When I was growing up, poetry didn’t really have much of an impact on me, perhaps because I never was surrounded much by the eloquence of its words. However, in my older age, I have come to see that a poet is able to say things in a way we mortals can’t. I have embraced poetry as wisdom literature to guide me through life. There are many poets that inspire me. Surely you have your own list of favorites: Yeats, Rumi, Hafiz, Wendell Berry, Many Oliver, Auden, T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson,

 

Supervision is not just about how to do counseling, it also is about the spiritual question of “why do you do what you do.” Here is where a poet can help a supervisor and counselor. In a good poem, every word has intense meaning, speaking to our deepest feelings. Good poems startle, exhilarate and comfort. Poetry can do that. Volumes could be written on this subject, so for the brevity of this column I have chosen one of my current all-time favorite poets, David Whyte, and one of his best poems, Sweet Darkness. We will read the poem (below) and then see how it applies to supervision and counseling: 

 

The opening lines describe so aptly how we often feel as health care workers; our eyes are tired, the whole world in which we work seems “tired.” We seem to lose our vision about why we are doing what we do, and the neediest of clients “cannot find us.” Have you ever found yourself hiding out in your office, saying, and “I don’t want to see another client? I gave enough.” Or, you wonder if there is a better way of earning a living? “By the time I get home, I am spent and have nothing left to give to my family and friends.”

 

Whyte reminds us that when we are tired, it is time to go into the darkness of our soul, to find what and who still recognizes us, to realize we are not beyond love, especially the love of friends, family, and hopefully, ourselves. Buddhists speak of sending lovingkindness to ourselves, to surround ourselves with love, caring, compassion. After all, you can’t give to someone (a counselor, a client) something you don’t have. You can’t take a person to a place you haven’t been. As Carl Rogers said, “You counsel out of whom you have become.” Parker Palmer writes, “We heal out of who we are.” 

 

The darkness might be a silent retreat, a summer vacation on the beach, a closet where you can be alone, a walk in the fall foliage—wherever you find that darkness, that night, you will find yourself held again in a “womb with a view” of a horizon further than you could otherwise see. 

Curly, in the movie City Slickers, says to Billy Crystal, “You must learn one thing.” Crystal asks, “What is that one thing?” to which Curly says, “You have to find it yourself.” 

 

The world was made for you to be free in. What was it you were created to do, today? 

 

There are two essential questions a supervisor should, at some time in her supervision, ask a counselor. They are the fundamental questions of life:

 

• What were you created to be/do?

• And what are you willing to be / do /give up to do that?

The world was made to be free in. Whyte reminds us that we need to “Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.” My favorite paraphrase of belonging is to be-your-longing. The U.S. Army had it right with their slogan from years ago:“be all that you can be.” To find that longing, we often have to go into that darkness and search out the “sweet confinement of your aloneness” to know where you are headed. 

 

You might ask, “What does this have to do with clinical supervision?” A good supervisor not only addresses cognitive, behavioral (skills) and affective issues in supervision but also, spiritual dimensions. 

Whyte ends Sweet Darkness with a challenge, “To learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.” Is your job too small for you? What have you done to make it so small? Do you need to find that sweet darkness where you can see once again why you do what you do? 

 

In these challenging economic times, where counselors are struggling to make a living, and wondering if their jobs (or even their agency) will survive, we all should find that sense of freedom, joy and peace in what we do, to not make our work any smaller than economic conditions seek to make it. I invite you to go to work tomorrow with a renewed sense of freshness in what you do. You have a unique opportunity to touch someone else’s life today. Start your day with an attitude of gratitude for this opportunity. 

I end this article with a Wendell Berry poem:

 

“It may be when we no longer

know what to do,

We have come to our real work,

And when we no longer know

which way to go,

We have begun our real journey.”

 

If you are new to poetry, read these over, let them grab you, fall in love with them, wrestle with them, make them a part of you and grow up with them, as I have. I invite your emails about your favorite poets and poems, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

 

David J. Powell, PhD, President, International Center for Health Concerns, Inc., is an internationally recognized lecturer, trainer and author. David has played a significant role in the develop­ment and operations of the Oya Bahadir Yuksel Rehabilitation Center.

This article is published in Counselor, The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, August 2009, v.10, n.4, pp.16-17.

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