Filling The Whole

Tue, 13/07/2010 - 12:55pm — admin

filling the whole

The word ‘health’ comes from the Anglo Saxon ‘häl’, whence also come ‘heal’ and ‘whole’. Perhaps the simplest definition of healing is ‘to make whole’. Holistic healing requires that the way we achieve wholeness not only makes us more complete as individuals, but also reintegrates us into the whole of nature.”

These words, from the book Radical Healing, (Ballentine, R., 1999, Three Rivers Press), also point to a perspective on psychotherapy with which not everyone is familiar. There’s a growing appreciation of the fact that just as we learn ways of being in our early relationships, so too we may have different experiences and discover different ways of being in other relationships later in life.

We’re inherently impulsed to grow, to heal and become whole. Our enquiry becomes “What creates a sense of wellbeing, what boosts my energy, what brings clarity of mind, what increases my capacity to accept and connect with myself and with others?”

As we give attention to our experiences, tuning into internal and external cues, awareness increases, and transformation occurs. We move towards fulfilling our potential. We become more whole.

Bringing awareness to our own being, to our unique reactions and processes, our experience of our self in relation to others and environment, and to our challenges and strengths, sets us up for insight and growth. The places where we founder, where our ways of being no longer work so well, provide valuable clues to what needs to change in our life. Working from this perspective, a process of discovery permits us to approach a time of difficulty or discomfort with curiosity instead of fear, with optimism instead of disappointment.

We women often care for others, before or instead of attending to our own needs. Caring well for ourselves, with our cycles and circuits of nourishing and being nourished, and our need for balance and rhythm in life in fact allows us to most fully care for others too.

Individual and group therapy both provide a circumstance in which we can care for our self in this way. After Hours Counselling at ACON offers medium term individual counselling, as well as a calendar of therapy groups, across a range of themes.

Intake for the next Exploring Intimacy group for women opens on 12 July.