Mapping the Unseen Landscape
So... picking up from yesterdays article on what a Tangle we humans are; understanding the nature of trauma and healing. Today I would love to share some short thoughts about what it means to then Map the Unseen Landscape. Really that's a very poetic way to say "read the room". For me I have this ability to read a room and to read people; which is a gift of my own early trauma patterning. It involves listening to my gut and trusting my gut instincts.
Something happens in my body when I take the focus off the seen and spoken and tune into what is Unseen and Unspoken, but present. I feel a relaxation and expansiveness in my body, like my body was born to do this and it is so happy and grateful to being used properly in this way. Like a working dog given the opportunity to herd sheep! So, I simply relax and I am listening and paying attention to people of course I am but at the same time I am also paying attention to what is not being said and what the dynamics of a room feels like.
Have you ever just come over all heavy and not understood why? Or lightheaded or have a ringing in your ears, seemingly for no reason? Are there places and spaces that leave you feeling energised or uplifted while other places stir unfathomable sorrow in you? This is all information. In - formation.
It was a revelation to my younger self when I started to realise that what I am feeling is not necessarily mine. And today, provided I am not full of the ego glamour of being an "empath" I can allow this information to flow through me and inform me and let it keep flowing. If it gets stuck or sticks to some of my own "stuff" then I make a mental note to address that in my supervision sessions... that one is "mine" to process.
When working with the dying and the bereaved but also when working with families in peace building and mediation or even when planning a wedding ceremony with a couple, I am reading every interaction for how it feels in my body and I discern in the moment whether that is information for me; or for me to share. Sometimes when I share that I am feeling heavy or sad other people are very grateful to have it named in the space, because they are feeling it too.
If you are aware of the theory of shadow, Jungian theory, then you would realise that the masks that people put on in public force the aspects of themselves that are unwelcome and unacknowledged into the shadows but they never go away. This is why it feels really unsafe sometimes when people are unnaturally nice but privately seething. This way of experiencing the world is simply a different lens than responding to the seen and spoken. I am not saying to Map the Unseen landscape to be clever or to score points with people; I am saying that when it comes to self care and taking care of your psychic health and wellbeing, the care of your soul and spirit; this is essential, for me.
To know oneself well enough to know what is passing through, to know what is yours and what is not, to know when to speak and when to hold your tongue, when to act and when to remain still; this is all an art and a dance. Most people, I say without judgement, take situations literally and at face value and react strongly if there is difficulty, anger or pain in the space. By taking the long view, the wider perspective, it helps me to just nod and acknowledge that this is here... but it may just be passing through.
Too often in the past I was boundary less and open taking on what was Unseen and Unspoken but in an unconscious way. It contributed to chronic fatigue and burn out, to my addictions and my troubled mental health. My body always seemed to be working at odds with me; until I made peace with my body a barometer of the Unseen weather and I started to work with my body to get to know and read things better and differently.
Oftentimes people may not need to know this is what you are doing; you are just calmly well informed for your own benefit. But there are also times when in the name of progress, peace and a needed transformation it becomes apparent that this information is useful to be shared.
Tomorrow I will take this further to Assessing your Psychic Health and what that really means