Solving the Unresolved

I once read that most of the unresolved issues we are facing has to do with the early splitting that we experienced. By splitting, they refers to the conflicts at the young age whether it be taught or experienced. This can be from growing up with a parent who has a very strong inclination toward good and evil, right and wrong as categories for measuring a person’s worth. Recently I have met a number of people who are struggling with strong emotions that they would like to get rid of. A haunting unmet desire. An unresolved feeling of loss. A relational tension that does not go away and many others. While pondering and experiencing this myself, I am reminded of the vast majority in our world who embrace the concept of reincarnation, the cycle of life that is unending. This to me seems like a projected psyche into the construction of one’s world view. It is the unending cycle of unresolved issues. And once it is resolved, the cycle does not exit. On a number of occasions I told my supervisees in pastoral counseling that revisitting an issue is certainly an important part of therapy and that resolving is not a onetime since issues have a way of attaching themselves to various dimensions of life. Hence one needs to go through the cycle again and again but each time a few more dimension may be addressed. It is also interesting, in my own experience, that we often use metaphors to help us resolve some immediate issues. And while metaphors are effective, it has its own limited time frame in terms of effectiveness. And overtime, one may have to move on creating another metaphor that can function better. But in each of this progression, there is indeed, a gradual movement toward resolving the unresolved.

Read Full Post »