For our adolescents and adults, we must sometimes acknowledge that issues may have already had time to develop into negative patterns and damaging life circumstances. However, from day one we move past the fact that maybe the best time to have first addressed these issues was months or perhaps a year or years ago. Regardless of when the best time may have been, the second best time is right now.
For our work to succeed, according to a definition of success we decide upon together, we form a partnership. We partner equally, but we are in no way equal. You are the expert in the room. Therefore, please don’t forget who works for whom. I work for you as a stage, a tool, a partner if you’ll so allow. Together, we will sometimes have the right words and sometimes not. It doesn’t matter, I promise you. There are no style points awarded nor deducted.
In fact, the gauge by which we determine that our work is moving in the right direction, at the right speed does not track words at all. It tracks only movement. We need to work at the level where life happens. Life happens at the level of movement not words. We track, we trust only movement. Movement towards where we want to be, not merely further from where we don’t.
Psychological health needs more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation. That’s the only quote on the topic I’ve ever liked and the only way I do business. If one seeks only sad, sympathetic eyes that peek out from sterile, clinical distance and pro forma formality, one should keep shopping. We don’t sell that.