The Importance of Attunement

This week I’ve had the opportunity to continue reading in The Mindful Therapist as a part of my personal readings.  I’m currently reading about “attunement,” or the act of focusing our attention on others, thus taking in the essence of another to our own internal world.  The author, Daniel Siegel, contends that this is a second essential step after we are able to “presence,” or become fully aware of the internal world that we ourselves own.  Attunement is likened unto picking up the signals of another, and then monitoring our own internal shifts in thought and emotion, all the while staying attuned to changes in the individual to whom we are tuned in.  This seems like quite the task, but I side with the author in believing that being able to do so is an essential tool for any psychotherapist. 

As I’ve struggled to learn both how to manage my own emotions along with understanding the thoughts and emotions of another, I’ve noticed how very important it is to be still, calm, and quiet in order to best “hear” internal human workings.  I think that our society as it stands today masks these workings, and we all too often don’t even realize they exist, and wonder why marriages fail, why anger governs much of the world, and why values that have been common standards for millennia have only over the last half century really gone into decay.  I believe that a big part of this has been our society’s insatiable need to be faster, more productive, and to get ahead just a little each day.  While progress is essential, I believe that we have sought material progress more than personal progress of late, which has corroded at our ability to presence and attune.  This reminds me of one of the themes expressed by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

“Isn’t it true that we often get so busy? And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life.

Is it?

I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished.

I can’t see it.”

There are many things that are essentially eternal about therapy, and attunement is surely one of them.  We each have a piece of godliness within us, but how often do we remember it?  I’m reminded also of the Nephites who survived the tempests and earthquakes that marked the Savior’s death…these were the most righteous who were preserved from that continental cleansing, yet still when the Father announced the appearance of his Beloved Son they didn’t understand the words until the third time in which they were repeated.  Though they were good, they didn’t have their spiritual ears on.  They were not able perceive the sacred, as they had not yet experienced it. In like manner, there are not many things in this world that are more sacred than the subjective experience of another, which as therapists we are charged to enter, responsible for helping another be still, understand this experience, and change their thoughts, feelings and behaviors as a result of this understanding.  What a great honor!

My hope is that as I learn to do therapy in this manner that I will be still, and that I will be able to see the godliness in my work.  I am grateful for this time that I have as a student to perform such a sacred work, and hope to be able to learn how to help bring a little more good into the lives of those individuals who suffer more than I will likely ever understand.

It is my belief that while being a therapist is right now my calling in life, we have all been called to lift up another in a way that only we can fulfill.  We are placed in families and societies with the end of interacting with and helping one another.  It is my testimony that as we strive for stillness that the Spirit of the Lord will speak his purposes to us, and if we have courage to follow, will be led to places where we may be able to serve and be instruments in Christ's hands.

Have a Great Week!

Easter Message 2012

Hello to my 7+ dedicated readers! :) It is apparent that this blog has not been an outlet for me over the last six months.  Stresses from various different sources have kept me from taking the time to write here, and over the weeks and months posting to this blog became a failure in cost-benefit analysis: the time and effort required to write a quality post seemed to far outweigh the perceived benefits to myself, as well as anyone who might read it; however, I happy today that I have this forum still alive to express some of my thoughts on this Easter weekend.  I know that the Savior lives.  I know that he "walked a mile in my shoes" as one of the songs on this blog illustrates.  I know that this mile (and then some) was the hallmark of the Atonement, that infinite gift which helps all of our natures change.  I know that there is a Balm in Gilead, and that is what I'd like to talk about further at this time.

Last night around 12:30am I was awake thinking about how I don't measure up to the expectations that the Savior has for me, and honestly, many of the expectations I often unduly place on myself.  I picked up my journal to write my daily three ways that I've seen the hand of the Lord in my life, and opened up to my General Conference notes.  I scarcely had gotten through two pages of my journal when I arrived at a note I had written during President Henry B. Eyring's talk during the Saturday Morning Session:

"Many trials come not due to sin, but because the Lord wants you a little more polished"

Those words brought a flood of thoughts into my mind, and I was all but forced to write what the Spirit dictated to me at that time.  I know it was the Spirit because many times before  have I read my notes without having such a reaction.  And I know that the purpose of my writing what I wrote late last night will be of help or inspiration to someone who chances upon their words.  It is for this purpose that today I return to blogging.  If that person is you, may these words lift, comfort, or inspire you to be just a little better than you were yesterday.  I testify that there is a Balm in Gilead.

Just as sin is merely a symptom of our fallen state, things we do to gain the Spirit are merely topical balms that wear off when not constantly applied; we can also apply too much to the point that the excess is wasted, as the balm is not absorbed any deeper than a superficial level.  We get more out of these balms as we gain greater capacity to absorb them.  The reason why we are not given all light and knowledge in a single twinkling is because it would be lost on our relatively resistant, human souls.  Rather, the way of God  is a way of conservation, a way that allows us to use as much light and knowledge as our agency and current state allow us to receive.  The way to receive more is to be capable of and willing to receive more, and this change only occurs as our receptacles change; the only issue is that we are not capable of changing our ability to receive.  Our agency takes us only as far as our frailties can endure--the rest is subsumed in the changing power that is the Atonement of Jesus Christ!

There is a Balm, that, when applied, sinks to the utter core, deeper than any of us dare to know.  It can heal us of our outward transgression of a law that brings inward sorrow.  A broken heart and a contrite spirit are the condition necessary for this Balm to seep into its intended place, but we still must let it in by sacrificing these unto the Savior.  Our agency is the bonding agent that allows our broken heart and contrite spirit to interact with the gift of the Atonement, which creates a change in our core.  We begin to live more as a function of that core, with greater integrity, our spirit lifted by the Savior.  The beauty that comes from the message of the Master is that whenever we wish, we can exchange our broken heart and contrite spirit for a spirit lifted up and out of the degrading ways of the world, and ever a little more like He who created us.  This is the Plan of Salvation, this is the Atonement, this is existence in our mortal frame.

How grateful I am for this knowledge!  I hope that my testimony this day has touched your heart, and led you to think and do a little more like the Savior thinks and does.  This Easter I hope that you remember the newness that comes from living the Gospel.  We all have the chance to apply the soothing Balm of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and be healed.  Let us remember this Easter that He lives, and as such so may we.

With Love,

Sean

Have a great week!