To Return Or Emerge – What Lobsters Can Teach Us About Mental Health Crises and Healing Society
Life’s Crises From An Expanded Worldview
I once heard a Rabbi tell the story of how lobsters shed their shells. He explained how the crustacean finds a place under a rock and discards its outer protection. The old shell no longer fits, but in order for the lobster to understand that a change is required, it first needs to begin to feel uncomfortable.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski’s parable of the uncomfortable lobster helps us to understand how true personal growth often follows adversity. Just like lobsters, the price of this growth is a willingness to experience a certain level of discomfort and periods of vulnerability. For a lobster — which is constantly growing — to ignore its own discomfort could eventually prove fatal, lest it become trapped in its shell.
Recently I helped to co-found a mental health initiative in the United Kingdom called Safely Held Spaces, and we created a roadmap to help people navigate the terrain when the call to grow, and to transform, arrives in the guise of a mental health crisis.
