noun [guh-shtahlt] an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.
I’m currently writing a paper about Gestalt Play Therapy. It’s pretty fascinating stuff. While the specifics of the Gestalt-style don’t fit just right for me, the principles are pretty practical and relevant. The focus is on one’s current experience of thought and feeling in the moment, rather than on what could or should be. Wikipedia describes it as “full acceptance of what is, rather than a striving to be different.” Likewise, we are constantly discovering ourselves in how we are relating to the outside world or in how we fit in with the outside world even (ie: relationships). I chose to write my paper on this topic because it’s super duper fitting for a client I’m currently seeing.
In the midst of doing my research and writing this thing, I am continually thinking about how it relates in my own life and my desire to “seize the day” yet my propensity to be wasteful of experience and time. Sure… that’s really cliche-y but the truth is astounding. How much of our thought is focused on tomorrow or even 3 years from now? For me, that can be anything from how to pay a bill or my future job to my desire to be so organized as a means to be in control of at least something. By being so focused on what’s to come, we could (I surely do at times) lose out on what’s happening today. Without making the direct links to all these things on this blog… these are some of things that I’m sitting with in the midst of all this paper writing and Gestalt research: how much my friend misses her dad and the presence of my dad in my life, how my memal (alzheimer’s sufferer) spends all of her time trying to find connections between things in the hope that she finds something familiar, and then of course other things that I don’t yet have the words to articulate well (which happens to me all the time).
Make your own connections.
(There’s so much more conversation to be had around faith and the idea of not focusing on things being different. Cause that’s, in part, contrary to the Christian life. But for the sake of this post, I’m thinking in terms of being ok with whatcha got… rather than consumed with whatcha don’t got. Got it?)
I enjoy this.
It also makes me think of the Sheryl Crow song, “Soak Up the Sun,” which says, “It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
Definitely something I could remember more often.