I will value your vitality and what is important to you in your life. I also am conscious that you may not, at this moment, be aware of what is actually important to you in your life.
  • I will see the you beyond the story you have come with regarding the cause of your suffering. I also honor the unique learning history that brought you here today.
  • I will value the you beyond your stuckness with your stories. I also empathize and share with you this inevitable tendency to fuse with and get stuck in the stories fabricated by the mind, especially stories regarding the "causes" of human suffering.
  • I will value the you beyond the symptoms you are suffering from. I also empathize with the reality of that human suffering, a condition we all share.
  • I will value the you beyond the countless solutions you've tried in the service of lessening your suffering, including coming to me now. I also empathize and share with you this hopeless tendency we all have to want to solve the unsolvable suffering inside the skin.
  • I will value the you who, on a deeper level, recognizes your own vitality and vital direction and knows which steps you can take to get back on the path at this point in time. I also empathize with and share with you the tendency to consistently avoid this vital direction, despite knowing what is possible.
  • I will value the you who has the courage now to show me glimpses of what you know to be possible, taking the risk I will see, recognize, and validate this and hold it as a guiding light in our work, causing you even more anxiety. I also empathize and share with you the habitual tendency to run away from this vital path into familiar hiding places.
  • I will stand by your side as you commit to and take your first difficult steps consistent with your vital direction. I also empathize and share with you the inevitable fear that these steps will initially elicit.
  • I will value and feel inspired by your willingness to embrace your pain and suffering in the service of living a conscious, vital, and meaningful life. I commit to embracing my own difficulties as we work together to build a conscious, vital, and meaningful therapeutic relationship in the service of helping you find your own vital path outside of this room.
Dahl, J.C., Plumb, J.C., Stewart, I., & Lundgren, T. (2009). The Art and Science of Valuing in Psychotherapy, New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
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