Dr. King and Inner Healing

I attended a couple of events yesterday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. People spoke of how Dr. King was - even more than a great leader - a great servant. He served a purpose higher than himself with love... love of God, love of the black people (throughout the world), and love of all humanity. He saw that only through this love could inequalities be righted and pain from them be healed. For this reason, he committed himself to overcoming anger and hate - even for those who persecuted African Americans. As Dr. King said, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."

This is just as true when that enemy is harbored within. Much research in psychology has found - and is continuing to find - such advice to be helpful in aiding people to heal from their inner pain. Along with Dr. King, the field of psychology has declared that anger begets anger and that acceptance is healing.

Based on much longstanding as well new research findings, I have been writing about compassionate self-awareness. People need to be self-aware to really know and understand their emotional pain. To heal, they must know what needs healing. But they also have to bring compassion to that exploration. And to experience such self-compassion, they must experience self-love - love for who they are, not just for who they want to be.

Compassionate self-awareness can help people achieve growth and positive change by finding their way to self-love - a healthy experience of self-acceptance and desire for personal wellbeing, not the false grandiosity that sometimes masks an inner sense of inferiority. When they apply compassionate self-awareness to their lives - not just a specific problem - they will feel that much more whole as a person. This is not exactly the "promised land" that Dr. King spoke of in his final speech on April 3, 1968, but I think he would agree that the land he dreamed of is brought that much closer with every person who learns to view themselves and others with genuine love.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps is a clinical psychologist in private practice and is on the medical staff at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, NJ. She also writes a blog for WebMD (The Art of Relationships) and is the relationship expert on WebMD's Relationships and Coping Community.

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