Wisdom Quote: Recognition

Those who are alive within you will recognize those who are alive around you.
–Henri Nouwen

It occasionally happens that one of my clients will look around my office and say something like "oh, that's a new lamp' when looking at one they've seen many times before. When this happens the client is generally surprised and sometimes even a little embarrassed to learn that what they are just noticing has been in the room from the first meeting. However, I am always delighted when this happens because it means that something very important within that person is waking up and becoming more alive and aware.

This brings me to the above quote by Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest and author who wrote a number of remarkable books and essays even while struggling with recurrent bouts of serious depression. For me, this quote is a reminder that the growing ability to recognize the parts of our inner selves that we previously ignored is often matched by a greater clarity of perception regarding the world around us.

It can be very difficult to "wake up" to our true nature and face ourselves as we really are rather than as we want or fear. 12-step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous advocate the process of undergoing a "searching and fearless moral inventory" and then sharing the results of that deep introspection with another person. Part of the value of therapy is that it helps to accomplish the same goal of honest self-appraisal.

Although most people tend to seek therapy to stop hurting in some way, the benefits are often so much more than that, which is where this quote comes in. I'm certainly all in favor of having a troubling situation, habit or behavior lessen in it's intensity, frequency or duration, but the wonderful reality is that a full and rich life exists on the other side of that mere symptom reduction. Here's where things start to really turn interesting! As we struggle to metaphorically "turn on the lights" inside of ourselves, that light carries out into the world and we tend see situations more clearly than before. It becomes easier to look deeper into someone's heart, to recognize beauty and irony, to intuitively respond in just the right way to a situation.

There was a television game show from my childhood called "Concentration" where correct answers revealed increasing amounts of a hidden picture or riddle. Invariably at some point the contestant would "get it" and figure out the puzzle. I think this is true for a person's inner growth: barriers begin to fall revealing a deeper riddle that initially wasn't at all evident until there comes an "a-ha" moment when things begin to fall into place.

Sometimes I have clients who are pleasantly surprised to find that they aren't struggling in areas of their life where they didn't anticipate experiencing any improvement. Someone recently began figuring out their finances in an easier way than they were accustomed to doing. Someone else found that they were more comfortable inviting friends over to their house. The list goes on and on. I try to remind people in these circumstances that this is an appropriate and even inevitable development resulting from hard work in the right places. Inner improvement results in outer gain.

There is an old saying apparently attributable to Lao Tzu, the so-called "father of Taoism" that has as one translation:

"When the wise man learns the Way,
He tries to live by it.
When the average man learns the Way
He lives by only part of it.
When the fool learns the Way
He laughs at it.
Yet if the fool did not laugh,
It would not be the Way.
Indeed, if you are seeking the Way,
Listen for the laughter of fools."

This is a variant of Nouwen's quote that reflects the congruity between inner and outer experience. Or as the down-to-earh saying goes:

Them that know
Know that they know.
Them that don't know
Don't know they don't know.

So when you find yourself noticing things that you've previously taken for granted or never recognized in the first place, take that as a signpost of personal growth and be heartened by that realization to continue moving forward.

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