The Work Before the Work

How do you prepare yourself to enter into the space of therapy?

How do you make room not just for your client, but for you, to facilitate the entrance of emotional safety, the safety for truth telling about one’s inner life?

Photo by Paul Bula

How do you do the work before the work?[1]

Previously, we talked about deliberate practice as something that you do backstage and offstage.

How we prepare ourselves backstage, right before entering into the encounter with someone who is in distress, matters a great deal.

Afterall, we are creatures of emotions. We have an undulating life, pushing and pulling by demands from work and commitments in the family. We too are not inoculated from distress and heartbreaks.

The work before the work matters. Watch any performer backstage—even the seasoned professionals— you’d notice a pattern of behaviors. They are getting ready to enter into a different state of mind.

For therapists, the work before the work is not to lose ourselves, but instead to dig into the ground and get ready to be of one mind with our clients.

For that, I worry when therapists see 7-8 clients back to back. They are not only likely to be fatigued, but they put themselves at risk of losing themselves in the work. If there is no you, there is no therapy for your client.

Read this story taken from Thomas Merton’s book, The Way of Chuang Tzu. It is about a woodcarver who prepares himself for the task of making a bell stand. You will see how important it is to get ourselves out of the way.

~~~

THE WOODCARVER

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
“What is your secret?”

Khing replied: “I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

“By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

“Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
and begin.

“If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

“What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits.”

~~~

May you find life in this work.

~

Footnotes:

[1] I’ve borrowed this phrase from Quaker teacher Parker Palmer. 

[2] If you are interested in Thomas Merton’s work, though Seven Story Mountain is typically recommended, I highly recommend starting off with New Seeds of Contemplation.