Nov
4
I was recently listening to this Chumbawamba song and it got me to thinking about therapy. What does the metaphor of getting knocked down mean? Does it entail a place of standing in the first place? What if in world of inequality we were never in a place of standing up? The first noble truth that Buddha stated was that there is suffering in life. How then do we go forward with the cessation of suffering and to get up again? I posit that one way forward is to metaphorically contemplate moving out of the cave and back into the world. The idea of the cave being a place of enlightenment, in my opinion, can only be appreciated because at some point the practitioner in the cave came out and discussed their findings. This leads me to the next point. We are relational and standing up after a possible life time of being knocked down takes community. The journey to get back up again starts from that dialogical voice that says there has to be some other way to move forward than what is going on now. Therapy can be beneficial as a vehicle on this road, but it is not the journey itself. Reaching out to those you love, your friendships, your coworkers, the store clerk, your music scene, your world is the best way to gather strength, to stand up again, after getting knocked down.