What do you think of when you hear “spiritual counselor”? I’ll tell you what I think of; bible verses in the therapy room.
It conjures up for me a practice where a “guru” or “minister” tells you how to be. I think of the thousands of years of injury and oppression that religions, teaming with white supremacy and patriarchy, have inflicted upon the world. I think of the crusades, and AIDS, and Jonestown, and acculturation, and the gross injustice of the “power of positive thinking” movement. Ugh.
It isn’t a good look.
BUT
Heads up, I am going to start calling myself a spiritual counselor. I feel myself moving more and more in that direction…or rather I feel myself finally allowing that to be true. I am not sure what it means for my practice or my branding, but I think most you probably knew it before I did.
I recently found my typed notes from a course in grad school I took on non-duality. They are non-linear and unedited. Check it out.
Non-duality
Foundationaly important for how we work w clients
The tao that can be talked about is not the tao
"Not two" The end of the scriptures, end of knowledge, self knowledge in relation to everything. End or goal of spiritual questing. Is not two. Atman and bratman. Atman is individual continuousness, bratman is cosmic continuousness. Atman is bratman. Not two. Equal sign between them. Essentially saying “i am god, you are god.” Yoga is method prescribed for attaining this realization. Many different paths all yoga.
Artie Mandell physics, cosmology, quantum level or cosmic level things get strange. Consistent with Eastern traditions. Science has led us there as well.
"Both in and out of the game and wondering about it"...Whittman.
Put your self on in the morning. But we are not those things! We contain them all but are not them. For the forgetful as they put them selves on in the morning they have forgotten parts of them self so it is easier to see that they are not those things. Get out of yourself. Forgetting yourself is a fast way out. But sometimes it seems like people try to hold on to the shreds of themselves that are left. What makes that difference? How can we alleviate the holding on to self? By letting go of our own sense of self?
Modeling the deep belief that we are connected some how.
You are incarnate in the work.
Positive counter transference.
Both and...thinking. But it is pointed at the difference between self and other. It does and it doesn’t. Diagnosis is dualistic. I am not sick you are sick thinking is limited thinking. The expert position is Separating as opposed to we have a disease or something is happening here. Questions. Put myself in there quickly? Over shined? Can you help me? Safety when therapist joins? Because the field is not safe.
Within non dualism there is room for dualism?
The world is named and marked and it is also an illusion. The allegory of the cave.
Therapist shines light in the cave. That is all…
Cruel? Expert thinking? Who wants light shined in their cave?!
It is a shitty thing to do to someone! Especially at the end of their life when they are about to leave the cave! Or maybe the light revealing the cave makes it easier to leave the cave. No; just sit there with them.
They must do it themselves.
No one wants to be fixed, just loved!!!!!
Are we one or are we two? Are we neither or both? being witnessed will change the experience.
“I am connected to you” is dualistic. “I am you” is non duel. The frame is necessary for safety. Boundaries are important, dualistic thinking is useful? Relationship is dualistic. To call nondualistic good is to call dualism bad. That creates a split. My greatest tool is my self... And you.
Comparing non-duel vs. duel seems ridiculous. Be in the world and not of it! Have and don’t own. Can't i believe in a non duel reality and a duel reality? I am self and i am not; God in three persons. They are both true! I am both separate and i am connected.
It is both the beginning and the end.
Caspar David Friedrich_-_Der_Mönch_am_Meer - The Monk By the Sea
Warmth. The music behind the words. Freud actually said, "it is love that heals"…
What brings you peace, beloved client? "interconnectedness"
I want to be of service.
Genevieve, you see all of this and can you use it?
Non-duality is both everything and every thing.
As a therapist, and a celebrant, my work is to lovingly and patiently awaken clients to their own truth. However, it is also to help them realize their role in creating that truth and to dip toes in the deep waters of unknowing. That sounds pretty spiritual to me, y’all.
I believe that all therapeutic work is spiritual work, because true healing happens across all the plains of life; physical, mental, emotional, social, etc.; and that includes spiritual!
Yep, best to call a spade a spade; I am a spiritual counselor. I agree to own all of that label. I can hold the duality of religion; it’s ability to both heal and hurt. I keep awareness on the lineage I come from; there is a nasty kind of danger in stepping into a power that has long been abused. I know the history of this work isn’t clean. In fact, Spirituality isn’t clean at all (why should it be?). IT IS DIRTY WORK… But it is real, and it is important ,and it is clearly who I am.
So, send me your outcasts, your empaths, and your creative types; those longing for love and connection with their own souls. I am ready to sit in the cave with them and see what we uncover.