PSIII 11 Relationships With Places

11 - Relationships With Places

It's not so very long ago that I didn't know that people can have immense and long standing relationships with places - with towns they lived in, with landscapes, and with houses they left behind.

I once had a lady called Kay come to see me whose friend had moved away and who felt a bereavement akin to this friend having actually died in real life. Although we cleared up the issue thoroughly, some of the symptoms did not disappear as had been expected. The clue finally came when she revealed that she could not drive anywhere near where her friend's house had been, in spite of being in regular telephone contact with her and having visited her since a number of times, and in spite of having a full social calendar and being otherwise happy in her many other relationships.

I took her out of the office and we drove to the house. It struck me forcibly how much the house itself was tied up in Kay’s bereavement problems - she had had so many good memories about being there, had so often raced up the drive in happy expectation of what was to come, that the place itself had become a meaningful and powerful part of that friendship - perhaps even a potent symbol of what existed between them then, which was certainly different from what was the reality now.

This was a long time before sanctuary, and the only thing I could think of was to use an old witchcraft ritual, whereby you go and collect your memories in a jar, seal it tightly, and then bury it in a special place in nature. I'm not really sure what the estate agent made of the whole thing - Kay was crying most of the time, laughing through her tears at others, and in the end, with some very nervous glances towards the empty Nescafe Gold jar, he retreated to wait for us outside!

Well, it worked for her and "really set her free", as she put it. And since, I've come across many other people who have such open wounds about places in one shape or another. If you think about it, it's obvious really. Our homes represent ourselves, our families, our lives at the time; with very many people, moving house is a traumatic experience and denotes a definite "good bye" to a prior self as they move on in life.

There are many ways in which to heal relationships with places. Nowadays, I wouldn't dream of advising anyone to "bury their happy memories" in a jar - rather, I would have them bring these back inside, to have and to hold, and to be able to re-visit any time this should prove to be desirable, or even necessary.

Whether you choose to give any such place a place in your sanctuary, or whether you would like to make a representation thereof instead and bring that home instead; whether you would like to conduct a "farewell and thank you" ceremony inside your mind that you never knew would be necessary way back then, or whether you would like to simply keep it "as is" and visit once in a while, do whatever you want if there's such a relationship within you that requires healing.