Before you can help others (as a therapist, friend, parent...)

TPOS —

 

[quote]Salamu Alaykom wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh,



Before you can be a decent therapist,

or a facilitator... and this is really important for

parenting too, by the way...



Before you can be a good therapist, you need

to have gotten over a substantial portion of

your own luggage.



And since no one is perfect, and you'll

always have faults... you need to have a system

whereby you can cleanse and enrich yourself.



This starts with loving yourself.

Then it proceeds to you feeling so self sufficient

that you begin to host others.



Unfortunately, many therapists go into the profession

with the thought: "if I can cure the world, I will

be cured".



This harms them ultimately. It harms their

clients and it slows and stagnates the process of

therapy.



There is no way, absolutely no way that a therapist

can remain impartial in a session. No way.



They will, by their very presence, influence...

for better or for worse... but they will influence.



Now psycho-analysis and psycho-therapy and some

forms of counseling all claim that therapy must

be fully about the client. 



... that the therapist must not

jump-in at all. That the therapist is only there to

facilitate and not to provide answers himself.



... that the answers come from the client/patient.

And that if they were to come from the

therapist... that this would be manipulation.



While this sounds lovely, it's garbage.

Sorry.



When you look at light, the very act of looking

at it changes it. If you look at it in one way

it's a particle, if you look at it another, it's

a wave !!



So the very act of being there. The very act

of clearing your throat... it will affect. It will

manipulate.



When a therapist asks:

"And how does that make you feel?"



They are in fact manipulating the client. 



The therapists ignorance of this fact is

a disaster (in and of itself), but their ignorance

of that fact doesn't mean that it isn't a fact !



So... just by being in a room, you will influence.



And if you're carrying a ton of emotional

and psychological garbage with you, then guess

what... you'll offload it onto your clients.



And if you can't handle your own garbage, what

makes you think you can handle someone else's ?



PLUS... when you see client after client and you 

have no way of disposing of garbage, their garbage

will overburden you and become, with time,

your garbage.



Can you see ?



So this is the correct procedure:

Love yourself and help yourself

Love others as a result

Help those that you love



And this is the wrong procedure:

I'll feel better when others feel better



(They won't if you don't and then you won't

because they haven't !)



Can you see the difference ?
It's huge.



All the Prophets (pbu them) were chosen

because they were pure on the inside.


Not to purify them by making them wage

through other people's garbage.



No... they were pure, they knew how to

purify themselves, so now go purify

the selves of others.



This is a big deal.



Allah asks in the Quran as to why we say

that which we do not do... and how Allah

despises this act.



May Allah safeguard us from His Wrath.[/quote]

AbdelRahman Mussa

www.ipersonalenrichment.com

 

154 middlemore rd, birmingham, west midlands b31 3un, UNITED KINGDOM

Hummus — Tue, 6 Nov 2012 - 23:48

Wow. These are such true and meaningful words, and i enjoyed reading it. I can't believe i followed it through and actually understood what the reader was saying. I love garbage in whichever shape or form, even if its my own or a close friends'- just grateful for it. Allah doesn't give you more than you can handle. He knows you already have the tools to get through!

So from this, the main lesson to take away is 'Love yourself and help yourself, Love others as a result and Help those that you love'. But i have a tincy question. How far are you supposed to love yourself before you begin to have pride and a hell of a lot of self importance which obviously increases your ego (which isn't really liked in Islam)?

 

LookingToSee — Wed, 7 Nov 2012 - 23:24

loving yourself correctly wont lead to you being full of yourself. thats loving yourself blindly.

blindly, as in your ignore your falls and stumbles and mistakes and misgivings, misjudgements and all the mis- that ever were. you become big headed when you think you're right all the time and you cant fall.

 

loving yourself, thats abt being able to look at yourself in the eye in the mirror. it goes up and down. sometimes you can ,sometimes you cant. u just got to work on WHY u cant...

loving yourself is abt being happy when things go good and picking yourself up, dusting yourself, putting a plaster on and checking you're healing properly when you fall.

in my opinion, loving yourself is when you can look at your day or your week and be happy/proud of yourself. liking the person who done all that that week.

 

if you dont like that person, then you need to change that person and stars doing things that wld make you like that person

if you dont feel nothing abt yourself...then you need to define yourself, start doing things and finding your place in this big bad world and seeing how you wanna fit (if you wanna fit) in there.

 

and the "liking". how do you define it? how do you know if this is something you shld like or not? well... that's by liking what Allah likes and not liking what Allah dislikes. you cant go wrong if you align your likes with ur maker/builder/creator. trust me. He knows better.

 

now. all that i said above is utterly and totally my opinion. except maybe that last paragraph. so take it or lump it. but please dont be mean.

LookingToSee — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 - 20:22

[quote=Titanium]

in my humble opinion, loving yourself sounds arrogant and vain. what it might mean is that you need to have enough control over yourself before you can control others such as your children (i think)

[/quote]

 

just control? who's the one who sounds like a robot now.

 

there is such a thing as truly hating yourself and not being able to meet your gaze in the mirror. it exists. even if you havent experienced it. so stop calling people vain and arrogant because you got your definition of "love" wrong.

LookingToSee — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 - 23:29

to justify what...

 

and i see, you hadnt read any of the comments. still no where in the original post was there anything abt loving yoursel equating to becoming vain/arrogant.

 

ignore my annoyed-ness. ill get over it. you know how you always write something and for some reason i always read it..bent so i end up thinking you mean something that you actually didnt mean at all and im pretty sure this is what happened again but i replied (above) faster than  i thought and now seeing your reaction i realise that i shld have stepped back.

sorry!!

Castiel — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 - 00:15

Salaams,

In the end we are all one Ummah and therefore we are all responsible for the progress of the Ummah. A person should always give the best advice he can give.

But the advice should be sincere, and given with the intention of guiding that person onto the right path. Deen was defined by the Prophet (PBUH) as "wishing well and doing well [to others]". Therefore the ultimate goal of any advice should really be to promote what is good and shun what is bad.

It doesnt take an experienced mind to do this. Sometimes a clear mind can also help. And Islam is a shining light in the night that helps clear our thoughts and shows us the path. So we shouldnt let the Shaytaan whisper doubts into our ears before giving advice, like 'what will the other person think?' or 'What if they dont like my advice?' As long as its to promote good and done in a gentle manner then I dont believe theres anything wrong with it.

Allah (swt) knows best.