I am recovering from a motor vehicle accident. For anyone
who has been in one, you know that the healing takes a long time. Being traumatized
by two big machines colliding in motion just isn’t part of what the body is
used to in terms of injury and healing. After more than three months, I still am missing time at work, and my neck and
shoulders are still painful during the day, especially if I have been lifting
objects or engaging in simple every day activities such as washing dishes or
putting away groceries.
I was invited
to a wedding during my time of convalescence and although all I really wanted
to do was stay home and rest, I attended. The wedding was scheduled to take
outside and the guests stayed beside a beautify glacial river. As soon as we
set up in our tent site, I walked over to the river and sat beside it. The
murky green water rushed over rocks, splashing against the boulders, white
foamed, excited, flowing and joyful in its journey down from the frozen ice
fields above.
Later
that night, I lay in my tent, my shoulder and neck aching from the exertions of
the day-putting up the tent and hauling luggage from the trunk. Then I
remembered the glacial river, I could hear its waters dashing downstream beside
our tent. I remember its joyful movement spraying downstream. I closed my eyes
and visualized that the river was rushing through me, through my aching
shoulders and neck, washing out the soreness, opening the tense muscles which
were guarding against the torn fibers. I felt in my mind, the coldness of the
icy waters, shrinking the swelling, cooling the pain, bringing in new fresh
blood and heling. After about ten minutes, the soreness suddenly released. I
WAS the river, I WAS the splashing cool glacial waters, racing over rocks and
against tree roots and earth in my hurry to move to the next experience. Life,
movement, joy. All manifest in the tumbling waters. I fell asleep with the pain
in my shoulders gone.
The next
morning, I woke strangely refreshed and invigilated. For the next several days,
my shoulders were pain free, which for someone recovering from whip lash is an
enormous relief. For each night during my stay beside the river, I invited in
my imagination, its cool, mineral rich waters to flow through my shoulders and
neck. I think of all the therapies I have received during my healing time, from
massage, acupuncture, physiotherapy and taking analgesics, this has been the
best therapy-sleeping beside a glacial river and imaging its movement flowing through
my healing body.
We live
in a magical, mystical world whose wisdom will always be on the edge of our
understanding. The metaphor of the rushing waters, of attending a happy event
like a wedding, the coolness of the icy river-all brought healing to me by a
serendipitous series of events and invitations. I called in the river’s water
to heal me, and in some way unbeknownst to me, perhaps I also healed the river
with my attention and appreciation. We cannot afford to live like despots in
this beautiful world, consuming its beauty without awareness. We can enter into
the feasting hall of our daily lives with gratitude and awe, opening our hearts
into healing, compassion and love.
We are embedded in a world which appears to be outside of
ourselves. But in fact this world is not outside of us. This reality which we engage
with all our senses does not arise independently of us, it is our deepest, most
inner being, our soul.
World Metaphoric Transformation (WMT) uses the environment
as a mirror for hidden concerns. Direct talking therapy does not go beyond the
egoic structures of maintaining current understandings. However, these
superficial structures of self can be
transformed and resolved with WMT.
Try
This
1. Choose
something during the day in the natural world which attracted your attention. Remember,
you notice those events and things because some wisdom within you, sees your
own wisdom reflected in the outside world. E.g. Today I noticed how the white cumulus clouds drifted in after the rain.
2.
Now take some time to reflect on what qualities
you felt when you experienced this message. E.g. I think it was the clouds lightness and sense of ease and grace, the
way they drifted into the sky after the grey rain clouds finished watering the
land.
3.
Now choose a difficult area of your life which
you want to heal. This can be a part of your body, your relationships , or your
understanding of yourself and the world. E.g. Right now I’m really worried
about a new job that I will be starting in the fall.
4.
See if you can locate the discomfort within your
body, if it is painful, don’t try to resist it or change it. Just reside within
the discomfort sensations for a few moments. This will feel opposite to what
you think you want to do, the ego naturally avoids and denies pain of all
kinds. But to transform it ,you must simply hold in in your experience for a
few moments. E.g. When I think about this
new job, I feel a tenseness in my belly, I get a bitter taste in my mouth, I
feel my neck stiffening.
5.
Now bring the quality which you observed and
choose from the world, into that area of your body which is holding the pain.
Really take time and invite this quality in the painful areas to heal you. E.g.
The clouds were without stress or worry.
They seemed to simply BE, not trying to be anything but just joyfully drifting through
the air guided by the wind and currents. When I bring this lightness into my belly
and think about this new job, I see that my worrying does not help me to do
what I will need to do when that moment arrives-if it does. I am worrying about
a phantasy. I will trust my deeper intuition and be guided by my natural inner
wisdom-like the clouds allowing
themselves to be moved across the sky by gentile breezes.
Image downloaded from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ by Photokanok
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