(soft piano music)
(soft piano music continues)
(soft piano music ends)
- Look, I was, I was depressed.
I thought life wasn't worth living at some point.
Even though I had everything to live for quote unquote,
you know, family, marriage, good work and all that.
And then I started asking, but it's interesting, you know,
I don't know if you've read Dante the Inferno,
but
it begins with the classic lines and I'm paraphrasing,
but he says midway through life I lost my way.
And I don't know, I ended up on a dark path.
It was a fearful he says,
and he couldn't find his way back.
And in order to redeem himself, what does he have to do?
He has to go into Inferno and he has to go into hell.
He has to confront all the
dark parts of himself,
before he can get to purgatory
and then, you know, heaven.
So that, that happened to me midway through life.
And I had to confront the internal hell that I was carrying
that I was generating.
I don't know why.
And I didn't know why I thought this is just life.
Because of course the life you lead is the only life you
ever recall, unless you recall past lives, which I don't.
I don't, my mind doesn't even go there.
But,
but then you realize that this hell that you're generating
is coming from somewhere within yourself.
And one of the first books that I read was Alice Miller and
her book, The Drama Of The Gifted Child.
The original German subtitle of which was
Prisoners of Childhood.
And she was saying that fundamentally,
we are prisoners of our childhood.
Now there was the dynamics that were imprinted in us
early on in life,
end up forming a cage
or a
prison.
From which we have to liberate ourselves.
And that was very illuminating to me.
And, so then I gradually began to liberate myself.
It's it's a little process, you know, when it's ongoing,
I can't claim that I'm finished with it.
I don't think I ever will be, which is perfectly okay.
You know, sometimes people ask me, well,
do you have to totally heal yourself
before you become a therapist?
And I said, oh my God, if that was the case,
I wouldn't do any of the work that I'm doing.
But the other thing people ask is,
is it enough?
Is it enough to understand things intellectually?
And I said, my answer to that one is
if it was enough to understand things intellectually,
then I would have been a perfect person decades ago.
So on the one hand, it's never over.
But on the other hand,
intellectual awareness is far from sufficient.
So as I'm sure many of you know,
we have to really work it through.
Through all our emotions in our bodies,
not just our intellect.
And that's an ongoing process, that's an ongoing process.
And,
from the point of view of those of you that are therapists,
you have to ask yourself, what is my goal as a therapist?
And I teach my students, you have two goals.
One is for yourself.
And that's to get yourself fired
as soon as possible for the right reason.
And,
that means that you want your client to get to the point
where they can be comfortable with
their authentic selves in the present moment.
So they're no longer a prisoner of their childhoods.
But in order to do that,
they have to see themselves clearly.
Now for people to see themselves clearly,
try this as an experiment.
How can you see your face clearly?
Unless you're having a deep spiritual experience,
which is beyond words and beyond cognition,
such as I've never had.
You can't see yourself, your face clearly without a mirror.
It's very hard for us to
see ourselves clearly without a mirror.
And guess what?
When people come to you,
they're coming to you because
they want to see themselves in a mirror.
They want to see their true selves.
If they could see their true selves,
they would not be needing to see you.
So they need to see themselves clearly.
But for you to be able to be that mirror,
guess what you have to be clear.
That's why the most important work
we ever do is on ourselves.
And that's why it has to be ongoing.
- [Announcer] We provide you with
the certification and the credentials
you need to teach mindfulness in professional settings.
I invite you to check out our webpage
at teach.mindfulnessexercises.com
to learn more about the program.
And I look forward to seeing you on the inside.