Good Therapy

While a co-worker and I were philosophizing yesterday about the complexities of the human experience, I told her I would pass along an old favorite book of mine that hadn't looked at in years. I found it on the shelf today, and as I thumbed through, I saw why I loved it at the time. Hearts That We Broke Long Ago by Merle Swain reflects some of our most tender, painful, and guarded human thoughts. I could quote from any random place as it is deep with meaning, but here is a sample.

"Compassion can't exist with anger or jealousy, with envy or revenge, so those who have those feelings starve themselves. In the hands of the insecure, compassion becomes condescension, pity, and a taste for pain. Real compassion comes from strength."

"April is the cruelest month," TS Eliot said, because it involves rebirth, and most of us would rather lie dormant yet and not quite come to life. But just as we have to walk with love, we have to walk toward fear, and we must know what hurts a lot and look it in the teeth."

"For many of us self hate is the result of an ancient but still nagging sting, a sad echo of an earlier bruise from which we never seem to recover, and so we keep ourselves auditioning, always remaining a seeker in another's land, the person who shouts across the gulf, hoping to be heard."