Note: This is originally from Frontier Friday, a weekly Substack published, originally released on 15 Dec. 2023
Part I
- “Nobody is so poor that he/she has nothing to give, and nobody is so rich that he/she has nothing to receive”
~ Karol Józef Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II.
Why I picked this: I’m thinking about situations where clients might benefit from engaging in acts of giving, even when they are down in the dumps, and others who have rarely made room to let others in, to depend on others, to receive, and to let others feel the gift of being able to gift to them. - “I have a deep sense, hard to articulate, that if we could really befriend death we would be free people.”.
~ Henri Nouwen
Why I picked this: Nouwen learned the value of “befriending death” from the depth psychologist, James Hillman. I’ve also learned about this from my mentor on “befriending grief” many years ago. To befriend, is to relate and integrate with the totality of our human experience. - “You can read a cookbook and still starve to death.”
~ From a client.
Why I picked this: I heard this line from a client from more than 10 years ago. The only way a cookbook is helpful is that we are cooking.
When you read a book, push yourself to translate the ideas. 1 translatable “call to action” for each chapter. - “You are here because someone has loved you into being.”
~ Fred RogersWhy I picked this: A reminder of how we came into existence. - “Stress is a perverted relationship to time.”
~ John O’DonohueWhy I picked this: Since hearing the late John O’Donohue’s utter this phrase, it has stuck with me. When we see stress in relations to time, we start to see the insanity of our daily actions, pushing ourselves closer and closer to the edge of what we can barely behold. For more, listen to O’Donohue.
Part II
- “It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.”
~ Maragaret Mead
Readers of the Frontiers will notice how much I emphasise the value of deliberate play.
- “Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.”
~ Kevin Kelly, from 99 Addition Bits of Unsolicited Advice
Not only do we need the courage to speak truthfully, and aim for others to respect you, we must also know who’s respect is of value. - “To forgive is to grieve—for what happened, for what didn’t happen—and to give up the need for a different past.”
~ Edith Eva Eger, from The Choice.
One of the common grounds many religious teachings hold is the practice of surrender. To forgive, is like a doorway to this practice.
When we work with people in our clinical practice, forgiveness and grief are common themes that will surface. Why? Because change is loss. - “The unexamined life is surely worth living, but is the unlived life worth examining?”
~ Adam Philips, British psychoanalyst, from Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life.
Much more important to be engaged in living than thinking about it. - “Love people, use things. Not love things, use people.”1
~ Richard Rohr, from The Art of Letting Go audio series.
This is salient to me as I roam around Singapore. Nearly everyone (including the elderly), is hooked on their mobile device, playing a game, watching C-drama, or scrolling some 20-sec video.
I was thinking: Would we end up loving the things that we hold all the time, at the expense of people we love? Would our values be thwarted, as philosopher C Thi Nyugen called, “Value Capture”?
Part III
- “Are you sharpening pencils, or are you creating art?”
~ Richie Norton, from Anti-Time Management.
Preparation and planning are at times guises of procrastination.
Note to self: Pick up the metaphorical pencil, and just begin—for at least 20mins. If the pencil is blunt by then, quickly sharpen, and keep going.
The inversion of this quote: “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.” ~ attributed to Abraham Lincoln. - “The body doesn’t keep the score. Your brain keeps the score. Your body is the score.”
~ Lisa Feldman Barrett, from Dialogue on Munk Debates.
A popular phrase coined by the Bessel van der Kolk’s book on trauma, The Body Keeps Score.
In this interview, Feldman Barrett explains why the popular phrase might not be entirely accurate (listen around 18mins for of the podcast for this segment) - “You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
~ Amos Tversky
The full quote: “The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
Idleness is a rarity these days. Yet, it is an important feature for us to keep and protect a sense of spaciousness; to empty ourselves from the constant consumption of inputs. Especially from a visual perspective, by zooming out instead of a narrow tight focus onto our screens, allows us to psychologically “see” the wider stories of our times. As it turns out, looking far after starring at the screen for a long bout is not just good for our eyes. - “Don’t treat yourself as a self-improvement project, but you treat yourself and the world as a source of revelation.”
~ from David Whyte, What to Remember When Waking audio series.
It’s easy for one to assume, especially if you are psychotherapist, that our work is to help others self-improve.
This is not just semantics. I think this can have an unintended consequence of making one feel an eternal nagging feeling of ‘not enough.’ Instead, our task is to discover in a deep way, who we really are, and bring our gifts to bear. In other words, we must close in our natures, so that we can nurture our nature.
On this point, I recommend Danish philosopher Svend Brinkmann’s book, Stand Firm. - “People are just as wonderful as sunsets if i can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it… I watch it with awe as it unfolds. I like myself best when i can appreciate my staff member, my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, in this same way.”
~ Carl Rogers, A Way Of Being, pp.22-23
I keep returning to this passage at different points in my life, to love and embrace the people in my live as they are, not as I want them to be.
Maybe I keep needing to be reminded of this because of my naive insistence, my fight within, for things to be different.
“… Perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it.”1
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