121 - Is Therapy Tearing Us Apart?
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Purpose of Therapy
Therapy is about healing; restoration; and returning to normal interaction in a society that finds genuine fulfillment in participation, appreciation, and contribution.
Those who develop the healing and “heart” of wholeness or identify themselves as an improving “work in progress” have tolerance for difficulties, ability to work communally, and desire to contribute.
Disruptive Therapy
Healthy therapy loses its focus on healing and restoration when it loses the wisdom of consideration.
The wisdom of consideration is the process in which a “client,” for example, does healing work around family of origin wounds and identifies the need to restore the true self.
To restore the true self is to be able to know one’s own feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope without toxic shame or self-doubt.
Toxic shame and self-doubt are diminished through community with non-shaming people.
Therapy disrupts the healthy process when boundaries become walls and feelings become weapons—
If the therapist and client do not go beyond “what happened” and move into the consideration for the people who through ignorance, denial, or incapability were part of the loss of self, boundaries become walls instead of fences and division is increased. Walls create isolation. Fences create respect.
If the therapist helps the client turn feelings into rights rather than the tools that help a person make decisions, they are helping client’s get “stuck” in a victim status, rather than choice making response-ability.
The true self is not the right to not have to feel and make choices. It is the ability to know yourself and become responsible for your own actions that never give up on love and restoration—though a person may have to grieve deeply that the ones they hoped to be in relationship with do not seek restoration, too.
The purpose of the true self
The true self’s greatest expression is when we become identified with others through empathy and compassion that has healthy use of boundaries and healthy use of feelings in it.
This is the strength that allows forgiveness; personal identity; and recognition that some people are simply safer than others, without having to make others into “bad” people too quickly.
The Growth Process: The Beatitudes as a Map (Matthew 5:3-10, NIV)
How do we grow into the person who can step into the future as a “work in progress” who is growing? I believe the Beatitudes provide the eight movements we can make to live fully. They are the “map” for the awakened person’s journey:
Poor in Spirit: Admitting we are “99.9% identical” and desperately needy. This is where the door of the kingdom of heaven opens to us.
Mourn: Being willing to feel the sadness of our losses and the regret of the damage we caused defending ourselves rather than being ourselves. In grief, we are surrounded by the arms of care that comfort us.
Meek: Wanting to give myself to God, who has given Himself to me, moves me to serve the King. I am teachable, hungry, and brave in His service. This is the strength of loyalty and gentleness that allows us to be deeply trusted and given great responsibility and impact, which increases our inheritance on the earth.
Hunger and Thirst: When we tell the truth about our desire and longings, this frees us to crave more goodness, truth, beauty, and more of who He is and how He loves. The filling is unending.
Merciful: Living out of the humility of having received mercy, we offer mercy. Mercy begets mercy to us. We are seen as helpers, not harmers. We gather others looking for a safe place to receive what they cannot earn.
Pure in Heart: Seeing life as “heavenizing earth” gives us the mission and anointing of sons and daughters of the Maker of all things. We live in the integrity of an undivided heart.
Peacemakers: Using our passion to make communities where light pierces darkness, creativity repairs destruction, hope overcomes despair, and evil is rejected. Invitation is offered to everyone, but “the way of life” offered will exclude those who do not wish to live it.
Persecuted: The willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than pain gives us strength to persevere, and the kingdom of heaven is partially realized on earth as it is in heaven.
These movements are the way we “bear life well.” They move us from the acorn that holds within it the roots of the oak tree, to an oak whose limbs produce groves of oaks “a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.” (Isaiah 61:3, NIV)
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center
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