'Becoming Myself' - Irvin D. Yalom

Irvin D. Yalom is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, a psychotherapist, and a writer.

His parents immigrated from Russia to the United States in the 1920s. They settled in Washington, where they opened a grocery store and lived above it.

He attended the local school, then George Washington University and graduated as a physician from Boston University.

His academic career took place at Stanford University, where he was a tenured professor after 1968. His work focused on existential psychology and group psychotherapy.

He wrote a number of books. Allow me to share with you some of his wisdom:

"Mind thinks in images but, to communicate with another, must transform image into thought and then thought into language. That march, from image to thought to language, is treacherous. Casualties occur: the rich, fleecy texture of image, its extraordinary plasticity and flexibility, its private nostalgic emotional hues - all are lost when image is crammed into language."

"To fully relate to another, one must first relate to oneself. If we cannot embrace our own aloneness, we will simply use the other as a shield against isolation."

"For every Yes there must be a No.

Deciding on one thing always means giving up something else. As one therapist commented to an indecisive patient, “Decisions are very expensive: they cost you everything else.” Abandonment inevitably accompanies a decision. One has to give up some opportunities, often opportunities that will never arise again."

" Responsibility is a double-edged sword: if a person takes responsibility for his own life situation and decides to change, the bottom line is that he and he alone is responsible for the past waste of his own life, and that he could have changed a long time ago ."

" Every person must choose how much truth he can stand."

" It is easier, far easier, to obey another than to command oneself."

"To care for another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible."

" Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas."

" Ask yourself, 'Who are the secure ones, the comfortable, the eternally cheerful?' I'll tell you the answer: only those with dull vision- the common people and the children. "

"You will search the world over and not find a non superstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach."

" He who would be everything cannot be anything.”

" A person of high, rare mental gifts who is forced into a job which is merely useful is like a valuable vase decorated with the most beautiful painting and then used as a kitchen pot."

As Nietzsche said, “ If we have our own ‘why’ of life, we shall get along with any ‘how'. "

"Every single person in the world is fundamentally alone. It’s hard, but that’s the way it is, and we have to face it."

Shared with joy

A.A

Stob, Bulgaria