When a Question becomes a Mirror

 

This past week, I was invited to speak to a cohort of young individuals in training to become psychologists. My talk focused on Narrative Therapy – specifically, how I, as an eclectic consultant-psychologist, apply it in my practice.

Following my presentation, one of the attendees – a very bright young man – asked me: “Doesn’t saying ‘I don’t believe in absolutes’ become an absolute too?”

It was such a beautifully alive question.
And he was right (even “absolutely” right) 😊
That’s the paradox of it all: rejecting absolutes can so easily harden into its own hidden certainty.

I explained to him: it isn’t that I insist there are absolutely no absolutes.
It’s that I choose to live and teach from a place of openness – gently resisting the pull to make even that idea fixed and final.

On my slides used for that presentation, I hadn’t declared a universal truth. Instead, I’d offered reminders:
– Truth and meaning are subjective and shaped by context
– It’s more fruitful to explore many perspectives than cling to one
– Your map is not the territory (a NLP presupposition)

For me, this isn’t about proving something.
It’s about staying curious enough to notice when my own views can potentially start turning into rigid truths.

And yes, even this approach isn’t perfect – which itself is the lesson: we live among paradoxes.
And our work isn’t to erase them, but to notice, observe, and welcome them.

I’m very thankful for his question, because it mirrored something back to me:
That we all need these voices – sometimes external, sometimes internal – to remind us to pause and ask:
– What do I hold as always true?
– How might that serve or limit me?
– Could I hold it more lightly?

In that way, even a question from someone else becomes an echo within – nudging me toward deeper self-awareness.

Echoes We Still Carry: A Conversation that Became a Mirror

Last night, a friend reminded me of old comments from people who once hurt me – words I clearly still carried inside.

At first, I felt a small flicker of pain – a sign the echo was still alive.

Then she said something that struck me:

“Their comments are painful enough for you to remember even now … but if we asked them, they probably wouldn’t remember at all. Yet we’re still living with it.”

My immediate reaction was to deny it, to insist that I wasn’t hurt or resentful. That was, in fact, how I’d responded a year ago when this came up.

But this time, I paused. I stopped.

She was right.
Those memories – these echoes – still lived in me, not as loud voices anymore, but as something quietly reverberating inside: shaping my beliefs, colouring my reactions, perhaps even limiting my choices.

Then I realised: this echo isn’t here to shame me.
It’s here to invite me to ask: Do I still want to carry this story?

I told my friend:

These echoes don’t go away because we bury them.
They go quiet when we welcome them, re-author them, and bring them home.
Not to erase the past, but to let the story become softer, kinder, truer.

It isn’t about making them remember, or making them apologise.
It’s about me remembering who I am, and choosing what meaning I carry forward.

Letting go isn’t forgetting.
It’s transforming.
And it begins with three gentle steps: Noticing, Observing, and Welcoming.