Cynthia Benge Therapy

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” -Aristotle

Here’s to a new year of growth, my tribe. Sending wishes of peace, joy and happiness in 2022.

I read this poem during the last meetings for our fall courses and wanted to share with you, too. I hope you find true friendship and hold it close- especially this time of year.

THE VALUE OF A FRIEND
By David Whyte

“Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to acceptance. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly offered us grace when we have failed them just as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A true friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, even when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them.

In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in us as much as ourselves… to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and encourage the best in them, not through critiques, but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less themselves.

And yet friendship is a merited grace, one that requires of us the unrelenting commitment of showing up for and bearing witness to one another, over and over...

The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

Let’s talk about INTUITION. It’s so easy to fall prey to our emotions when making decisions, but intuition calls us to go deeper.

Fear tells us the world is black and white. Intuition is a wiser, more nuanced voice that leads us where we’re meant to be while allowing room for exploration and mistakes. TRUST YOURSELF!