Dibs in Search of Self
A dear friend of mine recommended this beautifully heart-warming story about a young boy Dibs, who comes from a wealthy and highly educated family but was never treated as an individual - always being weighed up alongside others. The book chronicles a series of play therapy, through which Dibs had come to acceptance of himself. Though play he had poured out his wounded, bruised feelings. There grew within him a new awareness of a selfhood, and a breathless discovery that he had within himself a stature and wisdom that expanded and contracted even as do the shadows that are influenced by the sun and the clouds. Slowly, tentatively, he discovered that the security of his world was not wholly outside himself, but that the stabilizing center he searched for with such intensity was deep down inside that self.
“Dibs had had his dark moments and had lived for a while in the shadows of life. But he had had the opportunity to move out of those dark moments and discover for himself that he could cope with the shadows and sunshine in his life.
Perhaps there is more understanding and beauty in life when the glaring sunlight is softened by the patterns of shadows. Perhaps there is more depth in a relationship that has weathered some storms. Experience that never disappoints or saddens or stirs up feeling is a bland experience with little challenge or variation in color. Perhaps when we experience confidence and faith and hope that we see materialize before our eyes this builds up within us a feeling of inner strength, courage, and security.”
Dibs’ story makes me think of the search of Self for each and every one of us. We all embark on a journey of discovering and connecting with our transcendent-immanent Self, our deepest truth, our heartfelt values.
As we experience the unfolding of our life, we often feel events are happening to us. On this roller coaster ride called life and we are bewildered and confused by the unceasing battle between our impulses, desires, principles and aspirations. We are on this road trip but forgot for what purpose we are making the journey. Chronic feeling of isolation, self-destructive behaviors, suicidal impulses are all psychological symptoms when we persistently identify with a feeling, a desire, an opinion, a role and we lack a unitary point of perspective.
Our healing begins by compassionately attending to our inner child of history from the place of the loving witness. As the empathic relationship deepens we realize that our true identity is not something we just have or are given, it is something we must manifest via our choices and expressions. The past is not fixed and unalterable. Its facts can be re-discovered, its values re-assessed, its meanings redefined in the context of newly gained scope of perception. Aldous Huxley articulates beautifully in <The Door of Perception Heaven and Hell> - by the memory of past sin, by imagined pleasure, by the bitter aftertaste of old wrongs and humiliation, by all the fears and hates and cravings…In spite of all the terror, all the bewilderment and confusion, the ultimate Reality remains unshakably itself and is of the same substance as the inner light of even the most cruelly tormented mind.
