WAt what in you deserves attention today? It is a question I often ask at the start of a conversation in my practice. It is a very different question than: ’What is on the foreground today?‘ Or: ’What do you want to talk about?‘ The difference lies in the word ’deserves‘. Everything in us deserves attention, deserves to be welcomed.
Dat Everything is welcome, It is not a given. It happens regularly that my client or supervisor gets emotional by that question; the most vulnerable person cautiously stands up because they feel invited. Recently someone said: ‘If I already think about our conversations at home, there is so little happening, and when I come in here, I get emotional.’ I then explain that that is not so strange, and certainly not worrying.
The presence of another human being who warmly welcomes you is the highway to your heart. And what is present in the heart at that moment then manifests itself.
DThe next step is to explore what it is that deserves attention. Is it a familiar part? Is it previously unknown? Is it a damaged part? Does it manifest through a bodily sensation? Through a thought, a feeling, an image? A coordinated tempo is important here. After all, there is no need to solve anything; nothing needs to be removed. Rather, the goal is to dance around it like in a waltz rather than marching forward, straight towards the goal. We need to understand nothing or be able to provide immediate care for it.
HIt is something I learned a few years ago in a training course I took with a trauma expert. Janina Fisher. She said that it is not a good idea to rush your client into caring for the inner wounded parts. If you suggest that, the other person might respond with: ‘So you’re saying I should do it all alone again?’ The client is right. That indeed might come across that way. And then I push that other person back into a familiar loneliness.
What would be a better intervention then? Janina continued: ‘Start by inviting the other person to be curious; curiosity is sometimes the most attainable thing.’
DThere we are. ‘What in you deserves attention today?’ and ‘May I invite you to be curious about what deserves attention.’
En If that is also too fast or too far, then I learned something else along the way in my field, and that is the important code word: ‘We’. ‘How would it be for you if you and I, that we together are curious about what wants to be seen?’
De ‘We’ is instantly connecting, and less alone. The ‘We’ transcends the you and the me. In the ‘We’, we are together on the journey. In the ‘We’, the small magic happens. Together, being curious opens the path to gentle movement.
Marijke Leys
Psychotherapist, author and director of the Voice Dialogue Institute.
More about Marijke
Marijke has been a psychotherapist for over 25 years and is the director of the Voice Dialogue Institute, which she founded in 2006. She has an integrative training background and is a certified EFT therapist. She is also trained in EMDR and TIST (Janina Fisher) and is the author of the books ‘Face to face with vulnerability’and‘Vulnerability as a compass’.
Traumanet Congress Leuven – June 12, 2026
Marijke Leys is one of the speakers at the Traumanet Congress in Leuven. A afternoon about trauma and healing, where Marijke will give a clear introduction in Voice Dialogue.
