MOVING FORWARD

Sometimes To Move Forward We Have To Go Back

Sometimes to move forward, we have to go back. Like trying to head off onto a long journey and realizing you've forgotten your suitcase. You've got to go back, pick up the things you've left behind, then get back in the car, start it up and head out all over again. Finding the things we've left behind that keep us from moving forward--that are blocking us from the freedom of growth and change--is not always accomplished through a thinking task. Sometimes we have to imagine, let go, and be taken.

When I first began to work with clients through dialogue only, I found myself doing a lot of theatre with them. I had people on their feet, reenacting situations they felt strongly about, feeling deeply into their bodies, showing what was important to them, not just telling--demonstrating.

What I quickly learned from this instinctual communication was that we don't always know what we want or where we are. Yet, in order to move forward in our lives, it is essential that we get to know where we are, now, and begin our movements from that place. This requires an assessment of our surroundings on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, circumstantial. And often entails looking back--going back to old relationships, old places, old memories.

Recently, I was working with a client on her breath. "I'm not breathing fully," she reported. "When did I stop breathing? Where did I stop breathing?" she asked over and again, like a mantra.

Finally, she opened to a moment when she had been startled by some news, and gasped in response to the anticipation of what was about to transpire. She had never fully exhaled after that moment, and here it was five days later and she couldn't take a full breath into her lungs.

By retrieving the memory of what had startled her and caused her to stop breathing, she was able to relax around the news and finally let go into a full releasing breath--and eventually was able to breath normally again.

Going back for suitcases, or going back for a long awaited exhale, both require a stopping of the momentum to move forward, a standing still and receiving of information, impulses, memories, sensations, and then a turning of our attention toward the time, feelings, experiences, that still have some part of our mind, body, spirit, and soul.

I woke with an image: I'm underwater in a chair from childhood--my father's big green overstuffed chair. I want to stand up, but as I do I go to take a deep breath and my lungs begin to fill with water. I resist the urge to rise, and sit back down.

I continue to imagine that I can breathe while seated and I take the tiniest, most shallow breaths--only enough to remain exactly where I am, which keeps me alive.

This waking image conjures up a dream I had a few weeks ago of being at the bottom of a pool. In this dream, I could easily breathe underwater. I was nestled in a corner, taking short shallow breaths that kept me alive. When it was time for me to rise up out of the pool, through a series of tiny inhalations, I filled my lungs with all the air I could. I was able to store what seemed like just enough air and was ready to ascend. But when I pushed off toward the surface, I quickly realized I would never make it to the top. I let out the stored air, sunk back to the bottom, and returned to my abbreviated breathing--a short staccato breath that would surely keep me alive, but never allow me to return to the surface and leave this body of water.

This morning I think, Maybe I'll have to allow my lungs to fill with water in order to leave this place. If I can't learn to breath in the water while moving, I'll never move on from here.

Deep within this place that I reside--a place you might also be in--lies a call to move forward. But we can't go forward, if we can't also make an enormous change. And the wisdom and courage for this change lies somewhere in the present moment, yet is held secret in our past. Not a long drawn-out go-back-to-therapy, I-can't-do-it-on-my-own kind of visit to the past. But rather a what-does-this-memory-have-to-do-with-the-present-moment piece of the past, which leads to the question, How is a piece of the past standing before me now?

I return to the vision and begin to imagine how it is I got to be at the bottom of this pool--knowing full well that this image is a mirror of my present life. Metaphorically speaking, surely I must have either held my breath throughout the descent, or been knowing of how to breathe all the way down to where I now sit. So I turn my attention to what I have stopped doing in my life that used to serve me well (the metaphor of having breathed my way down to the bottom of the pool) and I also look to where I have been holding my breath (the other metaphorical possibility related to getting to the bottom of the pool). Where in my life have I held something in instead of speaking up, acting out, or letting something go?

Images always let us know what is afoot. When I say image, I mean something we can draw our perception around. Like a sound we can recall, a dream that won't let go, or an experience we cannot shake.

Sometimes an image will be plain and to follow it to freedom is as linear as one-two-three. And other times we are so wrapped up in its mystery, that all we can do is look for road signs like synchronicities, unexpected happenings, and undeniable feelings we can't shake.

My images and dreams are of being in a place I can't safely move from. And from this image I know a new journey awaits.

What images are drawing you toward your future? And what blocks you from moving freely toward it?

Sometimes to move forward, we have to go back--to pick up the pieces of our spirit, soul, joy or passion. And maybe, like with my own dreams and images, you are just beginning to explore what moving forward and looking back could mean to the present moment and to the future, which lay just beyond the threshold of the unknown.

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First published on SoulfulLiving.com - August 2004

© Copyright 2004 Karen Deborah Farris.