Deep spiritual attitudes and beliefs manifest in everyday life and of course therapy. These deep spiritual attitudes should ideally permeate and shape all therapist’s interventions, approaches and tools.
Behind my therapy methods and interventions, and behind your own day-to-day interactions, lie feeling attitudes. These are called these metaskills, and it is these feeling attitudes and approaches to life that strongly impact my life’s work.
When we have an awareness of feeling skills we can transform our life into a spiritual experience. Bringing metaskills to all that we do adds a quality of feeling. We are not aware of how we all go through life ‘doing’ missing out on the feeling. We are not present to ourselves or others and we are treating life as a to-do-list.
Metaskills are not what we have learned, it’s not the know-how or skills we have gathered through life, it is how we practice our skills in life. We still need continue to learn and grow with knowledge and skills, but how we interact with ourself and others is where metaskills reside.
It is through feelings and the atmosphere they create that our spiritual values about life spring to life. While they are not named, they are always there influencing our interaction and techniques.
While some techniques stress behavioural change and insight, it is the feeling that we bring to life that is at the core of life.
So you know what I am talking about, lets name some metaskills – compassion, humour, playfulness, curiosity and detachment. When we can foster these metaskills in our life, we are supporting the deep spiritual values that we hold.
Forgiveness, while not exactly a metaskill, it is a deep spiritual value that can permeate our life. When we can bring the value of forgiveness into our relationship with ourself and others, there’s a lot that can change. It’s not easy, but forgiveness is a work in progress for everyone.
Our continual work is to seamlessly weave in these metaskills, model them, live them and talk about them, so you can begin to see how when living from a place that appreciates the spirituality in us, supports your life and relationships at the core foundation.
