Lynn's Blog

It’s been a hard year. My husband has had several operations, culminating in heart failure and two weeks in the cardiac care ward. He is recovering well now, and perhaps that is what finally did it. The adrenaline wore off and, for the first time in months, I felt able to breathe again. Unfortunately, without the adrenaline to keep me upright, I crashed. This weekend, after a relatively minor setback to our plans — it is often the pebbles underfoot that hurt more than the roc

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash The Chapel of Bones The Sedlec Ossuary, near Prague, is a small chapel decorated with the bones of thousands of people whose graves were cleared over the centuries. In 1870, a woodcarver called František Rint arranged the bones into chandeliers, garlands and even a coat of arms. Macabre, certainly, but not intended simply to horrify. The chapel is a memento mori. The phrase is Latin for “remember that you must die”—or, more simply, “rememb

Photo by Bruce Christianson on Unsplash We fall in many ways—physically, emotionally, socially and symbolically. We fall in love, fall over, fall unconscious, fall into the abyss. We hope someone will catch us when we fall. We fall out of love, into despair, into depression. We fall back into old habits, fall under someone’s spell, fall into a trap. We fall from grace, out of favour, behind, into debt, from power and between the cracks. Tears fall, petals fall, shadows fall.

The Ego’s Vehicle Cars often appear in dreams when something is being shown to us about the way we are travelling through life. No dream symbol has one fixed meaning, but cars often seem to represent the ego: our known identity, the part of us that gets us through the everyday world and tries, more or less successfully, to keep us on the road. The car carries us, rather as the ego carries the soul through the journey of life. It also protects what is inside, although some veh

Photo by Laura Seaman on Unsplash The Toad at the Threshold Some years ago, when I was about to embark on a new pilot workshop, I dreamed of meeting a toad in a desert. At the time, I would not have said I was especially worried. I was excited about the project and busy getting on with it. Looking back, though, I think the dream knew something I did not. Beneath my conscious enthusiasm, there was anxiety about stepping into unfamiliar territory, putting myself forward and not

Credit: ConstantinosZ iStock The Worm in the Apple When I was training as a psychotherapist, a worm appeared in a visualisation I was doing with a client. She had arrived saying she had nothing in particular to talk about, so I thought I’d try a visualisation and see whether it stirred something in the psyche. The Apple Appears I asked her to imagine a rose and, in its centre, to allow something to appear. She saw an apple. Brilliant, I thought. An apple: knowledge, temptatio

The Rose, the Thorn and the Awakening Photo by Gruescu Ovidiu on Unsplash The rose is one of those symbols we think we understand. We associate it with love, romance and beauty. But, like most powerful symbols, it contains an opposite. Its colour, scent and softness draw us towards it, while its thorns remind us that beauty is not always harmless. The Latin phrase sub rosa means “under the rose” and has long been associated with secrecy and confidentiality. A rose placed abov

Photo by Warren on Unsplash Being cast out by a community is a particular kind of wound. It doesn’t only hurt socially. It can feel as if something much deeper has been disturbed — as if the circle that once held you has closed its gates, leaving you standing outside, trying to understand what has happened. In Jungian terms, this is the territory of the exile or the outcast. Although that can sound bleak, it is worth remembering that, in myth and fairy tale, the one who is se

Some symbols arrive quietly, like a feather found on a path. The peacock is not one of them. The peacock enters like an opera singer in full costume, having apparently missed the memo about humility. It does not sidle into the symbolic imagination. It fans itself open. It shimmers. It says, in no uncertain terms: look at me. And that, of course, is where the trouble begins. Because many of us are deeply uneasy about being seen. We are taught, often very early, not to show off

Photo by Curology on Unsplash The toilet may not be the most glamorous symbol in the gallery. It does not have the majesty of a tree, the mystery of a snake, or the poetic shimmer of a river. It is unlikely to appear on a greeting card alongside the words “follow your dreams”. And yet, symbolically, the toilet has a great deal to say. In dreams and the inner life, toilets often appear when something needs to be released. Something old, unwanted, toxic, embarrassing, private,

Photo by Sarah Penney on Unsplash The mirror is a tricky little object. At first glance, it seems to tell the truth. There we are, apparently: hair doing whatever it has decided to do, face slightly more tired than we had hoped, expression suggesting we may need either a holiday or a decent cup of tea. But symbolically, the mirror is rarely just about appearance. It is one of the great images of self-recognition. In fairy tales, myths, dreams and the inner life, the mirror ma

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash The snake is not always the most popular guest at the symbolic table. For many of us, it arrives with a certain reputation: danger, temptation, poison, something lurking in the grass that we would rather not meet while wearing sandals. And yet, symbolically, the snake is one of the great images of transformation. It sheds its skin. It knows when an old covering has become too tight, too dry, too small for the life moving underneath. There is

Photo by Daniel Arroyo on Unsplash A river rarely moves in a straight line. It begins somewhere hidden, as a spring, a source, a small stirring beneath the earth. Then it gathers itself. It widens, deepens, bends, rushes, slows, floods, dries, and somehow keeps finding its way. Rather like us, really. Symbolically, the river can speak of feeling, change, grief, longing, surrender, and the deeper current of the unconscious. We may like to think we are in charge of our lives, s

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash The tree is one of the great symbols of the inner life. Rooted in the earth, reaching towards the sky, it holds together two worlds: the grounded and the spiritual, the visible and the hidden, the life above the surface and the life beneath. Its roots may speak of ancestry, belonging, memory and the places from which we come. Its trunk suggests strength, steadiness and the capacity to remain standing through many seasons. Its branches reach

There are some symbols that seem to speak to us before we have had time to think about them. The door is one of them. A door is such an ordinary thing. We pass through doors every day without much thought. We open them, close them, lock them, knock on them, wait behind them, stand outside them. And yet, in dreams, myths, stories and the inner life, a door is rarely just a door. It is a threshold. It marks the place between one world and another. Inside and outside. Known and

Each year, like many psychotherapists, I find myself carving out time not just to deepen my understanding or nourish my practice - but to prove that I’ve done so. Logging CPD hours, gathering certificates, listing webinars, copying receipts for books I have purchased, providing reasons for buying the books, and summarising the books. The process is supposed to ensure ongoing professional development. But more and more, it feels like I’m spending less time genuinely educating

I wrote this in the Spring of 2012 and I can still feel the impact of the experience now. I thought I’d share it as I continue researching death, dying and grieving for my Matter of Life and Death workshops. The nest was eye-catching. Balanced on the rudder of a moored canal boat, twigs were woven together with rubbish - strips of blue, green and red plastic. A waterbird recycling project. Mummy and Daddy Coot - taking turns to sit on their five eggs - quickly became a canal-