In Search of a New Metaphor
Sometime last week, I was having a conversation with someone and the topic of the language of images came up. My friend commented that our language goes a long way in determining how we might face, lose, or triumph over what we are struggling with in life.
That got me thinking about my use of battle imagery with my depression. I talk about struggling with it, or fighting with it. I rejoice when I have won a battle and I get depressed again when I am defeated. As I reflected on that idea, I played with the idea that maybe my image of facing depression made it harder to become free of its affects.
The one image that I am playing with now is the idea of untying or unraveling depression. It sometimes seems that the negative attitudes and the responses of failure form knots and tangles that snarl my soul and heart. So the path toward healing is not found in adding to the frustration, but carefully and persistently following the threads and untangling the knots. When I have woven in the past, those knots would just appear somehow and to go further in making the cloth I had to stop and gently yet surely get the tangles out. Responding with frustration only made it worse and threatened to destroy the whole piece. My life isn’t as fragile as a cotton warp on the loom, but I do know that frustration does not help. A little bit of anger that can fuel the unraveling process is good, but the key is persistence.
Don’t misunderstand. I don’t think this is magical by any means. But anything that can help lead more and more to freedom and vitality is welcome.
I am open to that anyday.
