What if you were a mountain?

We are made of stories. Who we think we are, our histories that have led us to come to know ourselves. The values that we live by. It's all stories.

I'm creative. I'm a victim of this circumstance or that one. I'm someone who hates the cold.

Because I hold these stories about myself, they influence my actions in various ways.

Because I think I'm creative, I'm more likely to make time for creative work and find joy in it.

Because I tell the story of hating the cold, I live in the tropics and refuse to go south in the winter.

Being made of stories is why using other kinds of metaphors to understand ourselves in new ways is so powerful. We try on different stories, and see things that perhaps we hadn't seen before.

What if I tried on the story of being an Antarctic explorer? Perhaps I'd buy some warmer clothes and go south for the winter, treat it like an expedition into the unknown… it'd be a very different experience of life from my current one.

Being made of stories is one reason why art therapy is powerful. Stories are made of images. And so through art (it doesn't have to be "good" art - a stick figure absolutely works), we can use images to expand these new metaphors and by extension, expand our experience of the world and of ourselves.

For example - what if you were a mountain?

What kind of geological event created you? Tectonic plates crashing together aeons ago. Were you at the bottom of an ocean? Has the weather worn away at your peak? Are you ancient and steeped in wisdom, or are you a new mountain, prone to rockslides as you figure out where your edges are?

What eco systems are you supporting? Is there snow on your peak, or are you covered in trees? What's the weather like? Does it rain a lot, causing seasonal streams and filling waterholes and waterfalls, or are you coloured rock in a quiet desert, contemplating the stars?

What do these qualities of mountain say about who you are as a person? Your values, your wounds, your hopes, your strengths?

How would the mountain deal with the challenges in your life?

What's the story of you as a mountain?

Or a tree?

Or a swarm of bees?

Or a building?

Give it a try. I'd love to hear what you find, if you feel like sharing.

Here's a little about me as a mountain, to give you an idea - today, anyway. My mountain tomorrow might be something quite different.

Right now, I have two peaks. One is bare rock, reaching for the sky. The other is lower, covered in trees. There's a spring, that spills water down the side in waterfalls. It always runs. The weather moves strangely around my mountain. On the far side, the wind is sometimes vicious, scouring the rocks and making the trees grow bent over. But on this side, the weather is gentle. Breezes, soft rains. It doesn't snow, on this side. There's a cave in my mountain; bats live in it. A big black cat shelters in it, when its at home you can see its eyes glowing from the darkness. There is dense forest all around the base of the mountains. Just a few foothills, full of valleys with streams running through them.

Next, I might look at all the images that my mountain is made of, and look at my life, and see what matches or doesn't, what feels new, what I could take from my mountain self into my day to day self to make life more curious or more easeful, more grounded, whatever feels good and needed right now.

So, what about you?