How can we help someone to make sense of their situation? In here I try to show how – by not influencing, directing, nor leading the client towards any conclusions whatsoever, but simply supporting them with my presence, my full attention, to what their inner experience is and simply being present, as they manage to meaning make for themselves.., as they best need to.

Client: I had a following dream two days ago, and it’s been on my mind ever since: I am looking at my orchid. It is so lovely, I want to show how beautiful the flowers on it are. There are new blossoms, whole new branches of flowers, all similar in colour, but slightly differently shaped and slightly smaller as they are so many. I love it so much.

I take the pot to the kitchen to show to my partner, he is not that interested, then asks me where are they, those flowers? I look and can’t see those beautiful flowers any longer now…

The plant is out of the pot. There are two empty pots. What…?

I re-pot it, and want to still feel pleased about it. I wake up feeling disconcerted that the dream starts with a pot full of, … surprisingly full of flowers, only to end with the plant out of the pot and with very few flowers left on it. Two empty pots, what?

Well, half joyfully, she said, it’s good that I manage to take care and make it as good as it could be to go on. I put it in a bigger pot, to prepare for the future…. maybe… What do you think?

I hold the space for us to absorb the dream. The beautiful flowers, the bloom, the love, the joy she feels in the dream. The goodwill she expressed in wanting to share the beauty of her plant. Then what happened?

Melinda’s face grows sad, tears start slowly dropping, falling off of her chin, the face is soaked. We sit in silence for a while. The room is filled with sadness. He never sees, approves of what I bring to the relationship…, she said. I forever try again, is this what the repotting is about? Maybe it will be better in a bigger pot, … next time?

I suggest gently, that maybe the dream is asking us to feel more of what happened in this dream, if we are to have a different outcome in future.

Are there any sensations following the sadness? Yes, I am trembling in my belly. Let us stay with the trembling, let us know more about it. If I say to him that I am angry about the way he treats me, he will leave me and what will I do then? I just hate him.

I pointed out the contradiction in her statement. 

Oooh, I see. Life is a nuisance, isn’t it?

It may feel that way sometimes, it is more that something in the situation is uncomfortable. The dream is trying to show us to understand something in it, to resolve the discomfort, perhaps?

How can I understand what it is it wants to teach me?

Let’s breathe …

Why do I show my beautifully blossoming plant to my partner, only for them to be gone, diminished, out of the pot? Then I put it in a bigger pot and hope for better next time … ?

Aw, …. , take a breath….

I feel so rejected. I offer beautiful …, and then what…?

Why? …, she asks and I listen together with her

You know my ex wasn’t much different either.

Oh, …. aw… (I feel the pain around this, it makes me breathe more deeply too.)

It goes all the way back, Melinda says, I have friends like this too, …. my aunt when I was child …. they ask me about my project at work, at school, on the playground, but after telling them about it, I always feel a little less happy in myself than before I told them…. Oooh, I feel so distressed when thinking of this.

….. she starts shaking and crying….

How does the body feel? My legs are numb.

Aw… we are here… to feel… to hold… to breathe….

They are tingling now….

And so the session goes by… I feel shaken, Melinda says, yet so much lighter now.

(We are meant to experience our experiences, in as fully as we possibly can. When we do, we are lighter for their troubling content and more free to create healthier experiences for ourselves. ), but I don’t say this at this point, for Melinda already knows it….

Originally posted on fb kounselling 12/11/2018