“I am human, and therefore nothing human can be foreign to me.” This quote from Terence, ancient Roman poet and playwright, crystalizes the unity of human experience. In a world of diversity and intersectionality, to ponder universality is to tread on dangerous ground. One cannot easily generalize personal experience, and there are many lived histories that I will never fully comprehend, not first-hand. At the same time, diversity of our experiences does not elide the fundamental emotions that are felt by everyone: fear, anxiety, joy, excitement, disappointment, grief, ecstasy. The palate of valences that furnish human experiences are strikingly similar across culture, language, and time. The recognition of these elemental features of experience need not re-enact epistemological authorities that claim to apprehend what is universally “human,” but can be a tender recognition of the chords that bind us to each other amid all our differences.
Recently, I have felt more intensely the potency of Terence’s pronouncement. My clients come to me in the throes of life’s difficult questions: Anxiety about the future, questions about relationships, doubts about their careers. They may be healing from a broken heart or trying to nurture a positive self-image. In each instance, the struggles manifest a self that is opening to the demands of a mysterious world, a process of the heart reaching transcending itself in the search for understanding. This path to maturity, with all its pangs and bruises, calls the counselor into solidarity. This solidarity is deeper than empathy and more elemental than non-judgement; it rests on the counsellor’s own relationship to pain, the extent to which the therapist has softened into the challenges of life. If on some rudimentary level I find life to be insufferable, and uncertainty intolerable, my frustrations will drip through my comportment, like a cracked bucket that cannot hold water. Those whom I come into contact will sense that pain is abhorrent, something to be dispatched at once. Conversely, if through patient inner work I learn to trust my pain as a reliable guide, if I befriend the valences that spring from the heart, then others will sense an example of an integrated personhood, a quality of presence that no longer runs away from the inherent wisdom of each moment.
The injunction to engage in honest inner work does not put undue expectations on therapists, as if they must become realized saints who have overcome all delusion. Rather, this observation lends clarity to the wider ramifications of one’s personal healing. The reflections from my own life, the insights from watching my own unfolding, the effort I apply to the care and formation of the self, are not solely for me, but for others who walk along the same path of growth. In the grunt of that arduous toil, I am able to say to others: we are not the same, but we share the same work.
What is this work? The sacred task of becoming humane and wise within the span of a brief life. In my own effort tame unruly desires, from my taste for whisky to the craving for sugary treats, I am able to say to those who struggle with habits and dependencies: this is very hard, but let’s do this together. In my own faltering attempts to pry my eyes away from the screen and return to oases of silence throughout the day, I can say to others: This is difficult for me too. Let’s try again together. In the arena of inner work, strength lies not in perfection, but in the authenticity of a heart that tries again. And in this willingness to try again, we exude the attitudes endemic to our own inner terrain — if we are tender in response to our own failings, that tenderness inevitably spills over into our work with others. They feel the salve that is still rare within their own psyche.
In a previous post, I wrote about the difficult period in my own life when I was assailed by ascerbic anxiety and searing doubt about my future. In the grip of that episode, I came close to suicide. The thought of oblivion was far more comforting than the prospect of another miserable day. In that bleak space I witnessed the essence of despair. However, through the support of my wife and trusted teachers, I traversed the pit of darkness and emerged on the other side, where the skies opened and the oceans broke wide. My previous skin, which weighed me down, was left in a pile somewhere in that dark pit. It is with this experience in mind that I can say to others: It’s not always going to be like this. The story is not over. You have to be around to see the story change. Anyone can repeat the words, but there is a gravity in words spoken through the authenticity of experience. I cannot prescribe a plan for others to go forward, but I can say with conviction that go forward we must.
If nothing human is foreign to me, then the sacred work of transforming my pain is not bound within my interiority, but reaches to everyone who seethes under the strain of this human life. The gentle compassion I bring to my own wounds is the same compassion that bring to others. I never know when these nurturing qualities that radiate from my own soul will be of assistance to those I meet, but I know they are felt by others. Indeed, I have felt and benefitted from these qualities in others. So with quiet determination and a firmness in purpose, I resume my place on the cushion, knowing that when I learn to meet my life with spacious presence, I also help others meet their lives with compassionate poise.