on in your mind?” I ask them to talk about whatever comes to mind. If you observe your own mind closely, you immediately notice a flood of thoughts, feelings and sensations. The movement is continuous, overflowing and unstoppable. It comes from some hidden source that you experience deep inside.
Sometimes clients dismiss their own thoughts and feelings quickly, exclaiming, for example, “I wanted her to hug me. But that’s just silly, childish.” They interrupt the natural flow of their thoughts with critical judgments.
I ask my clients to be objective observers of what is going on in their minds. I invite them to be endlessly curious about what they discover and refrain from judging. Together we examine the flow of consciousness and try to understand what it is telling us. If you observe closely what emerges from your mind, the isolated thoughts will reveal patterns and repetitions. They will echo what you have heard from others and from your past. I say to my clients, “Isn’t that an interesting thought, an interesting way to look at things? How did you come to think that way?” If you stop and reflect on the various thoughts, beliefs and assumptions you have about your life, you will notice that most are not original. They come from someone else who influenced your life, likely your parents or some authority figure. Without questioning it, you came to accept on faith what was passed on to you. You never measured it against the bar of your own experience.
Look at the parade of thoughts and realize that they are relative, not absolute truths. Those thoughts may even be a distortion of reality, not corresponding to your present day experience as an adult. They are ways of thinking you inherited from childhood. If you discover a thought or belief that disturbs you, ask yourself, “Does that make sense to me now?” Ask further, “What do I believe about myself now?” Perhaps you never consulted with yourself or took your opinions seriously. If you don’t take your opinions seriously, no one else will. It may be liberating to realize that you have your own truth and are entitled to your own opinions.
2) WHERE DO YOU FIND BEAUTY?
Second, I ask about beauty. What inspires you with a sense of wonder and awe? A moment when time stood still for me was in St. Peter’s Basilica while I was gazing at the Pietà, Michelangelo’s sculpture of Mary holding a lifeless Jesus. I was transported beyond myself—inspired—and filled with an uplifting, divine spirit. At that moment, transfixed by the beauty before me, I felt a sense of communion with something greater than myself and a deep tranquility. All was well and would be well, beyond the chaos and confusion of my life. Most of us do not stop long enough to contemplate the beauty around us: a radiant sunset, a bee pollinating a flower, a look of love. When we do, we do not recognize it as a reflection of the beauty within us and every human being who walks the earth.
Most of my clients suffer from low self-esteem. They lack awareness of their own dignity. Instead, they are caught up with problems that overwhelm them and behaviors that cause shame. They see only their faults and feel pressure to prove themselves adequate. They do not stop to consider their innate beauty. Do you consider yourself a beautiful person, someone who inspires others? I am talking about both an outer and inner beauty that you desire to display to others. Have you ever asked yourself what you consider your most beautiful quality? Do you see the beauty of everyone around you, or are you preoccupied with their flaws? Do you only see your own flaws? We project onto others what we do not accept in ourselves. If you do not see your own native beauty, you will never really see it in others or in the world around you. Can you view your life as a magnificent, unfinished tapestry that the world is waiting to see? Can you see the fine strands of suffering, successes and failures as essential to the unique beauty of the design?
3) WHAT IS THE GOOD YOU SEEK?
Finally, I ask about goodness. What is the good you are aiming to create with your life? When my clients tell me that they are no-good losers, I remark, “What an interesting way to view yourself.” I follow up with two questions: “How did you come to think of yourself that way? What purpose would it serve for you to think that way?” These questions usually stop them in their tracks. We explore together the payoff in thinking of themselves as no good and useless. If you think you are a loser with nothing to give, you do not expend the energy to do anything of value. You withdraw into self-pity and ignore any sense of responsibility to make yourself and the world a better place. Low self-esteem arises from and reinforces a self-centered preoccupation. Instead, if you appreciate your own goodness, you spontaneously seek ways of sharing it.
If you stop to observe that flow of consciousness, you will immediately notice many desires, wishes and strivings. A close examination of them, again, reveals a pattern whose origin can be discerned with some analysis. You discover an emotional program, an unconscious