30 July 2009

La noche oscura del alma

There are times when your title says it all. And if not, then Robert Karen does a pretty damn good job of trying to sort things out for a person:

In "The Forgiving Self" Robert Karen says,


"Ideally, the therapeutic partnership offers something that cannot be found in a book: first, of course, the relationship itself, a relationship in which one is perhaps heard and understood as never before, that can access repressed and disowned parts of ourselves, that can get into the formative machinery and shed light on the forgotten gears and levers of our choices. But it also offers a relationship that may enable us to experience ourselves as cared about in a context where care has been wanting, where we can know our beauty and our ugliness, and where we can know the latter without obsessive self-recrimination but, rather, with a healthy remorse and a desire to grow. The therapeutic experience can--and should--engender a fresh perspective on what is possible for us in the realm of love and loss."


It is difficult in the middle of summer to have a dark night of the soul experience. It is better, I think, to do it in winter both literally and metaphorically. But sometimes that night will come even in the brightest of days. Sometimes that darkness comes in the midst of a sun-filled, huckleberry picking, waterslide waterpark, filled with kids kind of day. Sometimes you just can't stop that train from coming no matter how fast you try and run.


Do you ever feeling like you are running and running and still, you just can't escape that thing that is tugging inside your soul?


I wait and wander in the desert knowing that I'll find my way back stronger, better and with more empathy for the world that moves around and beyond me.


1 comment:

Dana said...

It is reminiscent of a hamster wheel--running and running and seemingly making progress only to find you are back where you started except that you don't know if you were running toward something or away from something and you can't tell if you are actually where you started or just further away from whereever you are supposed to be.

La noche oscura del alma... beautifully spoken.