FRAMEWORK

In my work, we focus on wholeness as opposed to brokenness, intuition as opposed to intellect, and order as opposed to disorder.

 

Because we have a mental health care industry that focuses on disorder, we don't have a collective agreement around how to talk about order -- or indeed, even an agreement that it exists in the form I'm referencing here: As the unchanging foundation of this universe and everything in it. As a society we put this idea staunchly in the spiritual realm, so we don't have a branch of science which studies it. Though I believe we will eventually have better science for this, right now what we have is the X variable that makes the equation make sense. What we have is akin to dark matter, and black holes, before they were proven. Physicist David Bohm called it The Implicate Order. Here, I will use a metaphor of a river to elucidate.  
 

Imagine yourself as a river. When you were born, the River of You was free-flowing. It was unimpeded, flourishing, and in harmony with its ecosystem. Over time, as you grew, you began to get messages from others that the natural course of your river was wrong, or bad. Some of those messages may have come from the ethers of dominant culture in society. Some of these messages may have come from people on whom your survival depended. These messages gave you a blueprint for how a river “should” flow, and a part of you started paying very close attention. You worked on this day and night, collecting rocks and sticks to form dams to change the course of your river to match the way it “should” be. You began to believe that the dams would make your river “right” and “good.” Over time, you began to interpret the natural flow of your river as something unfamiliar, undesirable, or even dangerous. You completely forgot about the flourishing, healthy river, and harmonious ecosystem that used to exist effortlessly. 

​

Dams aren't healthy for a river, and they can cause a lot of problems for the river and its whole ecosystem. They disrupt a river’s natural course and flow, redirect river channels, and disrupt river continuity, which leads to a host of problems for the surrounding environment. 

 

However, what is more important to understand is that the problem isn't with the river itself. The river is not inherently unhealthy or damaged. The river is sick because of the presence of the dams. The way we restore a river’s health is by removing the debris and thus the dams. When we do this, the river will again flow unimpeded and flourish as it should, feeding the environment around it and putting itself back in harmony with its entire ecosystem.

​