I went for a walk at the height of the floods in this area. The banks of the Medway were close to the top and as I watched the waters lapping around the roots of tree I became aware of a phrase one of my clients had said to me, ‘I feel as if I am drowning’. It made me stop and think for a while; we use a lot of metaphors of weather and states of nature to express our feelings, and it makes sense to do so. We all share the world around us and as such, experience the differing seasons and states of weather the same as everyone else, so to say I feel ‘I am drowning’ can be empathised by the person we speak to.
Clever; so let’s take that and take it to the next level.
I stood and watched as the tree roots were being dug out by the water flowing over what had been the bank a couple of days previously and thought: this is the same as us being in our own world (the dryness of the bank) until something from outside of our control comes and begins eating away at the very foundations of our world. OK, so let’s take the analogy further, the waters have a choice of two outcomes, they can continue to flow over the roots and re-cut a new bank and therefore displace us completely or they can recede and we can clear up the damage and return to our way of life as it was before with the added knowledge that this occurrence could happen again and may require contingency plans in the event of it happening again.
Alternatively we could act as the tree, rooted to the spot and unable to move, we allow the outside influence to take over and engulf us finally up-rooting us from our world and hurling us down the stream, bouncing off the edges of the banks as we go.
Which do you think would be the best approach I wonder?
‘...but sometimes things like this just happen and there is nothing I can do about it!’
True, but does that mean we have to be like a tree, inert, rooted and without a voice? Was the outside influence something we could have done something about before it became over-whelming, or like the tree did we hang on to the edge of the river’s edge hoping our precarious balance would sustain our life-style and spending? A tree, once rooted cannot move, we can. We can notice the closeness of impending problems and do something about it before it consumes us, or, and here comes another metaphor, ‘we could bury our heads in the sand’ and hope for the best.
I began to think of other phrases I had heard recently and one which popped up was ‘feeling snowed in’.
So what are the connotations here? Let’s first of all look at the actual concept of being snowed in. we experience the sensation of being cut off, being unable to go anywhere, stuck where we are, surviving on what we have around us at that moment in time. There is an added worry as to whether there are enough supplies to ‘get us through’ and the need to ‘dig our way out’ of the predicament.
Around here, there was a mobilisation of people helping an supporting each other as we struggled to keep paths and driveways free of ice, and people knocked on each others doors to see if they wanted anything at the shops. People spoke to one another and the ‘good deeds’ done for each other was far greater than it usually went.
Now lets compare that to the feeling of being snowed under. There are many similarities; yes, we do feel trapped in the situation we
are in and we do wonder whether we have the resources to ‘make it through’ and we do feel those sensations of being cut off from everything we deem ‘normal’ but do we take the next step and begin the process of ‘digging our way out’? Do we make sure, by talking to each other, find out if anyone under pressure needs anything and if we are under pressure do we feel we can say we do?
There is one aspect to snow which I attempt to remember when I am under pressure. However bad and deep the snow may be, eventually it thaws and after that really nasty, slushy stage, it vanishes as fast as it arrives and the world moves on. Isn’t it up to us how long that snow lays in our world and when we meet a worse state, to realise this is the slush and everything will move on as long as we don’t lose our nerve?
I walked further along the Medway and watched as trees were losing their grip on the bank and the number of men out with long chains staking them to the bank so they couldn’t charge down the fast flowing river and crate damage as they went and thought, yes, there are people out there who will help do damage control in our lives, but do they chain us down with another problem?
There are so many of these phrases I will leave you to think which ones you use and what they mean if looked at in the context of the natural world. Think about how the natural experience can be used to support you in dealing with the situations you are thinking about and which aspects could support you in getting through that much quicker. Be curious and listen to others. What do they say reflects their state of health and then compare it with the natural state; how close is it to what hey are talking about? The more you do this the more you will learn about your own responses to things and therefore the more you will being control of how and why you react.
One phrase I do find very contradictory is ‘under par’. We associate that with being unwell and yet if you think about it, its reference is a game of golf and being under par indicates a successful result for the hole! So shouldn’t it indicate doing well?
Anyone know of a different meaning of ‘par’?
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