The Baked Bean Analogy

The Baked Beans Analogy

What if, metaphorically speaking, we were all in bath tubs full of baked beans. The beans themselves represent the moments that have happen in life and the sticky, thick bean juice, represents our emotions. While we lie there, surrounded by the dense, unprocessed baked beans, it keeps us rooted to the bath tub and incidentally, stuck in the bathroom. There’s a window for which we can see a whole other world but we don’t know how to get there, and seems untouchable. The tap seems to constantly be running with baked beans, filling the bath further. If we don’t process the beans, we’ll never leave the bathroom. We’ll never know the world that exists the other side of the window. We’ll never meet the people who belong to the voices we’ve heard. We’ll never see the birds with the beautiful birdsong we’ve listened to, or feel the breeze further than our cheeks. While we keep ourselves in the bathtub full of baked beans, we are stopping ourselves from living and experiencing life.

What can we do to get out of the bath?

The first stage is to sieve the beans out, examine them, clean them and dry them. The beans hold our memories and some of the memories will be welcomed portals to our past, others will not. While we are processing our beans, more beans can be thrown at us, making it feel like a never-ending story. The reality is, we’ve got nothing else to do while sat in the bath so it doesn’t matter how long it takes, the aim is to process the beans, no matter how hard it gets.

When we take a bean containing a moment that has passed, we’re able to look at it differently, seeing it from different perspectives. Why did someone act or talk in the way they did? What might they have been feeling to choose that response? Was I fully present to understand what was happening? Am I applying an overlay to the situation that could be removed? In order to process a bean we have to apply forgiveness to those involved in the memory and take it away as a lesson. The bean is now a piece of knowledge.

While we dissect the beans, examining the moments of our past and seeing them in a different light, we’re able to move them to a brand new pile, clean from the juice and ready to be repurposed. The beans when dried become seeds, ready to be planted in our garden. The juice however remains around us, creating an uncomfortable pressure, until we find the plug and watch it drain away. Without the beans, the juice has no meaning. It cannot be reused, or recycled. It holds no substance or goodness, and only acts as a poison to the body. Let it circle the drain until it melts away.

There we are, naked and vulnerable, for the first time seeing our legs, sat in an empty bath tub with a pile of seeds next to us and a now, very numb bum. Slowly we uncurl our way out of the bath. Our body aches, head dizzy and back hunched, some of us may have been trapped for decades, rigid in our movement. Despite the pain, this new feeling is exciting, our body tingles with new sensations. We pause next the bath, and take a moment to readjust. Fear will try to tell us the bath is where we belong. The bath is where we should stay, safe in the familiarity. We don’t listen to fear and while our body shakes, standing for the first time, feeling parts we didn’t know we had, we walk towards the door and exit the bathroom. What lies beyond, we don’t know, but it’s got to be better than the bath right? There’s got to be other foods we can eat other than baked beans!

Beyond The Bathroom

What we know for certain is that beyond the bathroom door, baked beans don’t exist. Life will no longer throw beans at us. We’ve completed that stage, and while we were sat examining our beans, we thoughtlessly threw a few out of the window. We don’t know what to expect, and probably won’t give them much thought, but what if those seeds were growing into something?

The room we enter next is warm and comfortable, there’s a bed we can lie down on that’s soft and floaty. This room is our rehabilitation room. We need to get reacquainted with our bodies and ourselves. We get to eat new food, wear clothes, move our body and learn who we are. We can’t rush this stage, it’s exciting but it’s physically hard work. We require rest, self love and compassion. We might think that sieving through baked beans was hard work, but girl, this is harder. With every stretch, every movement, every pause, we are making new pathways in our brain, we’re strengthening our body and preparing ourselves for what’s on the other side. The outside world is where we will live, it’s where we find our deepest love, embracing the beauty and wonder of the world around us and we can’t enjoy it if we can’t stand up straight. We don’t expect babies to run straight off the bat, so we can’t expect ourselves to either. Leaving the bathtub is our rebirth, and we have to learn the basics of the new life.

Our Garden

When we are ready, when we can stand and we’re healed enough, we will start to plant out the seeds in our garden. Our garden is our life, it’s a space we hold for ourselves, giving room to our true authentic self. We welcome and host loved ones in our garden, when they visit from their own. The seeds we’re planting, those lessons we have learnt from our past, can be a story we tell. A job we apply for, a piece of art we create or hobby we pursue. It can be a wall we paint or lampshade we buy. If we apply for 100 hundred jobs, that’s 100 seeds planted. Post on social media, write a blog, visit somewhere new. Go on holiday! We’re spreading ourselves out into the world, embracing life and planting a seed as we go. When we’re content and happy in our garden, we can look out and see other people in theirs, waving at each other. Everyone is happy when they’re tending to their gardens, because we’ve all freed ourselves from the bathtub of baked beans. We all recognise each other’s journey so we only have love and support.

Beyond The Garden

What lies out there is a wonder thing, and with our seeds planted we will always be provided with abundance. The seeds grow and turn a picture beyond our imaginations. Any seasonal gardener will say, something’s just can’t be predicted. Some seeds won’t take, they were too damaged to turn into something new, and that’s OK. It doesn’t matter, because other seeds have blossomed. We’re too busy enjoying the ones that have worked to think about the ones that haven’t. They don’t leave gaps in our garden.

There will be moments when you’ll zoom out, and not only can you see those in their gardens, but you’ll see people leaving the bathroom and recognise the fragility they hold but know that they will be OK. It is however painful to see the hundreds of thousands of people stuck in their bath of baked beans, knowing there is nothing we can do. It is a solo process, something only the person in the tub can do, just like we had to. Maybe the odd note can be passed through the window with words of encouragement, but we all have to process our own beans.

Gone are my bean days, it’s ice-cream and berries now.