A Quest for Wholeness: Healing Our Inner Landscape
“Deep in the heart of each of us, there is this imagining, imaginal capacity that we have…”
~ John O’Donohue (The Inner Landscape of Beauty)
What does the phrase “inner landscape” mean to you? What does your inner landscape look like? How has it been formed? Are you convinced it is set for your life, or do you believe it can change? Which landscapes are you drawn to?
We can never know the inner landscape of another human being, and it can be a lifetime’s journey to get to know our own.
For some, inner landscapes refer to the world of the imagination. This world will be stronger in some who have a vivid imagination than others. For everyone it will be characterised by circumstances and experiences that have occurred in their life, and in particular those with a high emotional charge. It is particularly influenced by the emotional wounds and hurts of childhood.
Your emotional landscape is the range of emotions that you normally feel; the ones that are familiar to you and in which you habitually reside. It's the place where you're emotionally spending time. Your emotional landscape in turn affects your mental landscape, and therefore your beliefs about and expectations of life.
Ultimately, if left unhealed, early emotional traumas set themselves into your body, or your physical landscape and can express themselves as illness and injury. Likewise, the landscapes of your heart and spirit will be affected…