Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan
This past weekend Chelsea Van Essen, Clinical Director and Co-founder of Logos Wilderness Therapy, taught at a conference in Portland, Oregon about the connection between Trauma, Healing, and Wilderness. The presentation centered on a vital necessity of healing and that is reimagining.
No one in life begins with a blank canvas. We all have our foundations of our life established long before we are ever born and in the first few years of life. This foundation shapes our understandings and upon it our lives are built, both with things inside and outside of our control. The foundation is what in psychology is referred to as our core beliefs. These are deep and often subconscious "knowings" of self. They are the lens in which we see ourselves, others, the world, the past, present and the future.
If our foundations equip us with a broken lens, one that sees ourselves as innately bad, unworthy of love, or perhaps others as untrustworthy and with mal-intent, no amount of fixing the house up or patching the walls will bring a person into deeper healing.
This is why re-imagination is crucial.
When we have the safety and choice to step out of our own house, our own reality, then we can begin to see our foundations through a new perspective. We can allow ourselves to dream and to just begin to ask ourself WHAT IF?
WHAT IF my reality is not the truest reality?
WHAT IF my foundations can be re-created?
WHAt IF there is more life and wholeness than what I am experiencing?
This is the reimagining of a future which once was confined by a narrow and broken foundation. This is where movement towards tearing down walls and uprooting generational trauma begins. This is the work of Logos Wilderness Therapy and everyone of us.