Why It’s Sometimes Just as Important to Look Up and Outside of Oneself
As an integrative practitioner with a wide range of clients who deeply loves so many aspects of my job, it’s challenging to narrow down and succinctly describe a modality, niche or specialty for which I am grateful. Still, when asked to write a blurb about my gratitude for this work, this is what immediately came to me:
Over the years I’ve become more and more aware of how social injustice — bias embedded throughout culture and unresolved collective trauma — has a significant role in the hurt experienced by every individual who sits on the couch across from me. I see how someone’s parents’ and grandparents’ trauma influenced the way they showed up as parents however many years ago, and how that “showing up” the best they could often caused harm to the person sitting before me now. I understand how toxic, mainstream messages around who and what is valuable erodes one’s sense of self, invades thoughts and beliefs, and becomes a destructive delusion.
I am incredibly grateful to see these shadows that burden people, because when I include this context into the reflection I provide my clients, then they can see it, too. Clients who wonder what’s wrong with them, who live with self-criticism and self-doubt — whether raw and tender on the surface or buried deeply under massive defenses — they can start to look up and outside of themselves. They start to see how they got here and why they’ve behaved the way they have. They begin to challenge their habitual thoughts and question long held beliefs. As their perspective shifts, compassion grows, and they begin to see themselves less often as a failure, and more and more as a survivor.
Through this system of providing generational and cultural context, I have the utmost privilege of witnessing folks coming into contact with their deepest, most wholesome, truest selves. I get to see that when folks are healthy, their intuition is sharp and their love is powerful. I may be providing the service, but what I receive is hope and faith in humanity.