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Alain de Botton on A THERAPEUTIC JOURNEY book

 

It might seem a little bit confusing, though, I feel a strong necessity to share with you, my friends, some thoughts and findings not just about coffee but something else that may be even more important for me in this project.

 

Usually I try to tie up the side topic with coffee, but this time I won't,  so if you are not interested in anything besides coffee on this blog, you may easily skip, although, if you decide to give it a look, I will really appreciate it!

 

As you may know from the about page and some previous posts, “Detuned” project is my attempt to learn more about myself and people around me. And this, I would say, not an easy journey requires much courage, focus and understanding (compassion), lack of which I often experience.

 

No one is ideal, and surprisingly it helps us to fall in love or accept each other, but how do you really know a person's little issues if you stay closed and don’t let yourself show yours. Being yourself sometimes is inappropriate but there are moments when it is crucial.

 

So, how to be yourself? I was wondering and looking for the answer in books, publishes and youtube videos.

The finding I would like to share with you today is "The School of Life" youtube channel which I absolutely love and admire for several reasons.

 

First of all, no need to say how important and valuable the topics are and how amazing and fascinating the content is organized and represented. Almost every video leaves me with a relief sensation and deep mindset as it often says to be okay the way I feel and explains the root  of my misunderstood behavior. 

 

The second point is that I truly impressed by the style and lexic of the posts and videos, it is gorgeous, even though I often crack my skull to get it right, searching in a dictionary every second word ) 

 

One of the lastest videos was special, it is a presentation of a book, A THERAPEUTIC JOURNEY by the author Alain de Botton.

 

I highly recommend taking a look at this brilliant speech and would like to point  out several moments that impressed me so much.

 

 

 

Beginning the talk about sanity  Alain asked the public to raise the hand of those who consider themselves absolutely sane, and what a great maneuver from the very begining! Any kind of standing out requires courage and he plays with the public in such an elegant way, showing that most people in the room have doubts on that point and that paradoxically the awareness of the insane part of yourself shows a person's true state as it is a marker of sanity.

 

Continuing speaking Alain makes an important accent on what actually is a mental well being, defining it as an ability to sort and prioritize thoughts and emotions, sifting undesirable and exhausting ones. Also he mentions that there is no life without moments of sanity or insanity and the border between these states is blurred sometimes.

 

Then the author explains the necessity of optimistic thinking. Basically we need this way of thinking in order to maintain our positive state and keep the ability of our mind to operate successfully , as opposite, thinking only in a hyper-realistic pragmatic way about ourselves often leads us to a depressive state. 

 

Brilliantly and gently Alain moves to the crucial importance of exploring childhood, making apologies for mentioning this topic almost in every video on  their channel. Thus emphasizing the drastic meaning of this part of our lives.

 

Indeed it is so obvious, even though it had been discovered in the XX century, that a person starts learning the language of emotions from the very beginning of his life and it is so difficult to learn a new one when you are 30. You have no time, patterns learned from early days slow you, it requires so much effort to move on but still  it is absolutely worth it. 

 

One of the most challenging things for a person in today’s life, as Alain says, is a way to direct the emotions properly. He gives a great example - a sudden rage which happens to be an anger that is not understood. We may have been hurt by our partner or parents but never express our anger to them because they are close people who aren't supposed to make us feel bad. This controversial situation leaves us unaware of the emotion, it steeps deep inside and does not go away.

 

This part is very essential for me, I never thought about it in such a way, and it gives an explanation to many issues and  directs a path to work on. Though to process and understand such a contradiction is not so easy, it is the only way. And It still leaves me with some questions that I need to find the answers to by myself.

 

One of the excellent  exercises, Alain suggests, is to spend some time at the end of the day reviewing the events and trying to understand how you actually feel about it. Give yourself some time to process your emotions and do your best to bring them to your consciousness.

 

A few thoughts from the author about childhood and parentship which  are  personal beliefs but nevertheless sounds so rational:

 

“If you are a good parent, a sign that you are doing a good job is that your child has no desire to be famous” -  basically this is about treating your child properly at the early ages, when a baby needs attention and adoration, which helps to solidify a personality.

 

“A good enough parent gets down to the level of a child and tries to see the world through their eyes” - often parents talk to their child in a very pragmatic and realistic way. That might be good for a teenager but not for a toddler, who cares about things that a grown up mind usually considers to be bizarre.

 

Another great point by Alain is on proper listening, which is a common issue not only towards our children but  partners as well. He intelligibly, through examples, explains how we often misunderstand what a child is trying to actually say and  how it is important to respond empathetically to the person.

 

Empathy is quite easy to understand but difficult to do. It requires much attention and compassion, ability to listen, reflect and share the feelings of a human without judging or advising.

 

The next section of Alain’s speech touched me the most. He was speaking about self sabotaging and behaving irrational when circumstances do not give any reason for that. As the author explains, it is a very solid and self explaining pattern which earlier in childhood was very efficient to overcome some indigestible awful situation and once it helped it sticks with us. We are trying to project it to our daily life even though the situation has changed, we are still responding unconsciously the same way ruining our happiness.

 

Therapy is the way to stalk these patterns, understand  and work it through. In a therapeutic room the odds are quite high to isolate these irrational  patterns from your daily complex interactions and solve the problem. The tricky  part, Alain says, is that not every therapist is right for you, he compares it with dating and points out the necessity to search and find the right one.

 

The last interesting message from the author is about how our body responds to thoughts or emotions that didn’t find a proper way throughout the conscious. It may not sound very scientific but make sense when you meet with pain or illness that you can not cure just with medications.  It might be, the body itself finds the physiological way to inform us that there is something wrong within our minds, warn us about the necessity  to find time and resources to deeply think and feel through all that we are trying to avoid for so long.

 

In conclusion, expressing some  thoughts about what I’ve heard in this video, I need to say that  I was deeply fascinated by this brilliant speech, so gently and clearly Alain declared all the points and made the accents, with a hint of  humor, underlining our totally acceptable and inevitable imperfection and insanity.  

 

Definitely will keep looking for his works and interviews and appreciate his huge contribution to the mental health study.

 

Slowly getting to the end, my friends!

 

I hope you guys had an interesting read and found something valuable for you in this post as well, as for me, it was a great opportunity to carefully listen and consolidate all these essential thoughts.  

 

And I highly recommend checking out the content on “The school of life” youtube channel. 

 

Stay sane by better knowing the insane part of yourself. See you!