When I was growing up I used to hear others speak about various projects and proposals in ways that evoked images of “flying pigs”. I took this to mean that the project or proposal was so unlikely to succeed that a pig flying was just as likely. I continued with this understanding of flying pigs for a long time until I began to work with families and individuals whose prospects for a full and productive life were rated by most observers as “unlikely”. These families, and their members were often described by others in language like- “dysfunctional”, “dangerous”, “irresponsible” and so on. Working with this population was characterised by some as like getting pigs to fly.
What I noticed and came to strongly appreciate in this work, was the refusal of many of these individuals, couples and families to go along with others expectations of dysfunctionality and failure to live ethical and productive lives.
When opportunities to challenge serious problems in collaboration with a therapist/counsellor who didn’t view them as the problem, (as was usually the case with those “flying pig” dismissals that accompanied others judgements about them)- just as people experiencing a problem, very few rejected that opportunity. As a consequence, I have been privileged to see many “flying pigs”, stabilise, approach the runway of life with some trepidation but under the influence of hope and using the strengths and skills of living already known to them, have taken to the air, usually a little uncertainly, but soon after with increasing sophistication in the arts of flying, begin to soar and have lives no weighed down by the influence of the problem. Even in situations where the problem has a certain inevitability about it (e.g. terminal illness, family breakup), I have observed the most exquisite airmanship (“flyingpigsmanship” perhaps?) that consigns the problem to a less dominant place and facilitates their preferred practices of living.
If you are experiencing a problem in your family, relationship workplace or wherever, that invites others to conjure up pictures of “flying pigs” in the traditional sense, and you haven’t yet given up on the possibility of flight…contact us at Whiti. We may be able to help!
- Bruce