Meditation and Therapy

Same things, different names

Buddhism speaks about saṅkhāras. Gestalt therapy speaks about unfinished business. Eckhart Tolle uses the expression pain-body.

They come from different traditions, but they point towards something remarkably similar: emotional material from the past that is still operating in the present.

You could think of it as monsters living in the basement of your personality.

They may have been there for years. Some may come from childhood, some from later experiences, and some seem to belong to patterns much older than ourselves. Buddhism takes the perspective beyond this lifetime. Gestalt therapy usually stays closer to our personal history, although what we carry is often also connected to our families. Patterns can travel surprisingly well from one generation to another.

Whatever their origin, we usually have a very sensible strategy for dealing with the monsters:

Keep the basement door closed.

Unfortunately, something else is down there too.

Our vitality. Our vulnerability. Our authenticity. Perhaps even what we might call our real self — or, from a Buddhist perspective, our real non-self.

A considerable amount of life energy can therefore become tied up simply in keeping the basement closed.

Bringing the monsters into daylight

Meditation and therapy approach this in somewhat different ways, but both depend upon something very simple: presence.

When we become quiet and present, what needs our attention has a tendency to appear.

There is an old Scandinavian fairy-tale image I like. Trolls can live quite comfortably in darkness, but when the sun rises and catches them, they turn to stone.

Our unfinished emotional material is a little like that.

When fear, grief, anger or pain is brought into the daylight of the present moment, we don’t necessarily have to get rid of it. First we have to allow ourselves to experience it.

It may hurt. It may return many times. But gradually something that has been controlling us from the darkness loses its power.

Presence is the sunlight.

Eventually the basement is no longer such a frightening place. What was once occupied by monsters can become the foundation of a more whole and authentic life.

The past finally gets a chance to become the past.

Where meditation comes in

In meditation we sit still and become increasingly present.

We get out of our heads and come to our senses. We don’t have to go searching through the basement. We simply sit, breathe and allow whatever arises to arise.

Sometimes old sadness appears. Sometimes fear, anger or memories. Sometimes nothing dramatic happens at all.

If we can remain present without immediately escaping, explaining or suppressing what appears, something begins to settle.

It is a little like muddy water. If you stop stirring it, gradually the water becomes clear.

But meditation has its limitations.

When emotional material is particularly painful, we can become very skilful at using spiritual practice to avoid precisely what needs to be experienced. We learn to calm ourselves, detach ourselves or rise above things.

This is sometimes called spiritual bypassing.

The monster hasn’t disappeared.

We have simply become better at keeping the basement door closed.

Where therapy comes in

This is where Gestalt therapy can be particularly useful.

Gestalt therapy has more active ways of approaching unfinished emotional situations. And there is another important difference:

You are not alone.

When something painful emerges in the presence of another human being who remains there with you — without trying to fix you or make the feeling disappear — the experience itself can begin to change.

Something that was once unbearable alone can become bearable together.

This is one of the reasons I find meditation and Gestalt therapy such a natural combination.

Meditation develops our capacity to be present. Therapy can help when what appears in that presence is too difficult, too frightening or too deeply buried to meet alone.

And then we return to meditation.

Perhaps the monster is gone. More often it is simply smaller.

We sit down again. We breathe. We become quiet.

And, little by little, there is less reason to be afraid of the basement.

And it becomes the sanctuary it was meant to be: a peaceful and blissful dwelling where pure inner happiness resides.