The End of Suffering

So often I have heard there is ‘no end’ in therapy… I have heard people say there is ‘always work’ to do, or that true healing is never possible, at least in our lifetime. 

I remember listening to this as a student and feeling totally dejected, disillusioned and disappointed. I had hoped, on joining a training on ‘transpersonal psychotherapy’ that people here would have ‘made it’. They would have reached the ‘goal’ as I saw it of total awareness, nirvana, or freedom from the conditioned mind. I didn’t meet anyone who I truly felt had ‘got it’ in this sense… there always seemed to be something… an attachment, a belief, an idea about something I felt that if I challenged there would be some resistance to. I suppose in the lexicon I was familiar with, we might refer to this as ‘ego’. 

I had read a lot about ‘ego’, having been introduced to Eckhart Tolle’s ‘Power of Now’ as a teenager. I was fascinated by his awakening experience, and was quite sure that all the lecturers at my school of transpersonal psychotherapy (which I saw as the healing of the ego, or conditioned mind - the cause of psychological suffering), would have undergone such an experience. Needless to say, I was disappointed when it appeared they hadn’t. Or at least not in its entirety. 

I suppose this is what led to the rhetoric of ‘true healing’ being impossible. The people I was taught by had no doubt done a lot of meaningful healing work on themselves and were very kind and compassionate individuals. Yet I was always the sort of person who wanted to come to the ‘ultimate answer’. I didn’t want to accept partial healing. I wanted to come to the ‘end’. The end of therapy, the end of searching for answers, and the end of suffering. 

I’d been searching for answers for most of my life. I suppose I’d always been a ‘seeker’, wanting the ultimate awareness and understanding in life. My brain was perhaps just wired that way. I was curious, a quality that irritated many (including no doubt my lecturers), but my curiosity was insatiable. I would not rest until I achieved what I wanted. Until I truly had found a way for the suffering to dissolve and not come back. 

While therapy did help me with this, what helped the most was my friendship with Sylvain (www.thecreativemind.world). Sylvain led some wellbeing walks for staff at Blenheim Palace, where we both worked, and on meeting him, I knew at once that what he had was what I was looking for. 

Sylvain had undergone the same experience I remembered Eckhart Tolle speaking about, and the way he spoke reminded me of Eckhart too. There was a detachment, a peace, a contentment, a love of life and people. It was exactly what I wanted for myself, and he became the best ‘teacher’ I’ve ever had. 

There did come a point where the suffering left me, at least as far as psychological suffering goes. Something I had previously felt was ‘me’ slipped away one day, after months of connecting with who I truly was underneath. In this way Sylvain acted as a mirror. Our walks and meetings helped me to see myself the way he saw me, the way he sees everyone - as already whole and complete. The moment I was able to see this for myself was the moment my ‘therapy’ ended. 

It is a shame Sylvain is not a qualified mental health professional as what he offered me is truly invaluable. However what he has inspired in me is to offer this experience to others, using my experience and training as a psychotherapist. 

The ‘ego’ really is just who we have been told we are by our parents and culture. When we see this, we can see what’s underneath it, and that is what I worked on growing in all my clients. It is their true, authentic, joyful, playful, creative self. It is what we are all seeking to connect with when we go after a promotion, a bigger house, a new car… it is that sense of abundance, that childlike excitement and joy of being alive. It is ultimately what we all long for, and I know this to be possible for all of us. If I can realise ‘peace’ after many years of intense suffering, I know anyone can. 

This is truly the end of therapy. At least it has been for me. And it is now my privilege and passion to extend this offering to others.