In the work that I currently do, I am in therapy situations with people who have massive brain injuries. As a result of their condition they often have difficulties with communication or understanding and severe lack of bodily movement. In other words a lot of their ability to communicate and express is simply not intact. These people are, in a very literal sense, buried underneath the symptoms and the people around them begin to treat them as a conglomeration of various problems. There seems to be very little appreciation for who or what they really are.The Art of Ascension Practice opens up a pathway that is truly amazing. Simply using the praise technique with my eyes open, without having to really try to “communicate”, creates a rapport – a connection of mutual respect. It helps me to see through the appearances of physicality and that has proven time and time again to open the other person as well.
Once I worked with an 83 year old man who had been mute all his life. He had had an aneurysm that paralyzed him on his left side, along with the added difficulty of how to determine how much he actually understood cognitively. So I literally had very little to go with as far as communicating. Yet in the few weeks that we worked together – almost without words, silently – a bridge was built on appreciation. That simple Attitude was acknowledging that which connects him and I and where physical conditions are of no importance.
The many experiences with the people that I work with have shown me that appreciation is far more than seeing a surface thing and talking about it. It reaches all the way to the core of who we truly are; and as I focus on that in myself, the more the connectivity with people around me increases. Ultimately, whatever therapy I do with those people, is in a way less important than the energy or the Attitude that I approach them with. Appreciation not only affects my inner experience, it also naturally helps the other because we are so intimately connected with each other, and with everyone and everything else.
Nataraja Ishaya
