One of the ways I work is to help people explore their deep feelings without being overwhelmed by them. This process often involves learning self-nurturing, a skill that we often have not developed. While we place emphasis on nurturance for children, we often make the assumption that as adults nurturing is not important or is even indulgent. Our deepest feelings about ourselves and the world tend to be instilled when we are children. These voices and feelings that we then carry with us continue to need to be nurtured, even in adulthood. One of my goals is to help clients both accept the sides of themselves that need nurturing and find strong nurturing aspects of themselves that can care for these voices and feelings. Learning to accept our need for nurturance reduces sadness and leads to feelings of meaning as it this raw, real, poignant side of us that gives us our sense of inspiration. Finding our strong nurturer side reduces sadness and leads to feelings of meaning as it is this side that gives us a sense of efficacy and a sense of being surrounded by a warm, supportive world. Once we have shifted our connection to ourselves, our connection with the external world begins to change. We can turn outward and offer our understanding, our poignancy, our inspiration as well as our strength, our empathy and our support to the world around us. This allows us to participate in the process of giving and receiving that is an important part of being human.
