Is talking about the past like composting?
We can dig up the past. We can go over our experiences, replaying them over and over again. Rumination is to replay the past in ways that do not contribute to healing or growth.
Composting, by contrast, is an organic process. Turning over material supports astonishing activity. Gradually over weeks and months, the compost pile becomes a fertile new growing medium. The pile becomes a home to so much life, from healthy bacteria and other microbial life, to worms and insects, to frogs, toads, and newts, and to so much more.
Might we see our own experiences as offering the potential for a similar lively organic process? How might all the experience that you have gained become fertile material that supports new growth and development?
Each of us will outwork this question in an individual way. But it is perhaps worth highlighting that when we choose to involve a therapist in our processing, that what we do is to enter a dynamic process. The dynamic element here is the relationship with the therapist. This relationship supports all the organic processing to occur. The turning over of experiences becomes something lively, even unexpected. Rather than being only about decline and decay, we more readily participate in new growing activity, as well. Sleeping and dreaming, digesting, feeling, sensing, the working of imagination and the location of place may more fully be drawn on in this lively organic process.