Caroline participated in a workshop with the Imagery Toolbox. During the workshop and after, a meaningful imagery process swiftly develops. I was in an identity crisis. I had been working as a therapist for many years and felt that I wanted to take a different path, but did not dare to take it. Paralyzed with fear, I stood at the edge of a pool.
Caroline tells: I was having an identity crisis. I had been working as a coach/therapist for many years and felt that I wanted to take a different path, but didn’t know which one. Actually, I knew, but didn’t dare to smash them. Paralyzed with fear, I stood at the edge of the pool. For the courage I needed I took the symbol card[1] with the crocodile. Then I was invited to focus on the crocodile and, after closing my eyes, wait and see how the image developed. In my imagination the crocodile plunged directly into the water.
[1] Symbol cards are available on https://imagerytoolbox.com/symbol-cards
Afterwards I made a drawing of it.
Looking at the drawing the workshop facilitator suggested me to try to feel, to imagine to be the crocodile.
I did and immediately I felt how nice it is to be this crocodile in the water, how natural this water is and how much I missed the water. I had stood beside the water for such a long time, it left me almost dehydrated.
It was then that I realized: if I take the path of writing and imagery as a therapist, I will feel at home like a crocodile in water.
The facilitator also helped me concretize: is there an action that would make you jump into the water? I immediately knew such an action. He let me choose a specific moment in the week where I would make that action a reality.
He also advised me to keep in touch with the drawing. I put it in sight at home.
Then I dreamed of the crocodile. How wonderful it was to swim in the water and see all the fish.
The next day, in an unguarded moment, this image came to my mind. I felt my crocodile making love to another crocodile. And how much fun they had with the waterbed. It was the first time that I felt so earthy. I felt how the crocodile lives very close to the ground, it drags its whole body over it. For me, making love was a symbol of connecting myself with the male decisiveness. In one way or another it was an incentive to put myself in the world, to ‘materialize’ myself. In the coming days I worked out my action in concrete terms. I was going to write an invitation to a workshop and it just flowed from my pen with a primal force.
A few days later, this image appeared on my retina. I needed a connection, I wanted to visit other crocodiles. Walking across the desert, that dry plain was not an option. Then the crocodile would dry out. In my imagination I built subterranean passages to the other crocodiles. I had been on my island for far too long.
After the drawing I decided to contact some of the people I feel connected to. I then saw a whole network of colleague-crocodiles connected to each other via underground passages before my eyes.
A few weeks later I dream of the crocodile, that I unite with it. I feel good, secure, strong. I am in an egg shape, protected by a rainbow. It feels like I am connecting with my primal power.
It’s extraordinarily how that crocodile lives its own life in my imagination and how she stands next to me as a companion in my development. I feel much more peaceful and happier now, more of a whole. It is an image that has emerged somewhere deep from my subconscious and gives me all kinds of things.
