Okay. I must admit. Therapy is working. I am allowing the deepest emotional stuff of my early childhood to rise up into my consciousness. Indeed, I am allowing myself to experience emotional pain in a way I have not done ever in my past. It is cathartic, and it is good. These feelings bring with them clarity, forgiveness, and understanding, and at a certain level, peace of mind.
I could not have allowed myself these emotions had I not felt completely safe and validated to feel them. That, I believe, is the truest gift a therapist bestows on his client. Emotional safety and validation.
Yesterday, in preparation for my class tonight, I re-read a passage in my own book, and came upon a quote by Alice Miller. It was like Eliot's famous quote about knowing the place for the first time, for even though I had used Miller's quote in my own book some six years ago, knowing at some level of consciousness that it pertained to me - yesterday I felt her words to the core of my being. I found myself nodding in recognition, smiling with gratitude:
Only by knowing the truth can we be set free. Only in this way can we free ourselves from the fears and anxieties we knew as children, blamed and punished for sins we did not know we had committed, the fateful fear of the sin of disobedience, that crippled anxiety that has wrecked so many people's lives and keeps them in thrall to their own childhood. Alice Miller. (In, Jacobson, 2008. Page 101)
Even as I know that no therapist can work his wonders, if his client does not eagerly participate in the exploration, in fact, this post is a dedication of gratitude to my therapist. Very few words, I must say. But none can really sum up how thankful I truly am.
A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Ten minutes about weight loss - go:
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