The Depression Bubble – a metaphor for understanding a loved-one’s depression – and compassion and suggestions for the healer… Depression can be like a bubble blocking the person inside from receiving positive influence from the outside world. Inside the depression bubble the person is left to deal with their hopelessness, apathy, sadness, meaninglessness, lethargy and […]
Category Archives: Metaphors for wellness
A metaphor for the relationship between control and suffering
I often share a metaphor with my clients who find themselves in a time of suffering stemming from environmental conditions that are mostly or entirely uncontrollable. This Metaphor is most applicable in the context of caring deeply for an individual who you cannot control… an individual who is suffering themselves or bringing you significant suffering. […]
Parenting and Rowboats
There is more than one way to skin a cat they say… and there is more than one way to row a boat, but if there are two people rowing that boat you better find a common way. and so it is with parenting, guiding, directing, and mentoring our young ones. family systems can and […]
Breathe before you help others to breathe
You settle into your seat on the airplane and right before takeoff you hear the familiar mantra: “In the event of pressure loss in the cabin, oxygen masks will deploy from the ceiling above you… please safely secure your own mask before attempting to assist others…” We all hear this and end up remaining […]
Hope in a space of Hopelessness
Quick summary: In this post I will offer a metaphor that sheds light on a common misperception of hope – being that hope is connected only to concrete outcomes… that hope is a belief that things will one day be what they are not ever to be. Instead perhaps there can be hope for a […]
Integrity and Your Social Potential
Perhaps it is at times better to measure your integrity on the degree to which you are asserting your potential to best positively influence the community and to manifest your purpose as opposed to measuring your integrity by the degree to which you conform to an overgeneralized social value, an overgeneralized social perception, or a bureaucratic regulation.
Synchronicity – The rattlesnake’s message of change and balance
Quick summary: This is a story about synchronicity and the collective unconscious… this message was given to me from the collective to help the manifestation of my destiny… Carl Jung brought synchronicity to the western world (though the ideas have been alive in Taoism and forms of shamanism for a very long time). The idea is that there are meaningful coincidences in life that can be very beneficial to you if you pay attention. There are symbols that can help direct you towards your destiny. The whole idea of dream interpretation stems from Jung and this theory… the lesser-known part of the theory is that there are symbols in life as well as in dreams.
Balanced Boundaries – a metaphor about giving and taking for the health of yourself and others
I am a wooden vase filled with healing water gently replenished by the collective love… as I pour too little, I overflow and my wood becomes oversaturated and less aware of its own makeup and contents… bloated and blinded with excess… as I pour too much my wood becomes dry and cracked… delicate and injured.