Last year, I read a wonderful article about a man who had placed a rotary phone on a tree in Olympia (Washington) Park along a hiking trail. A notice was posted by it encouraging hikers to share their grief into the phone (that wasn’t connected). The goal was to say the unsaid things to those loved ones who had passed. The big surprise is that there was often a line of people using that phone. Fascinating. There’s no one on the other end of the phone, the line is dead, and yet folks seemed to be getting relief from their sorrow.
What is happening there? It seems that just speaking their troubles out loud took the issue outside of their head where it might have been spinning in a never-ending loop, and made it more concrete. Stating their pain became more manageable through employing the prop of the phone. It’s possible that the same could happen in talking to a friend or a therapist. Yet, some intimacy would be lost.
Have you considered heading to a park or forest to talk to the trees? Maybe you are grieving the loss of a loved one, but maybe you just need to get something off your chest. I recommend this simple technique to go out into nature and either take your own phone or just tell your worries to a tree, who, I promise, won’t try to “fix” you, talk you out of your fears, or dismiss your concerns. Oh – be sure to bring the bug spray.