Your Inner Capacity for Growth

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“No matter how many scars we carry from what we have gone through and suffered in the past, our intrinsic wholeness is still here. When it comes right down to it, the challenge is to realize that this is it. Right now is my life.

The question is, What is my relationship to it going to be? Does my life just automatically “happen” to me? Am I a total prisoner of my circumstances or my obligations, of my body or my illness, or of my history? Do I become hostile or defensive or depressed if certain buttons get pushed, happy if other buttons are pushed, and frightened if something else happens? What are my choices? Do I have any options? What else contains the scars? None of us has to be a helpless victim of what was done to us or what was not done for us in the past, nor do we have to be helpless in the face of what we may be suffering now.

We are also what was present before the scarring—our original wholeness, what was born whole. And we can reconnect with that intrinsic wholeness at any time, because it’s very nature is that it is always present. It is who we truly are.

As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter how despairing you may be feeling in a given moment. But if you hope to mobilize your inner capacities for growth and for healing and to take charge in your life on a new level, a certain kind of effort and energy on your part will be required.

It will take conscious effort on your part to move in a direction of healing, inner peace, and well-being. This means learning to work with the very stress and pain that are causing you to suffer.”      
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living 
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This is one of the things psychotherapy is good for. As a therapist, I see myself as opening my heart to hold space for the one who is sharing, and then offering assistance in making sense of it all. We often will break down beliefs that have held my client hostage for years – some since childhood. Also, transformation seems to be more profound with a witness … expressing emotions helps you digest them, and then the emotions let you go.
Stay tuned for more articles about the benefits of psychotherapy!
 

Making Amends

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Part of the Twelve Steps in addiction recovery requires absolute honesty and personal responsibility for the ways that one’s addictions and behaviors have harmed others before becoming sober (Steps 4, 8, and 9). These moral lapses come in the form of lying, manipulating, stealing, blaming, or just plain acting like a jerk to kids, friends, and family! In becoming aware of all moral compromises made in connection to using, and then making the appropriate amends, sobriety is strengthened. The cobwebs of remorse, shame and guilt, that so often lead to relapse, are removed. We learn to forgive ourselves, too, and can experience true freedom from the past.

But you don’t have to be recovering from addictions to get something from the 12 steps. It is, after all, a spiritual program in and of itself.

Making Amends – and The Work of Byron Katie

In a process called The Work, Byron Katie teaches to make an Amends List (like in steps 8 and 9) following these steps:

  1. Make a list of all the people, dead or alive, that you harmed.
  2. Starting with an easiest one, write a letter describing three ways you have hurt him/her.
  3. Make a sincere apology for the past harm. Be sure to watch your language for signs of defensiveness, blame, or excuses.  Remove the words — “if”, “but”, “should” or “because.” Do not make any excuses for what you did.
  4. Make a sincere request for forgiveness and let him/her know you are willing to make it right. Expect nothing from the person whom you are asking forgiveness from. It’s your life you are cleaning up.
  5. Now tell him/her three things they gave you that you are grateful for and thank them.
  6. Read the letter you wrote and as if you have written it to yourself.  i.e., replace the other’s name with your name. Try reading it out loud for maximum benefit.Turning this letter around to you provides the opportunity for deeper self-understanding… which ultimately leads to self forgiveness. Be gentle with yourself as you discover your own innocence.
  7. If you think it will serve and not cause more harm, mail the letter to the person you wrote it to, or share it face to face. It’s up to them whether they decide to read it; don’t expect them to read it, to be grateful, or to be forgiving. This is your life you are clearing up, not theirs.

The turnaround helps you see how your actions have hurt you. Remember – you were doing the best you could at that time.

Forgive yourself. It’s your life. If you don’t turn it around, who will? You’re the one!

Now hug yourself and tell yourself that you love you!