The Healing Place of Metaphors
“Clean Language is a process which uses metaphor and neutral questioning to ease emotional blocks and resulting limiting behaviour patterns. Unlike. . .guided visualisations. . .the key to Clean Language is that practitioners are led entirely by their clients, through asking questions which will elicit metaphors and develop them with the least possible influence from the practitioner. ”
Are integration and release calling to you?
Soul-based Coaching has shown me how to embody metaphors, and in the process, release old patterns and stories for a deeper kind of integration and wholeness. Working through different metaphorscapes has allowed me to release things that needed to go out of my system, healing parts of myself I didn’t even know needed healing. In one instance, I integrated the dark and light energy in my hands, creating a ball of white light that grew and grew until it dissipated into the air, returning to energy and breath. In another, it was a golden orb of energy that came out of my solar plexus and grew and grew until it too dissipated into the air and became light, and I was still standing there mythic and strong. And, in yet another, that white ball of light above me melted down into the top of my head and continued traveling on down through my body, filling it with a melting and gooey bright light. Some of the metaphors I know, but others I’m not so sure what was released or symbolized. I just know it was no longer serving me, and it was time to let these pieces of me go off, and off they flew—out of me and into the sky, above the trees, and back to wherever they originally came from, and it was okay to let these pieces go because I was still there—complete and whole.
Are you longing for completeness or searching for a way to be resourceful instead of triggered?
I’ve learned how to respond to triggers with the tools and resources in Soul-based Coaching. Even though I still get triggered at times because I fear being abandoned due to my adoptee primal wounding or in having to confront and work through my issues in relating lovingly to my pelvis with a history of sexual trauma, I do not go into overwhelm, shutdown, dissociate or abandon myself anymore. I am able to stay with my wounding, titrate, come back to myself and keep showing up to continue doing this important work.
While I have learned some of these tools from other modalities (my Somatic Experiencing® and psychospiritual therapies and conscious dance), I have been able to really stay with these things because of my Soul-based Coaching. There is a powerful change in the ability to fully embody these conceptual (i.e. “not abandoning myself”) or sensational things (i.e. “melting” and “gooey”) through metaphors. It makes intuitive sense to me at the unconscious level, which allows me to stay with it and continue doing the work needed in Soul-based Coaching, which in turn, allows me to stay present and go deeper into the work I began and am continuing with in my other modalities, and most importantly, in my day-to-day life.
Is it hard for you to stay present with overwhelming feelings or to trust?
In a recent metaphorscape, a soft golfball-sized ball of fluffiness that had become a soft fire in my hand and in my pelvis, eventually became a soft yellow and white softball-sized light in my heart that came from the same place deep within me as the soft fire in my pelvis. The white light then expanded inwards deeper inside myself in a telescopic beam of light going as deep into my inner self as possible and showing whatever parts of me need to be shown close-up when the time is right. The telescope is gold and feels like trust. Although it isn’t showing me anything close-up yet, I trust that it will when I need it to, and I trust that it’s always there consistently—a constant—even when I don’t feel it.
For someone who hasn’t trusted anything to be constant in the past to go so deeply inside rather than far off into the ethers, into the sky, deep under the sea, or into the solar system is a big step. I feel safe enough to explore this new territory because of how gentle, yet effective, Soul-based Coaching is. The gentleness, or the softness, or the lightness of it is healing for my traumas and speaks so beautifully and naturally to my whole self. In bringing more patience toward my own process of growth, I am able to bring more patience to other people’s processes too. I’m learning about what it means to love and be loved, to hold compassion and be able to feel it for myself and for others. This healing place of metaphors is the incredible gift that Soul-based Coaching gives.
Learn more about Soul-based Coaching with Kelsay here!
