Welcome back.
This is a third part to the series of talking about the person-centered approach to therapy by Carl Rogers.
Today I wanted to talk about it less as a theory and more as just a concept,
As something to remember.
So while you're remembering,
If you will,
Somewhere along the way,
We've forgotten that human beings are machines to optimize.
We forget it all the time.
We forget that we're living things,
Tender things,
Wounded things,
Beautiful things.
And so much of life teaches us how to leave and abandon ourselves,
How to move farther and farther away from our own inner knowing,
Our own humanity,
Our own connectedness to ourselves and to each other.
We learn how to shapeshift for love,
For affection,
For a pat on the head.
We learn how to perform for safety,
How to become more digestible,
More acceptable and convenient.
And many people arrive,
Whether it's on the therapy couch or on their yoga mats,
Or even just across the table from friends,
They arrive there carrying a quiet grief that says,
I don't know who I am underneath who I've had to become.
And this is that remembering that we can sit beside that grief and not to rush its grieving process and not trying to force transformation,
But listening for the self underneath the survival.
Carl Rogers believed that within every person there is this natural momentum toward growth and toward wholeness.
And carrying this remembering is so very sacred.
There's lots of sacred remembrings,
And I'll talk about lots of them for hours,
But this one is special.
Beneath all the defenses that we have created or adapted to all these things that,
You know,
Habits and behaviors that have rose up in us to keep us emotionally,
Physically,
Socially safe,
Underneath all that there is a little seed or a little sort of like a green plant reaching for the light.
Always,
It's always there,
Even after trauma,
After heartbreak,
After years of abandoning ourselves,
There's something inside of us that still longs for the light and for the truth of who we are to keep rising up and growing and growing toward the illuminator of that,
Which is the light.
And the way that we can nurture that part of us growing and coming towards the light that we feel like has been buried and covered up is by creating the condition where it can breathe untouched,
Where it feels safe enough to reach and grow,
Where it doesn't feel like someone's going to bop it down,
Where the wind and the rain and the storm is going to come and just annihilate it or wound it or hurt it.
It has to feel safe.
There's got to be a safe container for it to arise.
Now that's where other humans come in,
Whether of course,
You know,
Whether they're therapists or yoga teachers or friends or family members or strangers,
They come in and they don't force anything.
They just provide warmth and a safe presence and a gentleness and honesty and they shine a light on shame and say there's no need for that here.
I'm not bringing the shame.
They shine a light on the areas where we're performing and say you don't have to do that anymore.
They shine a light on the fears and show that those are just shadows.
They're not real.
And that's where the self begins to return.
Not all at once,
Not dramatically,
But quietly,
Like thawing,
Like spring after a long winter.
We see hints of it.
It may go away.
Then it comes back.
One of the deepest wounds people carry is often not the wound itself or the pain itself,
But it's the belief that they have to hide their pain to remain lovable,
To remain palatable,
To remain in other people's presence.
They have to appear flawless,
Painless.
So we learn that,
You know,
If I'm messy,
I lose connection,
Or if I'm emotional,
I lose belonging.
If I'm too much,
I become unworthy.
Then they spend years living from the outside inward instead of the inside out,
Self-monitoring,
Correcting themselves,
And having all these conversations with themselves.
I should have done this,
I should have done that.
Not that those things are inherently bad,
But it's just the overdoing of them and the taking over of the monitoring of that becoming the majority of our life instead of a smaller piece.
So when the day comes when we can sit across from another human being in whatever capacity,
And that human doesn't ask them to become smaller,
And doesn't ask them to hurry,
Doesn't ask them to justify their feelings,
Someone just meets them there,
Just meets them in their own experience,
The nervous system recognizes that,
Sees the safety,
Says something like,
Oh,
Maybe I don't have to disappear here.
Maybe this moment is a big moment.
Maybe this moment is huge,
Enormous.
Maybe it's more accessible than we think.
Maybe it's not just for the hour of a therapy room.
Not that we need to give this beautiful gift to every single person and become depleted because now it's our life,
Not that far extreme,
But maybe this is something very sacred.
It's definitely worth taking up space in our mind,
The thought that people don't bloom through criticism,
They bloom through the right conditions,
Through sunlight,
Water,
Safety,
Presence,
Nutrients,
Truth.
There's a quote by Rome Doss where he essentially speaks about how we are all just walking each other home,
And that's what this person-centered philosophy feels like to me.
It's just walking beside another person,
Which is always inevitably home.
We're always just going home.
There's a quote from it that says,
I will sit beside you long enough for you to remember yourself.
And with all the other theories that I personally lean on,
That one-liner of I will sit beside you long enough for you to remember yourself is everything.
It shows that there is this belief that you will remember yourself,
I will remember myself,
We will all remember who we are eventually with enough feeling of belonging,
Not a toxic belonging,
But a genuine belonging,
The type of belonging that doesn't provoke anxiety,
But provokes rest and relaxation.
I will sit beside you long enough for you to remember yourself.
Namaste.
Thanks for listening,
Friends.
I hope that this has blessed you in some way.
I'll see you on the next one.
