Imagine a rainbow - Mental Heath Awareness Week 2016

I wrote this for an advertisement in 2006. It seemed to sum up the majority of problems that my clients presented. I later used it as the preface for the book.

Imagine a rainbow. 
It could be a memory of a real experience, or a figment of the imagination. 
We become lost in wonder at the rainbow’s form and the spectrum of rich colours in a changing sky. 
We are momentarily entranced and we marvel at the rainbow’s natural beauty and its transient nature.
Our eyes wander to where the end of it disappears... 
The image fades. It was a moment of innocent wonder and curiosity. 
For a few precious seconds the intrusion of our everyday activities was excluded. 
No harm was done. 
In fact, we may even feel uplifted.

Now, let us imagine another rainbow. 
Again, we become entranced by it, but this time we concentrate on where the rainbow ends. 
We remember the stories and myths we heard as children. Is there really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? 
A pot of gold that would provide a resolution to all our problems? We want it, and we want it now!
Leaving common sense and reason behind, we chase the end of the rainbow, again and again. 
We keep trying, but the end is just out of reach and always unobtainable. 
We feel disappointed, frustrated and weary. Will we ever reach it? No. 
The pot of gold of resolution is the delusion in the illusion, but we continue to reach for and chase the end of the rainbow. 
The more we try, the more we can become deluded. 
We can become emotionally and physically unwell. 

©AlisonRRussell2016