As a therapist, this reads true. It's not a script. For me, the poem evokes the essence of being a therapist, meeting whatever the client brings, staying present and authentic. Of course therapy also involves deeper responses, examinations of beliefs and thought patterns, skill practice.
This one's for the lonely, the one's that seek and find Only to be let down, time after time This one's for the torn down, the experts at the fall Come on friends, get up now, you're not alone at all Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh And this part was for her and this part was for her This part was for her, does she remember? It comes and goes in waves, I This one's for the faithless, the ones that are surprised They're only where they are now, regardless of their fight This one's for believing, if only for its sake Come on friends, get up now, love is to be made Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh And this part was for her and this part was for her This part was for her, does she remember? It comes and goes in waves, I Am only led to wonder why It comes and goes in waves, I Am only led to wonder why Why I try This is for the ones who stand For the ones who try again For the ones who need a hand For the ones who think they can It comes and goes in waves, I Am only led to wonder why It comes and goes in waves, I Am only led to wonder why Why I fly
[A Debt] in a dream, i saw my mother before she was made mine. her life still unburdened by the weight of raising someone. no one has left her to be in a grave & she is yet to know where the nearest cemetery is. when she runs across the field, no tiny footprints gather next to her steps. her hunger simply hers alone. we do all kinds of things for love. look at me. look at me returning her life to her. even in a dream. --noor unnahar
“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” — George Bernard Shaw
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”
“I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you’ve made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you’ve left a mark. You don’t have to bend the whole world. I think it’s better to just enjoy it.”
"We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the great language of religion. It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life. These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers. Answers are the way out, but that is not what we are here for. But when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation. Fixing something doesn't usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer."
---Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
"What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on
something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark
corner. Our ability to shift our perceptions and seek creative
alternatives to the conundrums of modernity is in direct proportion to
our empathy." - Terry Tempest Williams
"Families teach us love, and tribes teach us loyalty. The village teaches us tolerance."
"Home-based, phone-based culture has arguably solidified our closest and most distant connections, the inner ring of family and best friends (bound by blood and intimacy) and the outer ring of tribe (linked by shared affinities). But it’s wreaking havoc on the middle ring of “familiar but not intimate” relationships with the people who live around us, which Dunkelman calls the village. “These are your neighbors, the people in your town,” he said. We used to know them well; now we don’t.
Imagine that a local parent disagrees with you about affirmative action at a PTA meeting. Online, you might write him off as a political opponent who deserves your scorn. But in a school gym full of neighbors, you bite your tongue. As the year rolls on, you discover that your daughters are in the same dance class. At pickup, you swap stories about caring for aging relatives. Although your differences don’t disappear, they’re folded into a peaceful coexistence. And when the two of you sign up for a committee to draft a diversity statement for the school, you find that you can accommodate each other’s opposing views. “It’s politically moderating to meet thoughtful people in the real world who disagree with you,” Dunkelman said."
"When Epley and his lab asked Chicagoans to overcome their preference for
solitude and talk with strangers on a train, the experiment probably
didn’t change anyone’s life. All it did was marginally improve the
experience of one 15-minute block of time. But life is just a long set
of 15-minute blocks, one after another. The way we spend our minutes is
the way we spend our decades. “No amount of research that I’ve done has
changed my life more than this,” Epley told me. “It’s not that I’m never
lonely. It’s that my moment-to-moment experience of life is better,
because I’ve learned to take the dead space of life and make friends in
it."