A very pleasant and deeply resourceful clients' experience in the process of counseling (therapy) is the sense of one’s own power.
Consciously clients formulate this only during long-term counseling (therapy), when fundamental personal identity structure is already in focus and explored.
A person often comes into therapy without conciously understanding where exactly they are the authors in painful areas of their life. They don't see their responsibility in what is brought to the contact|space and it's not good or bad, we don't give it a mark from A to F. Something is just unseen in their usual logical patterns of thinking, in their way-of-being in their "worlding" and they are unable even to find traces of how they historically developed such patterns. Their particular way of being seems to be a complex web or a tangled ball. They don’t recognize the emotions that accompany their life experiences. Everything feels like a tangled mess, stuck in a dead end, with no apparent way to sort it out or make any progress. There seems to be no way to be inspired to rule the chaos.
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And yet… there is a glimmer of hope—an inexplicable belief… What if, after all, there is a key? And of course, there is. But it's not a magical one. It’s a practical, working key. If they have enough time and financial resources, emotional and physical strength, and a trusting therapeutic relationship, the road will appear.
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“To see your body, you must look in a mirror. To see your soul, you need to get closer to another person.”
— Unfortunately, the author of this quote is unknown.
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We cannot see the backs of our own heads—metaphorically or literally—and that’s perfectly normal. That’s exactly why we need Others. In an attentive, investigative dialogue, connections and alternatives inevitably appear.
The task of the honest deep dialogue (the Meeting) is to see the client with the client. And a person who is opened to this process will inevitably begin to recognize their role and their amount of responsibility in the area of reality that is the focus of their anxiety or distress.
And when this field of responsibility becomes more tangible, verbalized, and clearly defined—that’s when the feeling arises.
The sense of power.
I can.
Oh! How much life is in those two words!
For example: Now I can do something in this area of my life.
The client gives form to their "I can."
The client finally feels enough for it—because if true we are always enough to live our own lives.
I can stand up, leave, speak up, stop, change, refuse, agree, assert, reclaim…
And I can also let go of what’s not mine—such as a burden of someone else’s responsibility given to me one day.
Such beautiful, powerful verbs.
Beneath them lies the deep potential to express personal embodied presence and authenticity. The person experiences more freedom and a newfound authorship in their specific situation. This experience as a treasure will stay with them forever.
It is a feeling.
It's a new anthropological experience.
It is a lived moment.
It is a self-knowledge.
Yes, of course, I'm human which means - I am not omnipotent—but I can do something important. Right now. I have the courage, the resources, and the power to influence my reality in some way.
I can choose.
Sometimes, this sense of power doesn't manifest in outward actions. It's not always about changing external circumstances, relationships, or plans. Sometimes it’s a different—but equally valuable—freedom within.
A freedom to live one’s being in a slightly new, or even radically new, way.
Here, choice and authorship lie in the domain of permission. For example, when exploring deeply ingrained traumatic patterns of self-relation—patterns that formed in early childhood, became automatic, and are thus difficult to recognize—it turns out they are not inevitable.
It turns out there can be something else instead—something that is truly mine.
It turns out, you can take a step back to the place before this habitual model of relating to yourself was formed.
A step back to the moment before the inner split. Before Self splitted in this trauma.
That life-draining split between I / not I, mine / not mine, imposed / authentic.
To recognize when, why, and how a person’s power to decide, to be a certain way, to want something, to feel something, or to think uniquely was taken from them—or lost—allows that power to be reclaimed.
To become aware of it.
To own it.
To live it.
To enJoy it.
