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LOOK WITHIN.
We explore the internal world. The emotions, experiences, memories and versions of ourselves that continue to shape how we understand ourselves and respond to life.
House of Wonder
House of Wonder is a guided way of exploring your internal world.
We all have experiences, emotions, memories, beliefs and learned responses that influence how we understand ourselves and respond to other people. Some of these are easy to recognize. Others operate in the background until something brings them forward.
House of Wonder gives us a way to examine those experiences.
Together, we use the idea of a house to organize different areas of your life. Each room provides a place to explore a particular experience, relationship, memory, need or concern.
The meaning of each room is not predetermined. You decide what belongs there and what it represents for you.
Exploring the Rooms
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The Foyer can be a place to consider what you are bringing into the work.
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The Living Room can explore relationships, connection and belonging.
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The Kitchen can explore family, caregiving and the roles you learned to occupy.
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The Bedroom can provide space to consider intimacy, vulnerability and relationships.
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The Office can explore work, identity, responsibility and purpose.
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The Closet can hold memories, experiences and aspects of yourself that you have kept out of view.
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The Laundry Room can provide a way to explore what needs attention, repair or ongoing care.
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The Basement and Attic can provide space to consider experiences, beliefs or emotions that have been difficult to approach.
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The Garden can explore growth, change and what you want to develop in your life.
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These rooms are not a diagnostic system. They are a structure for reflection.
Understanding the Parts of Ourselves
House of Wonder can also help us explore different emotional states and parts of ourselves.
You might notice a part of you that becomes angry when you feel threatened, another that withdraws when relationships become difficult, or another that works hard to keep everything under control.
We can give these experiences names or other forms of representation so they become easier to recognize and discuss.
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We can then ask useful questions.
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When does this part of you appear?
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What is it responding to?
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What does it seem to need?
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What has it learned from your experiences?
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Is the response still useful to you now?
This can also include experiences connected to younger versions of yourself. Rather than assuming what your "inner child" means, we explore the experiences and beliefs from earlier periods of your life that may still influence how you respond today.
The purpose is not to eliminate difficult emotions or parts of yourself.
It is to understand them and develop a different relationship with them.
Where the Approach Comes From
House of Wonder is informed by Narrative Therapy and Internal Family Systems, along with mindfulness, visualization and journaling.
Narrative Therapy helps us examine the stories and meanings that have developed around our experiences.
Internal Family Systems provides a way of understanding the different parts of ourselves and the roles they can take on.
House of Wonder brings these ideas into a practical process of exploration.
You remain the person deciding what your experiences mean.
I don't tell you what a room, emotion or part of yourself represents. We explore it together.
What This Work Is For
House of Wonder may be useful when you are trying to understand:
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recurring emotional responses
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relationship patterns
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experiences from earlier in life
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changes in identity
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difficult emotions
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internal conflict
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experiences you have struggled to put into words
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the ways your past continues to influence your present
The goal is not to become someone different.
It is to better understand the person you already are.
Sometimes change begins with understanding what is happening within you.
You don't have to know exactly what you need.
Bring what's happening in your life. We'll start there.
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