(S)He was just some Joseph looking for a manger.
~Leonard Cohen
In India, there is a temple where the instruction has been given that it be always being built, always worked on, forever under construction. Symbolically, this is the human condition; we are not a completed product, and it does not benefit us to behave as if we were. The eternal unfinishedness of the temple is an illustrative acknowledgement that we are ever in flux. This acknowledgement reminds us of the ongoing need for humility. This section of the website is dedicated to our fluxness, the fact that change is the only thing that is constant. Therefore, it will be regularly unfolding, mutating, transforming, just like us and this glorious earth upon which we have been graciously granted temporary residency.
none was more important than the other, and all were guests ~naomi shihab nye
hot messes
As likely you have noticed, our very human lives are not neatly packaged and tied with a bow. They are complex, multi-dimensional, often messy and ramshackle events. These derelict qualities, as well as our more “share-worthy” qualities, are all welcome in therapy, finally a place where all can be allowed and acknowledged, felt, explored, and ultimately understood in some sense. No need to be perfect, or even try to be perfect (trying to be perfect is just something to be noticed, seen for what it is). The light, the dark, the complicated, the simple, the joy, the anguish. The good, the bad, and the ugly. After all, are they really so different? Is one really better than the other because we prefer it?
Tell me, I’ll forget.
Show me, I may remember.
But involve me
and I’ll understand.
~Chinese proverb
inherent goodness
Like most of us, I was raised to conclude that there must be something wrong, something inherently flawed at my core. Not that this was the intention on anyone’s part! Dang-blasted conditioning! Dang-blasted intergenerational trauma! The process of turning back to our true nature is one that transmutes the so-called bad, and explains with poetry and love its greater purpose: to breed empathy, not to make us miserable– and helps us integrate this new emerging awareness within our ever-budding humanity. It is a lifelong process (not a bad thing), usually not as rapid as we think it should be (also not a bad thing). The truth of the matter is: who we are is inherently good. Perhaps to help us appreciate that, it necessarily takes some time, some trials and tribulations, some process: to remember, to experience that truth, that depth, convincingly enough.
who you are is the eye of the storm
