The pressure to get your journey of emotional processing over and done with!
Who of us hasn’t experienced being stuck in a car on a seemingly endless road trip with that dreaded question echoing off the windows, filling the car’s interior with a fog of tension, boredom and frustration? Trying to engage the questioner with distraction tactics or lectures on the ‘journey being just as important as the destination’ are pointless; they just want to get where they’re going and the quicker the better!
It struck me how similar this can be to our attitude towards our own emotional processing. We’re frustrated with how long it’s taking, we’re sick of looking at the scenery (seen one tree/bridge/town/field, seen them all). It feels like a waste of our precious time, we just want to arrive so we can actually do something and get on with the important stuff of life.
Our impatience is perfectly understandable. The trip is uncomfortable, it’s restricting, we ache with the pain of being stuck in what feels like the same position for such a long time. We’re tired of the endless stop signs and red lights; the same triggers tripping us up again and again. No wonder we feel the child’s lament of “are we there yet?” vibrating, for like that child, we have no way of knowing how much longer we have to go.
As well as the distress of not knowing, we have the voice of the critic in the back seat right alongside, adding to the din; “you should have this sorted by now, you’ve already processed this once, why are you still holding onto this?”
No wonder we want to put our foot down and drive faster or abandon the car completely.
And yet, our internal exploration is the important stuff of life. It won’t necessarily fit neatly into four simple steps or ten counselling sessions; it has its own agenda and it cannot be rushed, harassed or bullied into a more efficient or convenient time frame. As with each passing kilometre, each new understanding of our internal landscape brings with it a slight shift in our view, a different way of seeing and experiencing the world about us and our place in it. It gradually allows us to show up differently in our relationships with others as well as in our relationship with ourselves. This is where the growth happens, this is where the freedom begins.
Don’t skip the road trip.
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