In general, people wish to feel well, we want to feel at peace with ourselves and those around us and to feel that our life is meaningful. Sometimes, we wish to improve and to develop personally, to transform ourselves and to walk the path that takes us from living from the ego to living from the soul.
However, many times it seems that peace never comes or that it soon disappears or that, in this process of transformation, we are constantly confronted with ‘obstacles’ that interrupt the process making it difficult and affecting our well-being.
These ‘obstacles’ are frequently unresolved issues from the past. In our everyday lives (here and now) we are still affected by what occurred in the past (there and then). We carry these unresolved issues as emotional burdens and our body registers them and expresses them in the form of uncomfortable sensations and symptoms. These negatively charged emotions (pain, suffering, sadness, desperation, guilt, rage, fear, self-judgment and so on) take their toll on both our hearts and bodies, draining us of vitality and preventing us from being fully present in the here and now. In these situations, especially if we cease being functional in our daily lives, or even if we become ill, therapy is of great help.
In gestalt therapy, the therapeutic process allows us to look at ourselves and examine our past from our present experience. Gestalt therapy enables us to truly contact ourselves and our surroundings, and it is in the present experience that we have the opportunity to perceive and become aware of how the past marks us and our present. This process also reveals to us the many ways in which we interrupt this contact in order to avoid pain, fear and conflict as well as the way to face and welcome our experiences, what we feel (accept and integrate) and the resources we have to satisfy our needs (take responsibility, act and support ourselves). As we see that we are able to get through our crises, accept our emotions, take care of ourselves and satisfy our needs, both our confidence and our appreciation for ourselves (self-esteem) increase.
Gestalt therapy, therefore, offers us the possibility of both knowing ourselves better and improving our relations with others, realising a process of personal growth (via a humanistic and existential approach) and of accompanying ourselves in difficult situations or crises so as to understand ourselves better and alleviate our suffering.
Accepting and integrating the life that we have already lived, and allowing ourselves to be who we are, each with our own strengths and weaknesses, allows us to open up, bit by bit, to more reality and to be present and available in the here and now. This attitude enables us to gradually let go of the ‘ego mode’ so that we can live more and more from the ‘soul mode’.
For more information, go to www.gestaltbatec.com or www.montserratvoltes.com.
Montse Voltes, Vic, 14 de octubre de 2017