Things Find You

Suddenly, the kukuruz field stands tall against the clouds reflecting the setting sun. Watch the movements in the evening shadows when you don’t know where to go. The bats overhead seem to know their way. It is summer at last. Things find you, if you let them. 

There’s a point to doing all this work within ourselves that goes beyond the alleviation of potential symptoms. What begins as working through a fear or an addiction, the integration of trauma, now moves into the unfolding of our innate potential, which is the seat of our sovereignty, that is, our freedom, our agency and choice.

We register events on every layer of experience: The somatic or physical, the emotional, the cognitive or mental, and finally, the meta-physical or spiritual.

In the therapeutic work, we sometimes focus on one of these layers to access our internal system: the CBT therapist focuses on the cognitive layer of our experience, the somatic therapist focuses on the physical layer. The emotion-focused therapist, well, pays attention to the emotional layer. And the transpersonal therapist pays special attention to the or spiritual layer.

No one approach is better or worse than the other; instead, we look for resonance for the client. The right therapeutic approach for a person can be one that is aligned in the way they personally access the world - through their emotions first, or through their thoughts first, and so on -, though sometimes it can be more effective to choose a therapist whose approach is complementary to our own access point for reality. 

For instance, a person who tends to get stuck in their head might enjoy an insight-oriented depth therapist, where a lot of work is done through meaning-making and finding significance in the client’s experience. But they might also benefit from a therapist who focuses on their blind spots instead, the layers the client tends to overlook, for instance, their emotions, or their body. 

This is, of course, a simplification. Because in reality, there are no layers, and every aspect of our experience is connected with the other.

That’s good news: it means that it is possible for us to access an emotional memory through our body. Or we can work through psychosomatic issues and physical illness through their emotional root.

Things find you,
wait and let them tell you their name.