In 1996, my supervisor loaned me the book “Conversations With God,” by Neale Donald Walsh. Walsh’s testimony: “In the spring of 1992, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred in my life. God began talking to you. Through me.” I would have had an easier time had Walsh said God was talking to Walsh. I’m quite open to the idea of a person’s experience of receiving revelation. I’ve … [Read more...]
Building wings while you fall
Shifting scenes on the backroads/In a lonely place in your mind/Deep, deep inside of you something is born/ And something else must die/You are in for a big surprise I tell myself I did the right thing, even though what I did broke my heart. Even as I did it, I protested what I was doing, wondering if I’d lost my mind. Wanting to slap myself and say, “What are you doing! … [Read more...]
Action makes words credible
Couples and families come to therapy. They come hoping for change. They come looking for a way out of stuckness. They come looking for hope and solutions. They come as an act of faith. They come as an act of courage. Or because the mate or the parent put them in a metaphorical headlock and dragged them there under protest. They come because, from the inside of great intimacy, … [Read more...]
Forgiveness and being forgiven
I’m ready to forgive. I notice this spontaneously, in the middle of an unrelated conversation with the person in question. I don’t think she even hears herself. Suddenly, in passing, she says something I’ve been waiting to hear for many years. She makes an aside reference to our conflict. And she identifies, describes, and ‘owns’ her behavior during that time of hurt and … [Read more...]
In the presence of evil
Ever felt the presence of evil? Evil is not a word I bandy about. I never use it casually just to mean something or someone I don’t like. I don’t say “evil” when what I mean is sin. No; I reserve the word for specific occasions. Like, the occasion of evil. In recent decades, psychology has been more and more willing to investigate evil as a possibility in human mental … [Read more...]
Getting smaller; less judgmental
I get a rush out of using my brain that is similar to the rush people crave from roller coasters and bungee jumps. I like learning. I really get a whizz out of being wrong; that is, someone finding the flaw in my argument. If I was independently wealthy and didn’t have children to rear, I think I’d always be in school. For the first half of my life, I read books and went to … [Read more...]
Internet’s culture of voyeurism
I promise confidentiality to patients. It is a holy promise. I lock the stories I hear in a vault inside of me utterly defended. With the exceptions of children being hurt, or my duty to respond to threats to self or others, I wouldn’t talk even if not talking put me in some jeopardy. Because, if I did betray this trust just to save my own bacon, I’d be violating a value that … [Read more...]
Adventures in human discovery
Sometimes people come to therapy not to look for answers; rather, to report the answers they’ve found. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to make sense. That is, if you’ve found the answer to your question, then why the need to give money to a therapist to announce it? Why not simply ‘go’ with it? But, sometimes the answer we stumble across is a complete shock and surprise. It … [Read more...]