Do you ever physically feel like you are carrying too much weight on your shoulders? Do you know exactly what it is that you’re carrying? How would it feel to remove that weight?
The image of this backpack is something that I love using with my clients. For me, I feel that it helps us to visualise everything we are indeed carrying. It might not all be negative, or it might be that as individual items they are not negative, but when you add them all up together they can feel too much. Sometimes we are carrying things we don’t even realise, or we are carrying much more than we think. The items in your backpack could be:
Past experiences
Thoughts
Feelings
Worries
In a session with me we would look at writing everything down that you are carrying into the image of a backpack. This could be with a word, or a drawing of something that represents the item, whatever is comfortable for you. All of the things that you feel are weighing you down. Now that your backpack has items in there it is entirely up to you what you do next. Sometimes the act of recognising what’s in your backpack can be a relief. Are you happy with what you are carrying? Are there items that perhaps you want to give up but don’t know how to? Are there things that you’re not ready to look at in depth? All of these are ok. The therapy journey is personal to you and if you are working with me I would not be asking you to discuss or explore anything you are not comfortable or ready to talk about yet. The control is in your hands. You can decide what to look at in your backpack at any given time.
What do you think? What’s in your backpack? Is there something you would like to explore more? If so please drop me a message and we can book a session.