With the introduction of Facebook, I have found OPPs to be fascinating. OPPs meaning other people's pictures as opposed to other people's problems. I can just click any friend's profile photo and instantly be transported to them...and their pictures. I have seen the children of various friends who aren't children anymore; I have seen grandbabies and dogs and cats and all sorts of scenic surroundings. I have also seen photographs that I wish I hadn't seen...
So what is this fascination with photographs all about? Well, as Rod Stewart once sang, "..every picture tells a story don't it..?" Yes it does Rod; it certainly does.
My blog today is focusing on those pictures which tell a story you may not want to notice. In therapy, I'll sometimes ask clients to bring in a family photo from their childhood which they believe best "shows" me who their family was. I have yet to meet a client who has brought in just one photograph as part of that assignment. Instead, I often am asked to view several. And I am also often surprised by what "I" notice in each photograph that my client may not. The father who isn't smiling or making eye contact with the baby in his arms; an oldest brother smiling at the camera like a chesire cat---while the other siblings are stone-faced. Things like that.
Getting better from anything requires that we first pay attention. Photographs from the past and present are a way we can begin to pay attention to ourselves---and to others. What do you need to become aware of that you have been avoiding for far too long? What are the "real" stories behind your own photographs? When you can give yourself permission to become aware of what you need to become aware of...then you will be beginning the process of facing your own demons...wherever they may come from.
