The history of humanity is a tale of human folly. Globally and individually, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves replaying old habits of thinking, feeling, and behaving that we know will only get us into trouble. Gratefully, we have the capacity to stop the madness, turn our attention inward, dismantle our delusions, and build our lives in accord with how things actually are. This is primarily an inside job.
Therapy is a unique profession in that one of its purposes is to help search for new meaning to old problems. Recently, I started playing with the idea of therapy as a practice toward personal wisdom. For some, the practice is more of cultivation while for others it’s more excavation. For the bulk of us, it’s somewhere in between.
Seeing Clearly
From the perspective of Buddhist psychology, the source of our folly is that we are not seeing ourselves or our world clearly. Our vision is clouded through the distortions of our mind. By embracing reality, we free up energy to compassionately accept what is. This is wisdom and it takes practice. Lots of it, mostly because we’ve spent a lifetime building a case for not being ______ enough.
Thankfully this wisdom is innate and within each of us. The challenge is in patiently, quieting the mind enough to hear it.
I believe we replay old habits of thinking, feeling and behaving because we find comfort in what we know. The possibility that we have innate wisdom is tricky to grasp.
Each day I work to identify the innate wisdom in myself. The courage to do this, for me, has been developed gently and slowly with the therapy for four years.
Thank you, Kerry, for each moment we have worked together.
Warm wishes,
Patricia