Layers Between
On my 6 day river trip down the Green River in Utah, on the first day, we did an exercise that had us look deeper into the significance of everything that was around us.
We looked around at the rocks, the river, trees (very few of these), any wildlife, etc. Afterwards we shared about what we found about the deeper significance, and one of the gals started talking about the layers of the rock features. When you looked up, you could see each layer perfectly formed year after year in the rock.
She likened it to life in the sense that we need each layer of ourself to build upon the next in order to make us the whole person that we are.
I immediately grabbed onto this metaphor especially as I have been studying parts work or Internal Family Systems, which looks at us as a whole being with a bunch of parts of us. And best of all, there are no bad parts; just parts that may be a bit out of alignment. I absolutely loved this concept of the rock feature.
Later on in the trip we had about 1.5 hours of silent time to just be with ourselves. During this time, I was staring at the rock face and the I realized that the river is what cut through the rocks and exposed all of our layers.
Sometimes we have layers that are so deep beneath us that we didn’t even realize that they are there and may be affecting our lives in some way. So to me, internal family systems, therapy, chatting with friends, meditation, whatever introspective activity you take part in… it is like the river that reveals each layer of us.
Sometimes it feels tough to uncover another layer, but at the end of it all, it is so incredibly beautiful because it makes up the entirety of us.
As I stared up on those massive cliff sides, I couldn’t help but to love myself for all of the layers of myself and knowing that the wholeness of me is absolutely beautiful just like that rockface.
