I would like all of us to live as fully as we can. The only time I really feel awful is when people have not lived a life that expressed themselves. They lived with all their "shoulds" and "oughts" and their blaming and placating and all the rest of it, and I think, "How sad."
I once was with somebody I liked very much--an older person, when I was considerably younger than I am now. That person said, "Spend at least fifteen minutes a day weaving dreams. And if you weave a hundred, at least two of them will have a life." So continue with a dream and don't worry whether it can happen or not; weave it first. Many people have killed their dreams by figuring out whether they could do them or not before they dream them. So, if you're a first-rate dreamer, dream it out--several of them--and then see what realities can come to make them happen, instead of saying, "Oh, my God. With this reality, what can I dream?"
I proceed from the theory that my therapeutic job is to expand, redirect, and reshape individuals' ways of coping with each other and themselves, so they can solve their own problems in more healthy and relevant ways. Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem. Coping is the outcome of self-worth, rules of the family systems, and links to the outside world.
Human contact is not about words. Human contact is about eye connection, about voice, about skin, about breathing. Words are something you can read in a book, you can see on a billboard, and they can be totally differentiated from human beings. Words help when people are congruent.
And I suppose that before I leave this world, one thing that I would wish for all the world to know, is that human contact is made by the connection of skin, eyes, and voice tone. These are the things that taught us before we had words. How our parents touched us, how they looked at us, what their voices sounded like, were all recorded in us.
Video Playlist: Anthony de Mello
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