How to Get It Wrong to Get It Right
Why wrongness may be a necessary step on the path to the truth
I am taking a course through the Appalachian Gestalt Therapy Institute. In a recent session, two students worked together, with one taking the role of client, and the other playing the therapist. At one point, the student therapist empathized with the client, saying, “Ok yes, I can imagine how you could be feeling a sense of embarrassment about that.” The instructor - who was watching and coaching from the sidelines - chimed in and asked, “Are you sure he is feeling embarrassed about that? That is not what I am feeling.” After checking in with the client, we learned that was not at all what she was feeling. The person in the Gestalt therapist role was happy he checked in and clarified.
I wonder about how often that happens. How often do we assume what is true about another without checking in with them? So much of our authentic connection may get lost in translation because we are afraid to truly ask, and then actually listen.
“Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about”
More than ever, our culture outcasts and ostracizes our fellow humans because of a belief or attitude that they carry. The room for error is slim. To make a mistake means putting yourself at risk to be judged, shamed, or shunned. We live paranoid and self-conscious lives, existing at the whims of other people’s judgments and opinions. I don’t blame us, I don’t want to get ridiculed either. It doesn’t feel good.
In Gestalt we use the phrase “let’s get it wrong to get it right.” If you see someone doing something you consider to be “wrong,” why not allow them to be wrong? Maybe they are just trying it on. Getting it wrong is the first step in finding your way to right. We give our power away when we impose a “wrong” on another. We often have no idea about the context of their life. Maybe their actions are exactly what is right for them in their moment.
I wonder what would happen if we truly embodied the theory that we know nothing about what the other has gone through and what they are experiencing right now. I wonder if the “other” even knows. I didn’t at first. When I started doing Gestalt and was asked to intimately check in with my experience, I was confused. I had never done it before.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe. How had I been guided so far from my own experience? Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to be fixed or shamed, or didn’t want to burden other people. Maybe because I was deeply troubled for most of my youth, and young men are supposed to be tough and suck it up, so that’s what I did.
How are you doing, really?
In my first experiences with Gestalt, a practitioner asked me two questions and had me think quietly on each answer. He first asked “How are you doing?” Then he asked, “how are you doing really?” My answer to the first question was, “I’m fine.” The second question was a punch in the gut. I knew he really wanted to know. It was not some trite greeting. I tried to tell him and what came out was messy. I expressed feelings filled with shame. Confusion about my sense of purpose. The ramblings of a lost young man with a broken heart. I’m glad he asked. It was the first time I inquired into the truth of my experience in the moment rather than reciting some story or projection of what society told me I was.
I learned to come back to the body and ask my intuition and emotions what is real for me. I find the truth in the body every time, and the body is less dogmatic and linear about truth. It offers me a feminine flow that makes life fun. When I am present with it, it takes me on a ride to my North Star of truth. The star isn’t out there in the sky, or on TV, or in a classroom or a church. It is within.
Lately, I’ve been aware of different energies near my heart. The new awareness of the heart energy center has helped sparked truths I haven’t considered. These revelations help me understand how I am doing, and how I am doing really.
I am a certified Gestalt Facilitator. I Invite you to try this therapeutic practice.