I’ve always been drawn to simplicity. There’s something pure and grounding about it—a way to return to what matters most. And yet, my mind has a knack for complicating things.
Take, for example, the local community singing event I’ve been planning. For weeks, I convinced myself I needed a full band. The result? Endless overthinking and delays. But as summer reminds me, life feels more aligned when I let things be simple—when I allow myself to focus on the essentials rather than getting caught up in unnecessary complexity.
This same lesson shows up in my work with Doorway sessions. Clients often receive simple images—a tree, a waterfall, a cloud—and worry that they’re “not doing it right” or that the image is too basic to be meaningful. But the truth is, these images are portals into something much deeper.
In Doorway work, we’re not analyzing these images in a psychological sense; we’re entering them. These metaphoric images invite us into a shamanic dimension where the potent, creative energies of the Universe touch us directly. The simplicity of the image is precisely what allows it to work so profoundly.
As one of my clients, a therapist and coach, said after a session:
“This didn’t just give me answers; it imbued me with answers.”
Metaphor lets us feel Truth in a visceral, whole-bodied way. It bypasses the chatter of the mind, grounding us in the creative essence of life itself.
The artist Jean Dubuffet beautifully captured the power of simplicity in art:
“…the work of art is much less than what many people imagine it to be in the sense that it is neither necessary nor even useful that it should involve a broad orchestration. Take dance for example, I consider it absolutely pointless to put fifty sumptuous decked out dancers on the stage; for what I am looking for a single dancer will do… Similarly, the effect produced by music never seems to me to be improved by the use of large orchestras, and the Bedouin in the desert seems to me to obtain as much or more playing alone on his little flute.”
Dubuffet’s words resonate deeply with me. Whether it’s art, music, or the way we live our lives, simplicity invites us into a richer, truer experience.
So this summer, I’m choosing simplicity. It’s my way of coming back to my roots, to the things that matter most.
What about you? Where can you let go of complexity and embrace the beauty of what’s simple?
Jean Dubuffet, “The Cow with the Subtle Nose” 1954
When I work with a client’s deep inner images, I draw on the same visual language that artists work with, and so I find visual art, especially drawing, fascinating. I tell my students and workshop participants that we need to shift “how we are looking” to understand these potent inner images and allow them to…
Ten years ago, I found myself sitting in on a drawing class in Oakland. The topic that day was shading—how to capture the play of light and shadow around an image. The instructor gave a beautiful demonstration, and I was captivated. I thanked them, left the classroom, and barely made it out the door before…
Images are the psyche’s preferred way of operating. Whether we’re aware of it or not, our brains don’t think without images. The original and basic unit of mental activity is the image. Long before we develop language, we rely on images to make sense of the world. Images are our native language. Clients often come…
One of my favorite art quotes is from Pauline Kael, the American film critic known for her witty and insightful movie reviews: “Art doesn’t come in measured quantities: it’s got to be too much or it’s not enough.” I always think of this quote when I see flowers blooming in the spring. Nature doesn’t hold…
“…the surreal nature of physics is precisely why it needs the help of artists. Science has progressed beyond our ability to understand it, at least in any literal sense…It’s a brute fact of psychology that the human mind cannot comprehend the double-digit dimensions of string theory or the possibility of parallel universes. Our mind evolved…
“Why should an artist’s way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Why does it give us pleasure? Because, I believe, it increases our awareness of our own potentiality… A valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement… For it is not the…
