A Therapeutic Journey: Lessons from The School of Life

offers us an unparalleled chance to impress those who do not, or did not, originally believe in us. It is the favored tool of all those who start in life with a feeling of being under-loved, under-appreciated, and overlooked. It is the instrument of vengeance of the once-ignored. Under the guise of a merely practical pursuit, it carries a heavy emo

humor. Feelings get less strong, not stronger, once they’ve been acknowledged.

Art is a weapon against despair. It is a tool with which to alleviate a sense of crushing isolation and uniqueness. It provides common ground where the sadness in me can, with dignity and intelligence, meet the sadness in you.

Powerful emotions, therapy says, are triggered in the present by traumas and difficulties that began in a distant and usually largely forgotten past.

All of these have roots in a sense of not having mattered enough to anyone over long childhood years.

We must make time, as often as once a day, to lie very still on our own somewhere, probably in bed or maybe in the bath, to close our eyes and direct our attention toward one of many tangled or murky topics that deserve reflection: a partner, a work challenge, an invitation, a forthcoming trip, a relationship with a child or a parent. We might need

A well-functioning mind recognizes the futility and cruelty of constantly finding fault with its own nature.

We cause ourselves a lot of pain by pretending to be competent, all-knowing, proficient adults long after we should, ideally, have called for help. We suffer a bitter rejection in love, but tell ourselves and our acquaintances that we never cared. We hear some wounding rumors about us but refuse to stoop to our opponents’ level. We find we can’t sl

If we stop admiring, it is not because we are ever really bored or because it is “normal” to take someone for granted; it is chiefly only because we are, at some level, furious. Anger creeps into love and destroys admiration. We cease to delight because we unknowingly grow entangled in various forms of unprocessed annoyance. We can’t cheer them on