Water
Water is a major life force of nature and of us. We are mostly water, jostling around in the permeable shells of our bodies. We are, in truth, not as solid as we seem. More on this later.
Water, which seems so insubstantial, is powerful enough to move through rock. That is where canyons come from. It does not seem to matter how hard the rock is. Hard rocks get water in their tiny fissures. The water freezes, the rock cracks. The flow of water dissolves soft rocks. A forceful water current—one that smashes against a big, hard rock—does not stop. It simply goes around the rock, leaving it there, surrounded by water.
This week, we explore water stories. Water stories are alternative views— ways of looking at things—which eat away at our rock-like foundational statements. Water stories challenge your view of reality—your rock beliefs. Water experiences are situations that come out differently than you might have predicted. Water stories describe those times when a foundational story you tell yourself about yourself and about the world no longer “held water.”
I once worked with a client who had a rock belief that no one had ever complimented her. She held this belief because her father taught her that there was nothing about her worth complementing. She saw her life as a collection of criticisms. One day, as she was leaving my office after therapy, a man held the door for her and complimented her on her coat. She heard the complement. By the next week, she not only was hearing complements all the time, she was remembering back, and remembering complements from her past, too. This is a water story.
Remind yourself of a water story. Remember one time—or two—when the “predictable” was turned upside down and you saw yourself and your world in a different light.
