What is your orientation in counseling couples? Do you find that you have a hidden bias behind your words and actions? A couple is splitting up, asking for separation counseling, and you think to yourself that they should really try one more time to stay together. Where do your values come from? Whose guidelines do you use in the therapeutic setting, yours or the client’s or a blend of both?
We find ourselves in challenging times right now. Things aren’t the way they used to be. Our old role models are outdated and there are no new culturally accepted ways of being. As a matter of fact, we’re in a real dilemma now about being vs. doing. Our culture used to value doing and accomplishing things above everything else. After people achieved their goals they found themselves empty; their lives were meaningless and without purpose.
So they began to ask questions that took them in a different direction. The new direction was in the area of being. Their counselors asked them how they were feeling and if they were willing to feel what they were feeling? You mean being present in the moment? What a novel idea. The concept is so new that many times it does not compute. What does it mean to have nowhere to go, to be with one’s feelings, to get in touch with one’s breathing and connectedness to the universe? How can we possibly be in the moment while continuing on with our lives?
Even the questions we are asking ourselves are different ones from before. We have no answers and no place in our culture to turn. Instead, we are encouraged to turn to our relationship with our higher power. We are moved toward a deeper spirituality. Our sense of connectedness with Source allows us to trust in the unknown, knowing that spirit will take care of us. This leap in consciousness requires great faith and courage for tremendous fear is brought up in confronting the unknown. When one stands in a cultural clearing, there is nothing in front of you to grasp. There is only reaching deeply within toward Source for connection, meaning, trust, and fulfillment.
Paradigm Shift
We are truly in the midst of a paradigm shift. Our connection with Source is both our bridge and our vehicle between the old and the new ways of being. The old way is of competition, lack, fear, exclusion, insufficiency, comparison, judgment, pain and continual striving. The new way is of abundance, fullness, relatedness, mutuality, room for everyone, unconditional love, and the richness of the moment. It is a total shift in being that can only be facilitated by our connection with and help from Source.
How does all this relate to marriage, family and divorce? It means we are creating new models for our culture. It means that there is no one right way but there are many options available to the brave and the adventuresome. It means having the courage to guide our clients in uncharted waters. We can ask of one another, “What is best for you?” and support that. It means respecting and encouraging differences and variations on a theme.
New forms may emerge like group marriages. Serial monogamy might be right for some and celibacy might work for others. It means learning how to trust your own intuition and encouraging others to trust theirs. A need for agreement and sameness is bred from fear and disconnection.
True connection with the Source allows for creativity and uniqueness. Many facets of human beings expressing themselves are appreciated. People would no longer have to squash themselves into a narrow band of acceptable behaviors called ‘normal’, which translate into boring and non-threatening.
Personal freedom allows for inspiration and creativity and exciting. These create exciting new possibilities in human relations. People become freed up to truly express what is in their hearts and souls. Human relationships flourish when they are continually watered in Spirit’s unconditional love.
Do you have the courage, as a facilitator of Spirit, to stand in your connection and provide a safe space for others to make their own appropriate and unique choices? How comfortable do you feel in changing your own personal counseling style?