Song of Myself

What is the experience of having this thing we call a 'self ' like? It's common to think of the self as a single unit and that's great but actually what we quite often find in counselling is that the self is a mixture of parts

The image of an orchestra comes to mind - with separate tones and qualities of sound coming from all the very different instruments and a conductor making sure all the instruments play the same tune together at the same time harmoniously - all following the score and with no one instrument drowning the others out and also no one instrument playing so quietly that it can not be heard !

So where is the self - not in any one individual instrument or even in the conductor ? I like the idea Walt Whitman uses in his poem 'Song to Myself' that we know ourselves by the music itself and when things become disharmonious out of tune or out of sync the first thing we need to do is listen.

Counselling provides the space where in you are listened to and also you can hear yourself