Yesterday in the mail, I received a newly published book written by my friend, colleague and mentor, Dan Gottlieb. Thumbing through the first few pages of The Wisdom We’re Born With: Restoring Our Faith in Ourselves, I began to reflect back on the lessons I’ve learned from Dr. Dan over the 35 years of knowing him.
We first met when I was a ripe old age of 25, fresh out of graduate school, eagerly engaged in family therapy training at The Family Institute of Philadelphia. Dan was my teacher for the first half of a three and a half year program. He stood out as markedly different from most of his peers in that he wasn’t threatened by my burgeoning feminism. He loved it, engaged it, challenged it and has steadfastly supported it.
How powerful it was way back when to share dinner with my teacher and have him look at me and say in a non-threatening way: “I don’t think you’re really as confident as you seem to be.” Trusting it was OK to be honest, I replied, “Of course I’m not.” We held a gaze and in that moment I knew…