Adjusting our view

Something that's come up for me with clients recently is how our perspective on ourselves and others can be quite rigid until we hear it reflected back to us. The simple power of someone hearing our words and highlighting our fixed positions, can be radical and have so much power for change. We tend not to know how our scripts and beliefs are coloured in particular ways, and that's often for reasons of self-protection, safety and meaning-making. Sometimes clients are surprised to hear their own judgements, assumptions or perceptions verbalised and, with the right counsellor support, they can begin to hear their views almost as an audience to themselves.

Take this image below to symbolise the mind in its fixed place...

...it's likely that most of us like the familarity and dependability of the image we know, and the idea of changing it can be terrifying. It could feel like chaos, disruption, or even shame in thinking the image has been flawed, leaving us feeling a sense of failure. But working through perceptions or beliefs about ourselves, if there is courage enough to do so, can be liberating and radical.

When we take a look at this shuffled image, not only are we likely to still see beauty in the reassembled picture, but we may also feel that the familiar essence of our own life story is still very much intact:

Artwork by Hannah Padden ©.