Good emotional and relational health requires a balance of healthy connectedness and healthy separateness. Central to healthy separateness is our ability to cultivate a “solid sense of self.” Since we will ever be works-in-progress, how can we work on building a healthy sense of self?
One of the most important concepts in therapy is today, you have a choice. The ability to deal constructively with the past is important, in order to grieve well and learn from our traumas and from our own mistakes. A healthy orientation toward the future helps us to exercise foresight and plan well, but it’s also true that “the past is history, and tomorrow is a mystery” – all we are really able to influence are the choices we make today. Where can we find guidance in making
healthy choices that are in line with who we really are?
Ignatius of Loyola, the sixteenth century founder of the Jesuit order, developed a spiritual exercise that is helpful in distinguishing between what he called “consolations and desolations.” Consolations are patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving and relating that are life-giving, while desolations are patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving and relating that are life-destroying.
A simple way to think about this is in terms of “highs” and “lows.” At the end of each day, or at an appointed time each week, we can reflect on what we’ve been doing and what has happened to us: have our health, well-being and relationships been enhanced by our choices, or have our
choices diminished us? Has my life become more manageable or less manageable? We can
undertake this reflection by ourselves, or even better, we can share our “highs” and “lows” with others and ask for their feedback.
Successful adult functioning requires us to have “tri-focal” vision:
- “Taking inventory” of what’s been life-giving or life-denying in the past
- Being fully present to our lives today
- Using the information from our past and present to make life-enhancing course corrections for the future
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” By using a process of thoughtful discernment, we can build a solid sense of self. This can only be done in community, in connection with others, and they should be safe, wise, and trustworthy people – we can only know ourselves as we are seen through the eyes of another. Connection is the cure for what ails all of us!
