Maybe the Bucket Isn’t So Leaky After All
Somatic Experiencing often uses a vivid image: after trauma we carry a “leaky bucket” inside — a self that can’t hold safety, satisfaction, or joy. It’s a striking metaphor. I took it to heart for a long time.
And yet, through a number of deep inner processes, I began to notice something else. Yes, some of us are so wounded that no matter how much goodness we pour in, it seems to drain away. That is real. But there’s a second pattern that hides in plain sight:
Sometimes our bucket isn’t leaking. Sometimes we simply refuse to fill it with the water that’s already here.
We hunger for a particular flavor of experience, the “right” experience, the one that matches our fantasy. So the ordinary gifts of the day glide by uncollected. We hold our bucket off to the side, saving it for later — saving it for something “better”.
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It’s like being a thirsty traveler standing knee‑deep in a river and still not drinking, because we’ve decided the only water worth having is from that other lake, that other river. I can’t wait until… Until I get back to the mountains... Until I see the sea... Until I move to America or Italy... Until I meet the perfect partner... Until I live by the ocean, in the north, in the south, on a boat, on an island, alone, in community — anywhere but here...
Meanwhile, life keeps pouring aqua vitae right where we stand. Not the fantasy vintage, perhaps, but real water all the same — conversation, sunlight on a wall, a body that breathes, a small kindness, the taste of simple food. And we say: Not that. Not yet. Not enough. We wait for the one thing that “truly counts,” and in the waiting we go thirsty.
Maybe the task isn’t always to patch every hole. Maybe the first move is simpler: turn the bucket upright. Let it catch what’s actually arriving. Drink what’s offered today. If the bucket still leaks, we’ll see it clearly and tend to it with care. But if it doesn’t — if the problem was our refusal to receive — then fullness may begin not with different water, but with a different stance toward the water at our feet.
(Please read my article “Noeticpunk & Shamanicpunk — warning and disclaimer”)
