Mitzvah Therapy: Healing through service and contribution
A story I heard from the late Dr. Sol Gordon about healing from sexual abuse and trauma by doing good in the world.
A story I heard from the late Dr. Sol Gordon about healing from sexual abuse and trauma by doing good in the world.
You Get What you give. (Jampolasky) What do you need to receive?
While I know this to be true- your story telling method carries the simple truth in a broader and more comprehensive way- More “Orchestral.”
My new life involves teaching children on harmony and life and I think I want to copy some of your style. Thanks. Daniel
Do you know the story that Sol Gordon would tell about how he became the man he was?
I don’t know how accurate the details are but this is what I remember from a speech he gave when being honored for his contribution to Sexuality Education.
Just after graduating from college he was very full of himself and had great ideas on how he could make a difference in the area of sex education which was pretty well non-existent in those days. He realized that young people had no resources for their questions about their bodies, relationships and sexuality – having gotten whatever information they did have from the least credible sources.
He became a psychologist and set out to make changes in educating people world wide about their bodies and sexuality After a while he realized the grandiosity of that dream and decided to lower his expectations. Instead he turned his attention to North America only. After a while he realized that too was just too big to handle – so he centered his attention on the tri-state area in which he lived. Some time after that he narrowed his focus to the state in which he was living. He still wasn’t making the strides he envisioned and focused now on his immediate community.
One day a very troubled young student came to him with a particularly serious situation. He sat with her and listened well to what she was saying and gave her some very good information and advice. The next week she returned to thank him for making a huge difference in her life. To him he was just doing a mitzvah – a good deed, no big deal.
The next day he had an epiphany! He realized that was how he could change the world – making a difference in just one person’s life, one mitzvah at a time, And if each person did a mitzvah for another person and that person did a mitzvah …. the world would change.
It’s not for nothing that Sol Gordon is called the “Father of Sex Education”.
I never heard the story, but it reminds me of Blake. “When we do good, it must be in minute particulars,” he said.
Sol Gordon became a friend after I heard that story from him.