[continued from last week's BLOG]

Tenderness carries the meaning of vulnerability, the ability to feel and resonate with others. It is the precursor of compassion. For without tenderness we are less than human—emotionally, energetically, and spiritually. Tenderness means soft, delicate, full of kindness and affection. But over and above its nuances and shades of meaning tenderness carries the further sense of offering or extending. It comes from the same root as the middle English word tenden which means "to attend to."

Tenderness is central to healing-listening and it is crucially important therefore in Sacred Attention Therapy which takes its name from the original meaning of therapy: “attending to soul.” As SAT therapists we listen with the whole self to the soul of the other. This is what therapy should always be, or at least always aim at, because this is the profound depth of healing and reverence which "two gathered together in My name" can bring about.

I bring this up here because the flood of insights you now report are a litany of primary qualities required of the true healer, the authentic therapist-listener, the one who receives the soul of the other. You write:

I am suppressing the quality of tenderness and the ability to be gentle towards myself and others... to be soft and patient. I am suppressing the quality of patience... sometimes it gets overshadowed by the pull or energy to get things done. I am suppressing the quality of taking the other in, without wanting to better them or change them... taking them really in just as they are, this also applies to myself and to situations. I am suppressing the gift of really listening to Life or the other... sometimes it gets obstructed by the impulse of telling people what needs to be done. I am suppressing the big part of me that loves to hug, to say loving nicknames, to hug, to caress others. When I make love I am suppressing the enjoyment of foreplay... it almost always gets lost in favor of the urge to come to climax and get it over with.

The first of these is I am suppressing the quality of tenderness and the ability to be gentle towards myself and others... to be soft and patient. Being gentle, profoundly gentle, is essential practice in healing therapy. With gentleness comes trust and the fulfilment of faith, in time the ability to surrender, and develop confidence in the inner workings and outer help and assistance that Life offers, as we grow and develop on our path. To be gentle with others we must first learn to be gentle with ourselves. Softness and patience likewise are qualities required in true healing. Softness to feel along with the person we are sitting with and listening to and patience to constantly return and reapply ourselves and see the process of change and transformation through to completion.

The second is I am suppressing the quality of patience... sometimes it gets overshadowed by the pull or energy to get things done. In healing listening we "do" being—less doing and more, far more, being. It is this quality of being and presence, when being is expressed through presence, that centers and heals. To be rather then do takes some sidestepping of that doing energy, the energy that is overly concerned to get things done, to accomplish and achieve. Ultimately the being energy presides in everyone's life. You come from being and to being you return. Living your life from the core sense of your being means that you are connected inner to outer, essence to action, inspiration to manifestation. Without this vital quality of the being sense you are like a holey balloons simply floating in the vastness.

The third is I am suppressing the quality of taking the other in, without wanting to better them or change them... taking them really in just as they are, this also applies to myself and to situations. This is wonderful! And it precisely describes the quality of acceptance and positive regard that the trainee therapist must cultivate through self-acceptance and non-judgment. In both therapy and relationships outside of therapy we must meet people where they are. Acceptance is immensely healing, warming to the soul, and ultimately transforming.

As therapists we work to flush out and heal the disavowed aspects of ourselves, the inner orphans, those parts of us we fear and/or loathe overmuch, too much to own as ourselves. When we have resolved these darkest corners of our psyche, we attain self-acceptance and are able then equally to offer it to others.

[to be continued and finished next week]

BLOG entry #16