RE: [ET2] Snow globes, or Thought Balls?

> In my work as a psychiatrist, until now I have taught
> about thirty patients
> the Thought Flow (TF) process. The results have been
> varying as may be
> expected, but several have experienced astonishing
> relief of disturbing
> thoughts.
>
> One funny experience was a woman with a severe OCD
> (obsessive-compulsive
> disorder). She did the TF on a compulsive thought with
> her left hand, as she
> is left-handed. She described a strange sensation that
> the left half of her
> brain felt "empty". I had her repeat the exercise with
> her right hand,
> whereupon she could no more connect to the thought in
> focus. She was quite
> amazed of this "magic".
>
> I also give them handouts in our language (Swedish).
> Next session, if they
> want it, I teach them the Snow Globe (SG), and also the
> reverse process from
> back to heart to catch a positive resource. The
> difference is that TF is for
> separate thoughts, while SG is for whole packets of
> thoughts and feelings.
>
> But I wonder about the name SG - what has it to do with
> snow? Was there any
> specific reason for calling it Snow Globe, or did i
> just so happen? For me
> it sounds more reasonable to call it in Swedish
> "tankeboll", Thought Ball
> (or Thought Globe. if you prefer).
>
> Playing with Thought Balls,
> Nils

Nils, first of all let me say I *love* the fact that you do this
stuff with your patients - if *ever* you want to tell more
stories, of when it does or doesn't work, or tell us about
anything that happened, *PLEASE* do so. You are in a position
there to help me/us A LOT moving things along and ironing things
out, so! I thought the story of the lady with the left/right
divide was *very* interesting and thought provoking. Perhaps that
is another construct divide which needs to be healed somewhere
along the line.

Now to the question why they are called snow globes.

I don't know if you have these things in Sweden, spheres made of
glass with bits of sparkly stuff and usually something else - a
local building or thing of interest, flowers, dolls, christmas
scenes, all sorts. The newer ones are cheap and made of plastic
but the really old fashioned ones were perfect spheres which
rested on a wooden base; people collect them.

When I first started playing with the concept of a higher energy
system to hand these things over to (which we now call, for ease
of construct, the "soul"), I also played with words and
metaphorical representations of all kinds; at one point I called
the (rather dreary!) higher organising systems "The Angel Child"
and said that the Angel Child needs toys to play with, else it
gets bored and unhappy, and that our various thoughts, feelings
and experiences would make the perfect toys. When I said it I got
the image of an old fashioned snow globe and a child being totally
fascinated by it, lifting it out of the wooden stand, holding it
in both hands, shaking it and making the little sparkly bits
dance.

Now, as you probably know, I take metaphors VERY seriously and the
only reason I used to not talk about them much in public is
because many a fine human construct is turned off big time when
you start talking about "Snow Globes For The Angel Child" and I
really don't want to lose them; so in public I translate and talk
then instead about the far more acceptable "higher organising
energy system which exists in quantum space and is thus, to all
intents and purposes, immortal". So indeed, I fully appreciate
where you are coming from with the idea of thought balls.

However, there is more to the Snow Globes for the Angel Child than
just the translation would let you guess; there are many layers of
that particular metaphor which contain *far more* than the
logic-proof translation.

Just few at random that I know of (I bet there are more that I
don't consciously know of!)

- A snow globe is essentially a TOY. At leat the unconscious mind
will understand that immediately and what are the presuppositions
if we take these things that we used to take so terribly
seriously, were so terribly afraid of, had such terrible problems
with or were so bitterly ashamed of into that format of lightness,
even of playfulness? This has *enormous* repercussions for the
totality as a whole, and what previous life experiences mean, and
how important they are in the overall scheme of things.

- There is the idea that a snow globe may contain *anything at
all* - the biggest most impressive church or huge public building,
for example - we've seen them, tiny inside a snowglobe, right? And
here we come to one of the possible limitation of a thought ball -
snow globes can contain *much more than just thoughts*. They can
take emotions, memories, feelings, decisions, metaphors, energetic
entities, dreams, prayers, wishes, conflicts, parts,
personalities, people, whole families, multi-layered, multi-time
events, houses, realities - anything at all and indeed, some
things completely directly and not just in the format of their
thought representations which is a pretty profound structural
difference.

- There is the matter of the concept of the "globe". A perfect
sphere is one of *the* most powerful magical symbols known to man
(and/or woman and/or all others round here :-) There is a reason
why crystal balls are thus and not crystal flat viewing screens,
and we know this on some level, even though it may be impossible
to explain in consciousness or linear speech. There may well be
some rather central reason why we are handing over globes rather
than spiky dodecahedrons - once again, I couldn't explain but the
very thought just makes me shudder! Even a ball, which in essence
looks like a sphere, is not really a sphere or a globe, not quite.
It is just that little bit "harder" and I firmly believe that such
small differences in metaphor can make a lot of difference in
energy work.

- Following on from that, snow globes are fluid inside. It's one
of their fascinations - they look like they're made of solid glass
but they are actually *liquid*. And although, once again, I
couldn't really tell you just why, I *know* they are different
from similar but solid spheres such as crystal balls, or empty
spheres such as bubbles. In writing the last word it seems to me
that thoughts would do very well in a bubble, actually, and could
be passed over nicely in that way. Just like in the cartoons!

- Now, with the snow globes, there's the matter of the "snow" -
the sparkly bits inside the snow globes. This again is not
spurious but has some very good reasons. I know a bit about that
"fairy dust" by now and it is really a most essential, really
powerful metaphor in its own right, describing one of the core
principles of the universal flow - in Christian mythology, for
example, this turns up as "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" (but they
always had a way to make things sound dour and dreary, I just
mention it as a nudge in the direction of just HOW important a
metaphor this actually is).

Now, the thing with metaphors is that to take any aspect of any
one cohesive energetic reality thus described (such as a complete
snow globe with content) by itself and out of context is a
misleading thing and thus I avoid it (as in, you can't ever know
what a frog is all about by studying the bits of a dead one); if
you put all the above components together and then add all the
other layers that are tied in to something like this, it becomes
noticeable just what a "snow globe" may be as an energetic device.

However.

The most important thing right now is to have people work at their
own pace and in their own way; and a thought ball is a WHOLE LOT
BETTER than no such intervention at all.

A lot of people would simply not feel comfortable with a snow
globe and the lower impact device of a thought ball might be just
the ticket; so what I am saying is is that here we have a question
again of making something acceptable for the people AS THEY ARE
RIGHT NOW and that's a superb start.

What I personally would not want to do is to give up on the magic
of the snow globe in favour of the lowest common denominator,
which is what often happens in personal development approaches
(and many other fields of human endeavour) by globally terming
this quite astonishing process a thought ball *for all*.

Indeed it might even be possible with quite a few people to link
it up and start with the idea of a thought ball; they're
comfortable with that then just lightly and easily bring in the
notion that one could think of it as a snow globe and take it from
there. They don't like it, back to the safety of the thought ball
to get the basic process underway.

I can't help but think as I am writing this that one of the
purposes of these spheres, whatever we may call them, is to help
activate channels which are designed to be open all the time and
flow all the time, but that's another topic I guess.

I must also say, although I hadn't consciously ever thought about
it, that once again I am actually *shocked* at the richness and
intricacy of metaphor, when you really look at it. Talk about one
fabulous information transmission device!

And whilst we're here, I might as well own up to the fact that
most of the things that sound so reasonable and rational when I
write them out and translate them backwards did indeed originate
somewhere with a metaphorical insight or experience. As the snow
globes did.

Now what to put on handouts "for all" - I couldn't say.

Personally, I just went for it and used the snow globes directly
on this occasion; I'd say that as long as you know what you are
doing, everyone is free to term these energetic events flexibly
and from their own standpoints so they serve them as best as
possible within their own environments.

Is that acceptable as an answer?

waves,

Silvia

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Received on Wed Jun 11 2003 - 20:23:48 BST