A post from Ella.

We are hoping to post separately but we haven’t yet worked out how to differentiate the tabs or whatever they are called so at the moment if it’s me I’ll say so at the beginning of the post!! I am planning mainly to post photos and small pen portrait type notes about the people we meet..

On the plane on the way over I was reading a book by James Hollis who is a psychotherapist.

Apparently the etymology of the word psychotherapy is “to observe or attend the soul” In which case I think we should all be psychotherapists.

Over the years I have loved hearing the stories of those who have observed, listened and attended to what is stirring within them. Those people who have faced a fear or realised something about themselves or their history and who can now say,
I am no longer afraid of…
I have grown in wisdom and understanding.
I don’t know all things and I have no need to pretend I do, but I do know a few things about myself and I can live with ambivalence.
I am no longer defined by my family,
I’m no longer ashamed of my past, or afraid of the future.
I am no longer carrying the guilt from my mother or living out an inherited script in my work.
I had a fairly crappy childhood but I am an adult now and I will face the fear of stepping out on a previously untried route.

I love spending time with people who have attended to their souls, who have observed the repeated patterns of their actions, noticed their own habits and rituals, their hangups and prejudices and have intentionally chosen to challenge their own assumptions and live another way. I am fascinated by people who have changed their minds about something no matter how small.

The book I read on the plane said, “The second half of life presents a rich possibility for spiritual enlargement, for we are never going to have greater powers of choice, never have more lessons of history from which to learn, and never possess more emotional resilience, more insight into what works for us and what does not, or a deeper, sometimes more desperate, conviction of the importance of getting our life back. We are already survivors, and that counts for a lot. How, or even whether, we finally use these accumulated strengths to redeem our life from our history will count for even more.” James Hollis

These are some of the people we’ve met along the way..