To quote Carl Rogers, “Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is fixed. The aim of life is to be fully born; to be born every minute.”
It is interesting how easy it is to lose this important notion in our lives. So many of us live in such a rigid and unmoving way – sticking to the same routines and living (un)comfortably within our comfort zones, never pushing the boundaries for fear of what might be just outside our own little bubbles of reality.
The way I see it, the fundamental principle in any therapuetic intervention is finding the true self, the inner core of one’s being, and then learning to “unlearn” unhelpful patterns of behaviour or thinking. In other words, discovering oneself and then, by doing so, changing the parameters of one’s being.
This is essentially what philosophers have called “The Awakening.” But instead of awakening to find we are different , we are awakening the sleeping, true self within us all. This is who we have always been – beneath the negative chatter and false generalisations and assumptions. It is the “us” that was with us from the moment we were born.
People seek therapy for many reasons and they come with various complaints or symptoms (anxiety, depression, phobias), but these are only conscious forms of what culture dictates to be acceptable – only labels. The common suffering of all humankind is the alienation from oneself, from others and from nature.
It is only when we move beyond the ego, which is where our false beliefs and judgements lie, that we move towards a more integrated and connected way of being with ourselves and others. It is only then that life truly begins anew.
Inner Balance Therapies 