Remembering My Humanity

Before every session, I take a moment
to remember my humanity.
There is no experience that this man has
that I cannot share with him,
no fear that I cannot understand,
no suffering that I cannot care about,
because I too am human.
No matter how deep his wound,
he does not need to be ashamed
in front of me. I too am vulnerable.
And because of this, I am enough.
Whatever his story, he no longer
needs to be alone with it. This is what
will allow his healing to begin.

Carl Rogers

Not Necessarily Inferior

Not everything that steps
out of line, and thus "abnormal,"
must necessarily be "inferior."

Hans Asperger

Every Minute of Every Day

Can you use shame or humiliation
to change people or behavior?
Yes and no. Yes, you can try.
In fact, if you really zero in on
an exposed vulnerability, you
could actually see a very swift
change.
Will the change last?
No.
Will it hurt?
Yes, it's excruciating.
Will it do any damage?
Yes, it has the potential to scar
both the person using shame
and the person being shamed.
Is shame used very often as a
way to try to change people?
Yes, every minute of every day.

Brene Brown

Where's the Focus?

Healthy striving is self-focused:
"How can I improve?"
Perfectionism is other-focused:
"What will they think?"

Brene Brown

We're All in This Together

Imperfections are not inadequacies;
they are reminders that we're all in this together.

Brene Brown

The Man in the Arena

It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man
who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have them better.
The credit goes to the man who is actually
in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and blood and sweat; who errs,
who comes short again and again, because
there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions,
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph
of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

No Problem

If I have a problem,
I gave it to me.

Byron Katie

A Clearing

Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing
in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.

Martha Postlewaite

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves, no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Shed Your Cultural Operating System

You are not naked when you take off your clothes.
You still wear your religious assumptions, your
prejudices, your fears, your illusions, your delusions.
When you shed the cultural operating system then,
essentially, you stand naked before the inspection
of your own psyche.

Terence McKenna

No Doctrine, No Practice

The doctrine is the doctrine of non-doctrine,
the practice is the practice of non-practice
... which is the Tao.

Wei Wu Wei