Putting The Onion Back Together

PEELING THE LAYERS OFF THE ONION

The onion metaphor has often been used to describe the process of delving into a person’s psyche. Layers are removed to reveal what is beneath, toward the core. The metaphor reflects the many layers that we have inside us. ...  Certainly knowing what is within is useful, but usually insight alone is not enough to make real change and to sustain it.

Something critical is missing from the mind-as-onion metaphor. What supposedly happens when these layers are removed?

Some unknown aspect of ourselves is revealed;

okay then what?

PUTTING THE ONION BACK TOGETHER

It seems to me that the onion needs to be reconstructed and put back together, layer by layer, to be whole again. Putting the pieces together again, that is what’s missing! If we want to make it into something else entirely, such as salad, slices and layers scattered randomly around may be fine. But to be whole, the layers need to be re-placed or re-formed to complete what has essentially become a three dimensional puzzle. Have you ever tried to put a real onion back together? Not likely, but if so, how did that go for you? There is something about taking it apart that changes it. Perhaps that is the sometimes curative element of peeling away the layers of the onion; yet pieces themselves are not a whole.

Let us consider what these layers are for the human mind-body system. These layers are meanings. They are meanings we make from our experiences, our thoughts, and our feelings. These layers are the emotions, possibilities, limitations, beliefs, and intentions that we developed and solidified inside ourselves through our experience. These layers are fundamentally meanings, often multifaceted meanings, which direct how we live our life and how we feel about our life. Just examining these does not necessarily enrich them, or us, in ways that are helpful or in ways that serve us. It is what we do with that information next that matters.

FROM:  Secrets of personal transformation by By: Rich Liotta ©2010

ARE THERE ANY PARALLELS HERE TO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GOD TRANSFORMS US?
MAKES US NEW?

Please share your thoughts!