Check out our latest interview in our Humans of MHT series, as Lisa Patrizia, MA, EDS, LPCC has a conversation with Paloma Franco, MS on the idea of “friendship” and how it plays a vital role in our lives and our humanity.
You will find the interview transcript below.
Lisa Patrizia: Hello, I'm here with Paloma Franco to talk about humanness and to share some space with you and I'm really excited to do so.
Paloma Franco: Hi
LP: Hi
PF: I'm excited too.
LP: Well, I'm curious, Paloma, you chose the word “friendship” from David Whyte’s book Consolations, a book where he unpacks various aspects of being human, and I'm curious to hear what is meaningful to you about that word?
PF: Yeah, as I was looking through the book and trying to find what word I gravitated towards, the word friendship just stuck out to me. Everything that's written by David Whyte is lovely, but this word specifically and the idea of friendship really struck me. This idea of being known and seen by someone. There's a portion that he says, “but no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. The ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.” So that is like this bearing witness to another being and their experience and journeying with them. I think it's so beautiful to see friendship in that way, that it is not a needing to improve someone. It’s like let's just sit together and journey in life together. Just the being seen and known I find so beautiful in that experience of friendship.
“[Friendship is] bearing witness to another being and their experience and journeying with them. I think it’s so beautiful to see friendship in that way, that it is not a needing to improve someone. It’s just like “let’s just sit together and journey in life together”
LP: Yeah, and how powerful that is. The witness, as you said. The just being with what is, not having an attachment to a movement towards one thing or another but the ability to be with someone—journeying with and having your experience seen and known and born witness to.
PF: Yeah, there was something else he says at the beginning of the chapter that I also found super meaningful, “Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.” So this idea of forgiveness in that friendship, in that relationship, and seeing ourselves through their eyes and vice versa. I guess it comes to my mind like a garden of flowers. Two flowers together and journeying through all different seasons of life and then coming back up and standing with them as flowers stand next to each other.
LP: Yeah I love that imagery and the visual and the way that evokes that sense that says both things are being so renewed and there is so much movement and growth happening all the while having bearing together in one spot, yet, how much is happening in each kind of renewal and that sense of standing together with and the power of that being with.
PF: Yeah, yeah, friendship.
LP: I feel like I am going to have the image of these flowers in the field. That was such a good metaphor for that. I'm curious to hear from you more about, whether it's in relation to friendship in this sense of bearing witness to and the forgiveness aspect to that you were noting, I'm curious to hear more about your thoughts about this idea of being human which so much of what we're thinking in this work?
PF: Yeah, as I was thinking about that word, a quote by an actress (activist, director, and producer) Sophia Bush came to my mind. I actually have a mug that I painted with the words of it actually. I think of this quote as I think about humanness: “you're allowed to be a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.” So this idea you can be a masterpiece and also be a work in progress like the two opposites of that and coexisting in that
LZ: Yeah
PF: And that's what I feel like humanness is, we can be happy and sad and not just those two but an experienced multitude of feelings and yet it's all very human to experience those feelings. This idea of being in progress and also feeling like a masterpiece or being a masterpiece so that's what I think about in terms of humanness and how beautiful that can be and also how messy that can feel and how those two can feel scary to coexist together and how that's a possibility that can happen, to be in those two spaces.
“We can be happy and sad and not just those two, but an experienced multitude of feelings, and yet it’s all very human to experience those feelings.”
LP: Yeah, I really love that and that's not a quote that I had come into contact with before and how true and how wonderfully put. I really love the way that you are connecting those and the sense of it being in process at the sense of scariness the sense of messiness and beauty and it's kind of all of those things wrapped up together.
PF: Yeah, and then connecting back to that word friendship, it's like having someone to be there in witness and see you in that, in those two parts: the masterpiece and the pain and the work in progress and how good that feels to be known by someone in that way.
LP: It makes me think that as you're talking about that, that sense of the acceptance of things existing altogether and the witness part of it, the sense of all of those aspects.
PF: Yeah 'cause you know in the messiness, sometimes we don't want others to see that. With friendship, this being seen by someone and with what David Whyte was saying, the forgiveness that happens or the seeing yourself through their eyes and being embraced in that as well in that work in progress and masterpiece.
LP: That makes me think of how important and impactful that is to be able to be in that together, to have that held in that way.
PF: Yeah.
LP: To that friendship, those flowers right alongside.
PF: Yeah.
LP: Well, thank you so much, it's so nice to connect with you and I really appreciate you sharing your reflections on all of this.
PF: Thank you for listening!
LP: See you.
PF: Bye!
Paloma Franco is a Registered Psychological Assistant working under the supervision of Stephanie Law, PsyD. Paloma believes in the power of stories and the healing power of authentic relationships. As a bilingual clinician, she is passionate about helping her clients further understand their story and the different patterns that may be hindering or affecting how they connect with others or how they view themselves.
Lisa Patrizia, MA, EDS, LPCC, believes deeply in the power of the therapeutic relationship to provide a space of healing and hope. In her work with children, adolescents, adults, and families, Lisa has found that in developing self-understanding and exploring the deeper meanings of what is noticed in relationships there is great potential for moving through difficulties and discovering a place of greater wholeness.