There comes a time, during my more successful interventions with patients, when a flicker of light beams from their eyes. It’s so subtle, I might miss it if I wasn’t always watching for it. But the truth is, I’m always watching for it.
What I’m watching for is a recognition that all hope is not lost. But that recognition doesn’t come in the form of a verbal declaration, or even what’s sometimes called an “ah ha” moment of clarity.
What I see when someone is, for the first time, connecting with her inherent hope potential, is a moment of curiosity. This curiosity is quite simple. It is a subtle interest in what else is possible. It almost always comes in the form of a “flash” in her eyes.
It is a vivid change in demeanor, in my experience. Yet it lasts less than a second for most. But that brief moment is the only time we need.
This brief moment of curiosity is the space in which a seed can be planted for change.
It is a gap in the urban concrete where a perfectly wild flower can grow. It is a sun-filled break in the clouds of the seemingly permanent gray of Seattle’s winters. It is the eye of the hurricane.
And even when my patient can’t see that she accessed this curiosity, this subtle interest, it still gives me direction. As her guide, it helps me to see what particular questions might help her to breach her self-imposed armor which is preventing her from accessing the latent power of this decisive moment.
Once I have seen the hidden resting place of my patient’s curiosity, she will no longer be able to deny its existence, even if she continues to believe that her situation is truly hopeless. The grip of hopelessness has been significantly weakened. By connecting to a curiosity, however briefly, about how life can be different, she is moving toward freedom from the pain and fear of her crisis.
inlifecounseling 