Aquarium And Ocean. The Experience Of "unconditional Love"

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

At the end of September this year, the Fifth Annual Conference of the Russian Society for a Person-Centered Approach was held.

I presented at it my master class called "The Mirror of Unconditional Love".

As the theme of the event, I chose one of the key concepts in the person-centered approach - “unconditional acceptance”.

It is the opposite of the "conditional acceptance" I wrote about in the article "I Don't Know Myself: A Fake Life."

Carl Rogers, a famous American psychotherapist, researcher, founder of the person-centered approach, figuratively spoke of "unconditional acceptance" as "love without possession", when a person in any of his experiences and manifestations is perceived unconditionally positively, when he does not need to meet the expectations and assessments of another person to get a good, positive attitude towards yourself.

The practice of "unconditional acceptance" of both yourself and others is not easy.

Real life is full of conditions, restrictions, assessments.

Each of us from early childhood was raised (one way or another), evaluated (good / bad) and perceived depending on whether we fulfill the conditions.

We do not know any other "coordinate system", just as aquarium fish do not know that somewhere there is a huge ocean.

But if such an “ocean” called “unconditional acceptance” (or “unconditional love”, if you will) still exists, then how to get in touch with it, how to feel it?

This question became a challenge for me when I came up with the content of the master class.

I decided to approach the topic from the side of the merits and demerits that the person himself sees in himself.

For example, how do I know what is good in me and what is bad?

How do I define this?

Probably, mainly by reactions, by a change in the attitude towards me on the part of the people around me.

Yes, now I am an adult, and I already have my own life experience, which tells me that the assessments and attitudes of others are often not at all connected with me, but rather with themselves, with their experiences and states.

But when I was a small child, I did not have this experience and understanding, and I naturally perceived myself only through the “mirror” of the adults around me.

The way they treated me, this is how I saw myself, and this is how the foundations of my personality were formed.

Accordingly, my ideas about my fundamental qualities, which I can assess as advantages or disadvantages, are not very reliable basis.

Is what I consider worth in myself really good for me?

Is what I consider a disadvantage really bad for me?

At the Mester class, I suggested that the participants split into pairs.

The first number tells about one of its advantages (everything that it considers necessary is important to say) and one of its shortcomings.

The task of the second is to listen carefully to both stories and to thank the first for both his merit and his lack.

However, gratitude does not have to be formal!

You can only thank if the other really felt it in himself.

Then the roles change.

I cannot say for sure what exactly happened in the pairs of participants when the exercise took place.

I do not know that.

I remember the general discussion after the exercise.

I was surprised that several people, who were in different pairs, spoke quite similarly about their experiences.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy, but for me it sounded something like this: when you are accepted both with your dignity and your lack, something inside you seems to be united into something whole …

One participant put it this way: “I felt my self-worth!”.

After the event, the thought came to me: when you feel that you are valuable to another person both with your merits and your shortcomings, then the need for grades (good / bad) simply disappears.

If the other does not use them in relation to you, they are unnecessary for you.

Why is there an aquarium if there is an Ocean?