Coming to therapy is a responsible act. It means taking charge of our lives.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you NOT to be?
-
From Nelson Mandela's inauguration speech
We all want to function better, but the pressures of the modern world over-stress
us.
They lure us away from a connection to ourselves, our families, communities
and natural environment. The consequence is anxiety and depression in their many
forms. Change comes when we meet new challenges and, in my view a therapist's
job is not to impose their own agenda, to advise, judge, label or diagnose, but
to challenge the person, from a place of goodwill and respect, to make their own
changes towards a richer, more satisfying life.
We change and transform constantly from the instant of conception until we die.
The task for us is to learn how to influence who we are in our constant changing.
We do this by paying close attention to ourselves, by handling ourselves lovingly
and receptively, and deciding to live with self-acceptance and compassion.