Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Disappearing the Onion

What, again?
In personal development, people often get frustrated when facing the same old issue again and again. Fear of failure, running away from confrontation, succumbing to temptations – whatever the issue, it tends to be present in our lives and in our healing work repeatedly.

Peeling the onion
Often we are told by therapists or others who support us that healing and personal growth is a process. The image of peeling the onion is used as a metaphor. When a layer of an onion is peeled away, there is another layer underneath. When we are working on healing an issue, while we can make progress, it is like peeling away a layer. Another layer of the same stuff is underneath. We have to face it again. Perhaps it looks a bit different or has a lesser intensity but nevertheless, it’s essentially the same stuff. I think that the image of peeling the onion is supposed to help us be compassionate with ourselves by helping us understand that it is inevitable to have to face our issues repeatedly. After all, our issues are our issues. In some ways, they don’t really change. In peeling the onion, perhaps we uncover and discover something about an issue and understand it more. Or there is less of the issue/onion as we go deeper. Or we no longer need to cry when peeling it.

The endless task
However, for many people, the onion image really doesn’t seem to be soothing. After all, the layers seem endless, perhaps even infinite. We keep peeling and the frigging onion is still there! Instead of being a way to compassionately explain the process of healing, the onion image can emphasize the futility of personal development. Or at least that was the way it sometimes looked to me. Until I started to have experiences that changed my perspective.

A new world
Yes, the onion/issue was always there. Yes, I would continue to find ways to process and heal the issue. Yes, it would appear less often and less intensely in my life. And then, all of a sudden, one day, it was gone! I don’t even remember what triggered the shift or what specific issue I was dealing with, but suddenly, it was like I was in a different world. There was this universe in which I and my onion, uh, issue, existed. And I was forever peeling the damn thing. And then suddenly, it was gone, totally gone, as if in a different parallel universe in which I could look across, like Alice through the looking glass, see that other world where the onion existed and yet be free of it. Here and now, where I presently was, it didn’t exist. I was at peace. Liberated. What joy! It was blissful. Later, a shift happened and I was back in the world where the issue existed. Yet, that world would never be the same because I had inhabited, for even a moment, that other world in which the issue didn’t exist.

Living in two worlds
Since then, I continue to peel the onion while I simultaneously cultivate my ability to travel to and live in that alternative dimension, the one without the onion. I have since learned that the issues disappear, not by repressing them or detaching from the world and others, but by healing, and by opening my heart, mind and being more fully. As time goes on and I do more of my inner work, I seem to be getting better at disappearing the onion.

© 2012 Bibi Caspari