What “JOURNEYS” are YOU on in your life, and what do they MEAN to you…?
Many of us speak of being on specific “journeys”.
Some are on “weight loss journeys”, others on “fitness and strength-building journeys”, many on “eating disorder recovery journeys”, “pandemic journeys”, and even trauma, cancer, depression, marriage therapy or divorce, HIV, paralysis, and diabetes “journeys”.
I’ve become curious about the turn of phrase, and the potential that the concept has for all of us. It’s by no means arbitrary, or just a colloquialism. Of that I’m sure.
Although overuse can, of course, diminish the mystique and massive growth potential of any word.
What is the benefit of declaring oneself to “be on a journey”, rather than just “getting retrenched”, or “going on a diet”, “being in lockdown AGAIN”, “having fights constantly”, or “being diagnosed with…”?
I’ll tell you the benefit:
It fosters CONNECTION to your challenge.
It enhances the RELATIONSHIP you have with YOURSELF, as you are given conquests to overcome, like athletic hurdles.
And each conquest can strengthen you or seem to cause you harm. And, in my estimation, this “harm vs. strengthen” equation is resolved in direct proportion to how the person goes inside themselves and makes meaning of their challenge.
Seeing a challenge as a JOURNEY also reinforces that that something can be done about it, even if that ‘something’ is the unexpected.
As a psychologist, I have the enormous privilege of bearing intimate witness to many journeys.
In my own life, I’ve completed many journeys, and remain vitally engaged in a good few… Fertility issues and miscarriages, birth traumas, traumatic bereavement, entrepreneurship, psychology private practice, a multicultural, international marriage, aggressive crime, audits, obesity, weight loss surgery, serious illness, comas, ventilators, and ICU stays with protracted convalescence. Epileptic remedial kiddies and sad kiddies, relationships flourishing and relationships breathing their last. We all have “stuff”. This is exactly the point.
I’ve heard entrepreneurs say things like, “you don’t develop your business; your business develops YOU”, speaking of the spiritual, emotional, and practical stretches required by such pursuits. The tenacity, courage, and upskilling.
And similarly, pandemics, illness, relationship difficulties, kids-with-challenges, debt, obesity, and the like can be viewed as springboards to immense spiritual and emotional growth.
And CONNECTION to self and others.
If you can somehow (most days) reframe the struggle into a wise friend.
I remember, once, reading about a newly diagnosed HIV-positive person who had a conversation with the virus in his body. He said something along the lines of, “I guess you are here to stay, and so we are going to need to get along. Rule 1: I won’t kill you if you don’t kill me”. And thus began an interplay of “the two of them” journeying together, making their peace, and modifying their existences to accommodate and help each other.
An extremely close friend of mine – family, actually – recently had a cancer scare. While awaiting her results, I expressed to her the sadness I would feel for her – a light, bubbly person – to have to go down a road with no certain beginning or ending. To be bequeathed with a “cancer cloud” in her life.
“Yes”, she answered. “It would be a PROCESS”.
It would be a journey.
A journey that she would unexpectedly thrust upon, and would need to ultimately accept, submit to, embrace, and then, when ready, shift over, make room, and allow to be one of her teachers.
I’m so grateful that we aren’t subscribing to that, right now, though.
In recent years, I’ve spent a lot of time, in the quiet of pre-dawn, writing, journaling, reading, engaging with various teachers and teachings. And I have a weekly, hard-coded, not-negotiable appointment with my own therapist. Because life matters, meaning matters, and experience matters. I sometimes wonder if this time is self-indulgent, but then I remind myself that not every thought I think is true, and that particular one is utter nonsense. Because I have a lot on my plate; my journeys are plentiful. And when I have a relationship with them, and with myself, I am probably a better mom, wife, shrink, friend, employer and person-to-myself than I would be without that process. Eckhardt Tolle speaks about caretaking our inner world, so that we “do not pollute the planet”. Part of being a responsible adult, I believe, is going INWARD with our experiences, and figuring them out there, rather than ONLY projecting them onto our people, acting out and causing unintended harm. We are human though, and will, by default, do both!
Soccrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. It’s not worth it because we are simply then a victim of it, and not an active participant in it.
Examining our lives, and being “on journeys” does the following:
- It validates our experience. It gives it gravitas. It matters that we have an identified pain-point, and the ministering to that pain can begin.
(As an aside, it was Carl Jung who said that symptoms – stress, anxiety, depression, anger, etc – are always a substitute for legitimate suffering. We can run from our REAL thing, into MAKESHIFT thing that will ultimately do more harm. Or we can just shake hands with the real thing and get the show on the road).
- It inspires HOPE. We can construct purpose, passion, and an “inner holding” of ourselves, that feels like a warm hug and a bit of self pride! The current ‘journey-inspiring’ or ‘journey necessitating’ crisis is thus not an ENDING or a moment in time. Rather, it is a BEGINNING, and beautiful, textured experiences can come out of taking a deep, deep breath, and saying, “Right – THING – I am here. Teach me”.
- We can find wise guides, experienced sherpas and roadmaps. But until we take a few steps, and own our new identity, we won’t be googling for ‘that thing’ or reaching out to ‘that person’.
- We can help ourselves. We can get a distance from the immediate overwhelm, and ask ourselves the better questions, than just feeling flooded with feeling… “How can I make this better for myself?”, “what do I need?”, “how could I think about this differently, that would make me feel better about the situation?’.
So, I’m all for people being “on journeys”. Whatever they are. Because I wish for us worlds where we are all more conscious, more switched on, more aware of how we think, feel and impact others. And more ready, willing co-creators of our realities.
Journey on!