I am receiving Brené Brown’s “weekly dose of daring” emails. One of the recent ones had this inspirational quote: “When we value being cool and in control over granting ourselves the freedom to unleash the passionate, goofy, heartfelt, and soulful expressions of who we are, we betray ourselves”.
Brené always puts me in a good mood and makes me feel comfortable about my participation in humankind. When she talks about shame or vulnerability, I usually feel more connected to other human beings. In this quote I am reminded of the potential soulfulness in my therapy groups. When group members trust each other, they share openly and vulnerably. Not only the content of their sharing becomes more personal but the way they convey their stories becomes more multicolored. In the 90 minutes of one group session, we can share interactions that move us to tears or make us laugh the way we laughed as kids, share pain, and experience vicariously the other person’s feelings. These ways of being can move through the group like waves washing over in the ocean. They connect us and show us the multifaceted reality of ourselves and our fellow humans. We live in the present moment, going through the experience together. We can be passionate, goofy, and heartfelt… or shamefully awkward or passionately angry. The next wave will wash over it, contain it, leave parts of it behind, hold onto some other parts of it in some way. I often feel that process group sessions are the birthplace of freedom. Going through these experiences together with a group of people, we connect, learn to trust, and learn the freedom of being ourselves.
