Wise Words Can Guide Us
Years ago, I was traveling in Mexico, and met an old man who changed the way I thought about the Journey.
Ricardo was an architect. His designs were beautiful, and acclaimed. He won prizes and honors. At the heart of his buildings was mystery.
“I design buildings that allow people to get lost in them. It is a good thing to get lost.”
“A good thing to get lost?” I thought about these words as I wandered through a hotel he had designed, trying to find my room. Each hallway presented a new discovery, something unusual or marvelous. I learned to embrace being lost in the design, to accept that even if I never found what I was looking for (my room!), I would still find what the architect meant for me to find.
This is not to say that I didn’t still grumble when I took a wrong turn in that foreign hotel, in an unfamiliar city, back in those pre-Google Maps days. But each time AS I grumbled, I would then hear Ricardo’s voice, my mind would go to the serendipitous possibilities, and then my spirits would lift.
Those wise words from Ricardo have stayed with me all these years. What wise words have stayed with you? Do you hear them in a moment of need? Part of good mental health therapy is to help you to remember those words that you knew but have forgotten. Or to help you to call-up those words that are waiting there, deep inside you, but have not yet been spoken.
Stella Luna offers mental health therapy to help our clients find their way, and to find better ways. We’re here for you and look forward to helping you to remember wise words and to discover the power of healthy guidance.
Rachel (Barbara Pollack-Rincon – MSW, LSW) believes therapy can be a space to rewrite life stories, whether through words spoken or written. She embraces breath work and meditation – in particular self-compassion practices – as ways of accessing the dark stories we have internalized, in order to release them and live more fully. Learn more about Rachel and her practice with Stella Luna.
“Perhaps we share stories in much the same way explorers share maps, hoping to speed each other’s journey, but knowing that the journey we make will be our own.”–Gloria Steinem