This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.
“That process of coming home to my inner world and to an expanded vision for my self in the outer world was one very much marked by stumbling and meandering.”
There was a process of coming home to my self that I was immersed in during the time that I ‘discovered’ the stack of books in my photo. I use quotations here for discovered because the books all somehow found me - through recommendations from trusted people in my life - more so than I found them. Each of their authors helped me to get in touch with my desire to become a psychotherapist after traveling along a much different career trajectory for years. That process of coming home to my inner world and to an expanded vision for my self in the outer world was one very much marked by stumbling and meandering.
I was (and will always be, I think) enamored with the idea that so much about the human psyche is unknowable - and yet since childhood I have had a hunger for knowledge about what makes us tick, grieve, or love. How does one become a person? What does it mean to be alive? What makes this life so painful and yet so rewarding at the same time? Many open-ended questions! These four books scratched some itches, but moreover, they initiated me into a deeper dialogue with ideas that had been swirling around in my head without much of a home to play in. It was a moving experience to encounter others, either from the past or present time, that were contending with these questions in such nuanced ways. It’s that sensation of finding something so right and so precise — it’s almost uncanny. Or the feeling of making a new friend when you have a moment of “No way, you too!? Wow, I thought I was the only one who _____.” Somehow the language that I found in these books reflected to me that I wasn’t alone and helped me remember that my mind was in relationship to other minds. They articulated things that I knew to be true in my gut, but unable to name with language before. This is what home signifies to me: it is a series of movements informed by resonance and reciprocity. And it’s a place to be known and understood - a place to be in dialogue - a place to be in process in a way that allows space for us to get to know ourselves and others over and over again.
Taz’s Library (left to right):
-Quiet by Susan Cain
-Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon
-Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
-We’ve Had One Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse by James Hillman and Michael Ventura
HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:
Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.
Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.
Share! Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.
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A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.
Taz Morgan, MA, is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, IMF #99714, working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. She has trained in Depth-oriented psychotherapy and works with adolescents, adults, and couples.