{"id":1406,"date":"2026-08-11T12:52:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T12:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/?page_id=1406"},"modified":"2026-08-13T10:25:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:25:20","slug":"labyrinth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/labyrinth\/","title":{"rendered":"Labyrinth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style>\n.anastasis-post{max-width:820px;margin:0 auto;color:#2A2A28;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:18px;}\n.anastasis-post strong{font-weight:700;}\n.anastasis-post em{font-style:italic;}\n.anastasis-post a{color:#1F4E4A;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#9A6B1F;}\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"anastasis-post\">\n\n<figure style=\"margin:0 0 1.8em;\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/support_01-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"hands holding one another as if supporting one another\" style=\"display:block;width:100%;height:auto;max-height:420px;object-fit:cover;border-radius:8px;\">\n  \n  <!-- <figcaption style=\"margin-top:.5em;font-size:.85rem;color:#6B6B6B;font-style:italic;text-align:center;\">Anastasis Logo<\/figcaption> -->\n<\/figure>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.8em;line-height:1.5;\">\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/q2CB_r5_JH0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" style=\"display:inline-block;padding:.7em 1.4em;background:#1F4E4A;color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:none;border-radius:6px;font-size:1rem;border-bottom:3px solid #9A6B1F;\">\u25b6&nbsp;&nbsp;Watch the film \u2014 <em>The Labyrinth<\/em><\/a>\n  <span style=\"display:block;margin-top:.6em;font-size:.85rem;color:#6B6B6B;font-style:italic;\">Opens on YouTube in a new window.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\"><strong>\u201cI just want to get back to normal.\u201d It is one of the most common things we hear in trauma work \u2014 and one of the kindest things we can do is to gently question the word \u2018back\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">\u201cI just want to get back to how things were.\u201d \u201cI wish I could go back to before.\u201d If you sit with survivors, you will hear it again and again, and the key word is always <em>back<\/em>. But we cannot go back. We live inside time; there is no Tardis, no DeLorean, no way to zoom to a gentler era \u2014 and no way to fast-forward to a finish line where the struggle is over and done. As the children\u2019s book has it: <em>can\u2019t go over it, can\u2019t go under it, can\u2019t go around it \u2014 got to go through it!<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">That is the heart of this Dynamic. We are not on a journey that takes us <em>back<\/em>. We are on a journey that takes us <em>through<\/em>. If we are seeking genuine <em>Anastasis<\/em> \u2014 a quality of life marked by honest relating, respect and responsibility \u2014 then we have to face that truth, and not avoid the hard personal work that is an inevitable part of the road. I call that road <em>the Labyrinth<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">A labyrinth is not a maze<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">People often picture a maze at this point, and the distinction matters enormously. A <em>maze<\/em> is designed to defeat you: it is full of dead ends and wrong turns. A <em>labyrinth<\/em> is something else entirely. It has twists and turns aplenty, but it is made of a single path. There are no wrong turns in a labyrinth. Once you understand that, everything shifts \u2014 because it means that everything you have experienced is part of the journey of your becoming.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">There is no going back, the path may curve you round to face the way you came; but you are still moving forward on the path, and from this vantage point, you can see the progress you have made. In this way, what we think of as looking back stops being an exercise in regret and becomes, instead, a way of learning and of gratitude. It asks us to grow empathy for our younger selves \u2014 to accept that we could only ever know what we knew when we actually knew it, and could not have known it a moment sooner.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote style=\"margin:2em 0;padding:.1em 0 .1em 20px;border-left:4px solid #9A6B1F;color:#1F4E4A;font-style:italic;font-size:1.18rem;line-height:1.4;\"><p style=\"margin:0;\">If we drive through life staring into the rear-view mirror, we will crash. The mirror is there to inform the journey forward \u2014 not to be driven by.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">We often wonder what would have happened if we had taken a different path. In reality, we almost always made the best choice we could with the insight and information we had at the time. So the belief that we <em>should have been<\/em> a different version of ourselves is, when you examine it, rather a bogus thought. The person who made those decisions is as worthy of love and respect as the person reading this now. And here is the practical, liberating consequence: <strong>the journey cannot start from where we wish we were.<\/strong> It can only ever start from where we actually are, and with the self we actually are now. So when a member of your <em>Committee<\/em> starts pouring shame into the conversation, you \u2014 as Chair \u2014 are entitled to rule that those comments are unhelpful and will be disregarded.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">Digging our own labyrinth<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">In a sense, what we are doing is digging out our own labyrinth. The path is as individual as we are; it has been under construction since before we were born, which is part of why it can feel like such hard work. What keeps us going is keeping our eyes on the hopeful thing \u2014 the possibility, the promise, the potential \u2014 so that demoralisation does not get the last word.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">The journey asks us to dig down to inner resources we did not know we had. This is where good relationships with and within our <em>Committee<\/em> become essential, because the Committee holds the very resources we are most prone to deny in ourselves. My own experience \u2014 in my own labyrinth, and walking beside others in theirs \u2014 is that when we think we have given the last drop of sweat and burned the last candle, there is somehow one more step in us. And it is there, at the end of our own resources, that I have known the <em>Source<\/em> carry me \u2014 and known, too, that I was never walking the labyrinth alone.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">We will need grit. This is a long-haul journey, not a hop-over. We need to find sustainable, healthy ways to stay resilient \u2014 which may mean time spent grounding and centring in spiritual or mindful practice, where we can be replenished. (What the western world markets as mindfulness, and has rather commodified, is really the ancient art of <em>contemplation<\/em>: the practice of knowing oneself as truly and fully as is humanly possible.)<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">Why it feels like \u2018here again\u2019<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">When we lay the winding path of the Labyrinth over the map of the <em>Domains<\/em> \u2014 which we will explore in later posts \u2014 we can see how the journey weaves us in and out of each Domain, over and over, on the way to our own centre. This is why recovery so often produces that demoralising sense of <em>I\u2019ve been here before<\/em> or <em>oh no, not here again!<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">It is true that we have visited that Domain before. But we are not at the same point we were last time \u2014 we are further along the path, and so we arrive with a fresh perspective. I find that deeply encouraging, and I offer it to clients as a reason to keep going rather than a cause for despair. When the path seems to lead nowhere and carrying on feels just too hard, that very feeling is usually a sign that we are being stretched in a way that will ultimately bring growth. Those are the times to draw on everything available to us \u2014 friends, family, colleagues, a therapist or group \u2014 and also, sometimes, on solitude and reflection, where we can attend to our own needs without the press of everyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote style=\"margin:2em 0;padding:.1em 0 .1em 20px;border-left:4px solid #9A6B1F;color:#1F4E4A;font-style:italic;font-size:1.18rem;line-height:1.4;\"><p style=\"margin:0;\">There is, I believe, nowhere we can go where love cannot reach us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">We can refuse that love \u2014 through old beliefs, or a familiar lack of love \u2014 but we cannot travel beyond its reach. So let us look self-doubt in the eye and speak a little adventure and curiosity into the feeling of being lost. The Labyrinth winds us through the <em>Domains<\/em>, <em>Sub-domains<\/em> and <em>Functions<\/em> of <em>Anastasis<\/em> towards a more whole and holistic sense of self. Along the way we will meet thoughts and feelings long abandoned, and memories archived for safety\u2019s sake. We may discover parts of ourselves we had neglected or never known. That is the work \u2014 and it is good work.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">For those of us who practise<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">For practitioners, the Labyrinth changes how we hold the whole arc of therapy. It frees us from the tyranny of linear \u2018progress\u2019, and from the disappointment \u2014 ours and the client\u2019s \u2014 when familiar material resurfaces. It lets us say, with real conviction, <em>we are not back at the start; we are further round the path.<\/em> Learning to companion someone through that winding journey, without rushing them and without losing hope ourselves, is one of the things we practise most carefully on the course.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">It also reshapes how we handle the inevitable plateaus. There are stretches of the Labyrinth where nothing seems to be happening, where the client feels they are going backwards, where we ourselves may quietly wonder whether the work is \u2018working\u2019. The metaphor steadies us. A walker on a labyrinth path frequently finds themselves close to the centre and then, a few steps later, swung right out to the edge again \u2014 not because they have failed, but because that is the shape of the path. Holding that picture in mind, we can offer a client something more durable than reassurance: <strong>a genuinely different way of reading their own experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">And there is a deeper invitation in it for us as practitioners. We cannot accompany someone faithfully through a labyrinth with which we are unfamiliar, or one we have refused to walk ourselves. The therapists I most trust with clients experiencing complex trauma are not the ones with the most techniques, but the ones who have done their own going-through \u2014 who know, from the inside, the demoralising stretches and the surprising one-more-step. That is why our own ongoing journey is not a luxury or an indulgence; it supports our competence, and fitness to practise the art-craft of complex trauma therapy.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">Welcome into the Labyrinth. <em>Let us walk together for a while.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h3 style=\"margin:2em 0 .4em;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.15rem;\">A few questions to sit with<\/h3>\n\n<ul style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;padding-left:1.25em;\">\n<li style=\"margin:.35em 0;line-height:1.5;\">Where in your own life have you mistaken a labyrinth for a maze \u2014 treating a necessary turn as a wrong one?<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:.35em 0;line-height:1.5;\">How do you respond, inwardly, when a client returns to material you thought was \u2018done\u2019?<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:.35em 0;line-height:1.5;\">What helps you keep your eyes on the hopeful thing when the path feels long?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<hr style=\"border:0;border-top:1px solid #d9d2c4;margin:2em 0;\">\n\n<h3 style=\"margin:2em 0 .4em;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.15rem;\">About the course<\/h3>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">The <em>Anastasis<\/em> Model sits at the heart of a <strong>Level&nbsp;7 Diploma in trauma-informed, advanced therapeutic practice<\/strong> \u2014 written for counsellors and psychotherapists who want to work more deeply with developmental and relational trauma, and who are moving towards senior accreditation (SCoPEd Column&nbsp;C).<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">It runs online, with three in-person residentials, over fifteen months: <strong>October&nbsp;2026 to December&nbsp;2027<\/strong>. The group is deliberately small \u2014 capped at twelve \u2014 so no one is ever just a face in a crowded screen. The fee is <strong>\u00a35,250<\/strong>, with payment plans available.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">To enquire, email <strong><a href=\"mailto:training@authentictandt.uk\">training@authentictandt.uk<\/a><\/strong> or call Annie on <strong>07949&nbsp;677405<\/strong>. We shape the cohort together through conversation, so do get in touch early.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.authentictandt.uk\">www.authentictandt.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u25b6&nbsp;&nbsp;Watch the film \u2014 The Labyrinth Opens on YouTube in a new window. \u201cI just want to get back to normal.\u201d It is one of the most common things we hear in trauma work \u2014 and one of the kindest things we can do is to gently question the word \u2018back\u2019. \u201cI just want to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1406","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}