The River Flows Around the Rock and Continues to the Ocean

A useful metaphor when healing from distressing memories is:


"The river flows around the rock and continues to the ocean."


Nothing can stop the river flowing, it will always make its way to the ocean. Traumatic memories may be obstacles, like the rock, but the river will always flow around it to the freedom of the ocean. Flow like a river.

Finding refuge in metaphorical images like this, can be a way to calm the mind, recover safety, stabilise post-traumatic stress, and grow a personal sense of acceptance and control.


Enso circle brushstroke symbol


Content Policy |  Accessibility | Homepage | Blog | Contact

CC BY-NC 4.0

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meet Me Beyond the Labels

Image
So, I'm Kes. My full name is Kesley, and I like that, but Kes is for the dyslexics among us who might otherwise call me Kelsey. I'm certainly not a Kelsey. When I'm not pottering in the garden, being idle with a book, or following some creative pursuit, I spend a lot of time being a therapist. In one form or another, I've been a therapist for the best part of my adult life. As a child, it was my grandmother who taught me to be an excellent listener—and also instilled in me a penchant for teapots. I took my first classes in becoming a holistic therapist in my early twenties. I'm now in my mid-thirties, and have worked with many people of various ages and social positions. Let's start with the power and privilege stuff. Although it's clunky, it's important to name because it affects how you and I relate through our identities and social status. If we don't talk about these things, we’re likely to conform to predefined (and sometimes damaging) roles, pr...
Read more

Self-care

Image
Sometimes we humans get lost when we focus on externals, however there's a whole world within us that benefits from our own love and care. Our most reliable source of love and care is within ourselves. As adult human beings, we mature when we depend on ourselves, and ask for help when needed. Self-care is a way of showing yourself some love, and building up your inner worth and trust in your own relationship with your inner self. Here are some possibilities and suggestions for self-care, to nudge you toward a stronger and more solid relationship with yourself: Breathing Our breathing affects our entire nervous system, and even our heart rate. If you're feeling tense or emotional, your breath naturally changes as your body begins to prepare a response to meet your needs, however this can be problematic if your body is reacting to something in the past. We'll come back to this in a moment. First just to say, that our breath is usually an automatic, unconscious process. Simply...
Read more

Listening to the Felt-Sense: Finding Ourselves in Embodied Relationship & Belonging

Image
What if the depths of our inner world weren't a solitary landscape, but a rich territory we could genuinely share and explore with others? What if the felt sense —that subtle, quiet language of the body—was always in active, dynamic conversation with the spaces, people, and intricate systems we navigate daily? This expansive understanding is at the heart of two distinct yet deeply complementary approaches: HomeFocusing and Relational Whole Body Focusing . Both build on Eugene Gendlin's Focusing modality, and invite us into a profound way of being - an orientation to life that keeps us intimately connected to ourselves in context . HomeFocusing: Sensing Our Selves in Life's Living Systems HomeFocusing , developed by Annat Gal-on, a Focusing Coordinator and systemic constellations facilitator, arose from a clear need: to bring the power of Focusing beyond the therapy room and into the vibrant, messy, and beautiful complexity of real life. As Annat puts it, "HomeFocusing...
Read more