Using Love as a Healing Tool - for Therapists and Healers
RK. What does that mean to be self-sufficient, to be self-loving? How does one do that?
SD. Think about what does it mean to love another? As I mentioned in defining love it means to be accepting, kind, understanding, giving, patient, compassionate, considerate, affectionate - all the wonderful ways we know to behave toward another whom we love. That is exactly how we need to behave toward ourselves. If some one is incapable initially to give love to themselves, I recommend that they find a charity and become involved. This way they can begin to experience giving love, and at the same time place themselves in a loving environment. That will make them feel better about themselves and hopefully begin the healing process that will lead to loving themselves.
RK. How do you get a client who feels she or he has been hurt and feels rejected in a relationship to be the one who makes the first approach towards loving that person? People have pride, and they don’t want to be rejected again.
SD. I’ll give you an example of one of my clients. She had told me that her mother never ever said or did anything loving in her life. There was never a kind word, never a loving touch. She remembered as a child having her 4 siblings beaten, and out of fear my client became the model child who wasn’t beaten but she was hated by all of her siblings. They’re all adults now in their 40s and 50s. All 4 of them have serious problems – drug addiction, divorce, etc. My client was finalizing her divorce and has never felt loved herself. We talked a lot about my concepts and she actually had a hard time letting the ideas in. She would stop it and tell me, “I’ve done that, I’ve tried that.” When her mother was dying she moved her into the hospital where they provided hospice care. My client told me her mother was getting a lot of get well cards and as she tried to show her mom the letters and well wishes my client would insist, “You see Mom everyone loves you.” Her mother completely dismissed her effort. The mother didn’t want to acknowledge that anyone could love her.
After she told me this story I tried to counsel her once more; “the next time, instead of trying to convince your mother how much everybody loves her, including yourself, when what you really want is for her to tell you how much she loves you, why don’t you just say to her, “Mom I know you love me?” She looked at me surprised. Because that was never her experience, she didn’t believe that her mother loved her. As I’ve mentioned when we’re working with love what we need to know is that because it’s so life sustaining and so integral to who we are, every human being has the need to express love and to give love and receive love. That’s a truth whether we’ve experienced it or not.
I knew for a fact her mother would have loved to love her 5 children and give and get love rather than behave the way she did while her children were growing up. Instead she alienated her children and they grew up to be emotional disasters.
One day with more get well cards in her hand my client went to her mother, but instead of trying the same old convincing routine she said to her, “Mom, I know you love me.” and the woman broke down and started to cry. It was the sign that my client was waiting and hungering for all her life. It was an acknowledgement that her mother did love her, even if in a terribly dysfunctional way. The mother needed to hear from her daughter that her love was gotten, although she knew all to well that she was not a warm, loving parent. Finally, by focusing on the reality of love and our need for it, both got what they needed. The mother died two days later.
RK: Amazing. How do you go about transforming a parent-adult child relationship from a critical, disapproving one into a more loving one.
SD: The first thing a client needs to accept is that the parent, the one that hurt them, needs to be loved and wants to love, just as much they do. Underneath the façade of distance between them is a tremendous need for the life sustaining energy called love. There is also a lot of hurt, and fear, and embarrassment. So, if our client wants to transform the relationship and have instead a close, nurturing relationship with let us say a mother, who in her view has been selfish and critical, the following are the steps I would guide them to take.
First we explore the client’s inner awareness of what is believed to be true right now. I hate my mother, she doesn’t love me, she has hurt me, we can’t communicate, she never wants to be close, and nothing will ever change. This is what I call a context or vision. It was created unconsciously, based on experiences the client has had. It is the belief system that is driving every action and reaction in this particular relationship. It is the context through which everything is viewed and experienced. If by some chance the mother attempts to behave in a loving way, it will be ignored, discounted as false, or not even recognized. Once a belief system is set it is very difficult to deviate from it and see another perspective, because we have a blind spot with regard to seeing it operating in our life.
We have to add to this (1) the mother hasn’t got a clue about being a loving or nurturing parent, many parents don’t (probably because of the way she was raised,) (2) she has always done her best, which was lousy, but (3) she would love to be able to love and receive love, and (4) she needs love as much as oxygen, food and water. The mother has been deeply hurt by her parents and other relationships, which has brought her to her present place of being an ineffective giver or receiver of love.
RK: It seems to me what you’re saying Stefan is that as therapists we need to guide our clients to having a more compassionate understanding of the failures of their parents as parents. Rather than attribute intentionality it will help for them to understand that their parent’s ineptness was the result of the way they were probably parented.
SD: Yes that needs to happen in order for their vision of the relationship to change. The new vision is now going to be created consciously. The vision needs to contain all that a person really wants, not what they believe is possible. I ask all clients to write down exactly what they want. Most people actually laugh or deprecate whatever they write for their vision, thinking that words on a piece of paper are just silly scribble. Wishful thinking. Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Where there is no vision, a people perish.” Creating a new vision is often a lengthy process, because people have a hard time creating by going outside their past experience, and then living with their new vision. If the wish doesn’t happen right away they feel discouraged or angry and slip back into old ways of thinking and behaving. All the latest in brain research verifies that the brain’s wiring is plastic and can be re-wired. This is the work that writing a new vision begins – to re-wire the brain’s neuro-pathways. Again, when I explain the usefulness of writing new visions, clients have a bit more respect for its possible effectiveness.
