• Spring

Primavera – Sandro Botticelli. 1482. Wikioo.

“Perhaps the earth can teach us, as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.”

Pablo Neruda

Spring is the ultimate symbol of rebirth and renewal. It symbolises so much for so many people, and is generally welcomed with joy, especially after a cold, hard winter. The quotation above urges us to learn from nature, from the earth, for then we will have hope, hope that sometimes, out of deadness and sorrow, can emerge life and joy.

Chestnut Trees at Louveciennes – Camille Pissarro. 1872. Wikioo.

The lessons nature teaches us are, indeed, about resilience and renewal; the very trees seem to say to us-

“Your scars are evidence of your resilience. You survived difficulties in the past, as we have, you can do so again now.”

“Have hope for the future. The world can be productive and beautiful again. The possibility of new growth is within you.”

• The new day’s opportunities : the chance to learn from our mistakes

Each night, even if our day has gone badly, we can remind ourselves that tomorrow is a new day. We need to fall asleep remembering that tomorrow can hold fresh opportunities for us, for every new day can bring us renewal and recovery.

Nightfall – Claude Monet. 1865. Wikioo.

“Day is over, night has come. Today is gone, what’s done is done. Embrace your dreams, through the night, tomorrow comes with a whole new light.”

George Orwell

Orwell is telling us to lose ourselves in our dreams, to welcome them, and to accept that the day has ended and we cannot undo whatever may have occurred.

When morning does arrive, it brings a chance to move on with new learning and a determined attitude; there is a fresh opportunity to make the most of the day ahead, leaving yesterday behind us.

A May Morning in Moret – Alfred Sisley. Wikioo.

“This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

 Ralph Waldo Emerson

To let go of yesterday’s mistakes and regrets takes courage, the courage to carry on, despite our doubts and fears. To recover from all this overnight and try again on a new day is not easy; it involves resilience and strength.

Holding onto an awareness that even a small failure can be a powerful teacher, tough though it may be, is hard to do. 

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”

Mary Anne Radmacher

If we are able to absorb the lessons of our mistakes, these experiences can enrich our awareness and strengthen our spirit to recover from the multitude of difficulties we encounter in both life and work.

“It is better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed. The result may be the same, but you won’t be. We always grow more through defeats than victories.”

Soren Kierkegaard

We will learn that errors and slip-ups can motivate us to review, reassess, and be more flexible and open-minded in relation to new ideas and new ways of thinking.

The “Eternal Rebirth” Bronze Sculpture. Oceana Rain Stuart. Flickr.

“That’s what winter is: an exercise in remembering how to still yourself then how to come pliantly back to life again.”

Ali Smith. Winter

Having made mistakes, and perhaps having been stuck in old patterns of behaviour, we may feel that we have grown stale and sluggish, burnt-out and lacking in energy and self-belief. It is understandable that people might feel shame and thus remain like this, dragged down by such feelings, and unable to find relief.

However, with a fresh attitude, perhaps discovered through therapy, being with stimulating others, or through the encouragement and support of a good friend, we may find new approaches, capabilities and skills not previously considered.  This is a kind of rebirth; it is a renewal of confidence, re-awakening the life-force and the drive within us.

• The Hope Of Being Restored After Tragedy

Pavel Filonov. Rebirth of The People. Wikioo.

“The terrors of suffering, sickness and death, of losing ourselves and losing the world, are the most elemental and intense we know; and so too are our dreams of recovery and rebirth, of being wonderfully restored to ourselves and the world.”

Oliver Sacks

We are all only too painfully aware of the tragedies that war, illness and death can cause; Sacks reminds us in this quotation of the existence of ‘recovery and rebirth.’ When people are suffering such catastrophic pain, fear and injury, they most often cannot dare to imagine that their situation might improve. If they can hold onto hope, this can be strengthening and restorative in itself.

Recovery from trauma can be a long and difficult journey, and such experiences can affect us both mentally and physically. However, perhaps with professional help and with the support of empathic others, healing from traumatic stress is possible.

The images and quotations below emphasise the strength in human beings that they may be unaware of, until they are tested by adversity. People are often inherently stronger than we could possibly imagine. We are born with truly amazing resources and we need to learn to trust and fortify these in ourselves and others, as we learn to cope with our broken selves in a broken world.

Returning Home – Evert Pieters. Wikioo

“We all have a heritage and history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially … we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection.
Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered – can be restored to life again. This is as true and sturdy a prognosis for the destroyed worlds around us as it was for our own once mortally wounded selves.”

Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times ©2001, 2016, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.

Phoenix rising from its ashes. Wikimedia Commons. Taken from the Aberdeen Bestiary Project [1], page [2].

Author Unknown .

“We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome.” 

Isabel Allende

• Recovery In Psychotherapy

McPhail, Ann; Recovery; Art in Healthcare; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/recovery-18427. Wikioo

Recovery in psychotherapy is achieved in a different way for each individual, but we can say generally that it is related to, amongst other aspects, increased self-knowledge, recognition of old, faulty, entrenched patterns of thought and behaviour, awareness of what is happening in our unconscious, facing difficult thoughts and feelings, grieving losses, and working through the sadness of what we may not have had as children.

Therapy may also involve facing our internal, repressed ‘monsters,’ gaining insight and understanding, becoming more of a whole, individuated person, having the freedom to be oneself, and the bringing about of real and lasting change.

This is not an exhaustive list; there are many more aspects of the process of recovery. This can take many months or years, if therapy is to offer more than transient and superficial relief.

Savage Hump-Shaker – Maria Primachenko. Wikioo.

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Neil Gaiman, Coraline

Psychotherapy is also about repairing, or transforming human brokenness. The therapist’s empathic and accepting stance can enable the patient to feel more whole, less distressed and self-critical.

“You know, people come to therapy really for a blessing. Not so much to fix what’s broken, but to get what’s broken blessed.”

James Hillman

How can we do more than survive childhood damage? Can we ever recover? Many times, people search for someone, or something, to compensate for their past losses. This will inevitably mean disappointment, for no-one can ever replace the parents, or experiences, we did not have, or rectify a broken childhood.

Thus, life is often disheartening. It might feel that people fall short of our expectations, as we seek the ‘perfect’ spouse, parent, child, sibling, guru, therapist, friend.

Jung said-

‘Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.’

Despite our brokenness, somewhere inside there often is a light, a seed of hope for the future. 

Poppies – Emile Nolde. Wikioo.

Poppies symbolise growth out of damage and loss, still flowering on the former battlefields of the first world war, a living memorial and a reminder of past trauma. Their continued growth and brightness may be seen as symbolising both the losses of the past and hope for a future that will be more peaceful and constructive.

Phoenix-like, energy and strength may emerge from the ashes of adversity, revealing transformation and a kind of rebirth.

Spirit-form transformation – Giacomo Balla. Wikioo.

“Beautiful are those whose brokenness gives birth to transformation and wisdom.”

John Mark Green

In psychotherapy, people learn to work through their past traumas, frequently emerging stronger and more insightful; like the poppies, this is growth through damage.

“Psychotherapy is a cure through love.”

Sigmund Freud.

An empathic, non-judgmental therapist can enable troubling, repetitive thoughts and emotions to emerge that may have been denied or repressed. Feelings such as guilt, shame, or uncontrolled anger, might be limiting personally and affecting relationships.

There may be an exploration of past experience, discovering its influence on adult feelings, relationships and behaviour. In this way, we can gain insight into the roots of psychological pain and how to manage and resolve it. This is a reparative journey, one that offers us new light, new ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us.

Whilst therapy cannot make people forget trauma, it can help them to manage the effects better. They become less burdened by disturbing memories and more confident that they have the inner resources to cope.

Often, people come to realise that being human involves having shortcomings; an awareness and acceptance of one’s own ‘shadow side’ makes this feel less threatening and more under control.

Frequently, our human fallibility can be a foundation for empathy and compassion; being flawed is different from being weak. Our idiosyncrasies make us unique and individual; loving another person involves embracing their, and our own, limitations and ‘brokenness.’

Self-renewal in therapy also involves a letting-go, for example, of old and destructive patterns of relating to others, of ways of thinking that are outdated and/or destructive and of ways of being that bring us, and others, only pain and distress.

Healing (Letting Go) – 2000. Clare Galloway. Wikioo

Over time however, we discover that, in life, only some things can be mended. Tyrants can be defeated. Relationships can be healed. Reparation can be achieved. However, there will still be scars and painful memories, which we all have to learn to live with.

There will still be grieving of our losses and the recognition that there are many aspects of life that are uncertain and out of our control. Recovery in therapy may involve gaining an accepting attitude towards that which cannot be changed.

“Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps”

Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

The therapeutic process can help us to work through our grief, and to face the existential issues that trouble us all. It can enable us to see ourselves and the world differently, to soften the ‘hard edges’ of our pain and our troubles, past and present.

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Therapy can offer us renewal and recovery, the chance to live our lives more fully, the freedom to develop new hopes and dreams for the future….

Spring Rain by William Anderson Coffin. Wikioo.

 “The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach

June Light – John Fineran. 1993. Wikioo.

“There is a LIGHT in this world. A healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometime lose sight of this force when there is suffering, and too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.”

Richard Attenborough

© Linda Berman

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Linda.