We do not need to constantly center the problems and emotional “issues” in our lives.
While therapy and emotional work generally are incredibly useful and often completely necessary, I worry that they can sometimes encourage us to re-process difficult situations, relationships, etc., ad nauseam, beyond the point of usefulness. We start breathing life into the dark, difficult, negative aspects of our lives. We get stuck on what we did wrong, what we didn’t get, or who hurt us in the past.
Your “issues” are just a tiny fraction of who you are and what you’ve experienced. They are potholes in the road. They are a puff of cloud temporarily blocking out the vast Sun of your being. They are not you.
Of course, we all must be careful not to bypass difficult emotions or fail to take accountability for unhealthy behaviors. When we leave these issues unaddressed, they eventually come back to haunt us and those in our lives. That’s why therapy and other forms of deep emotional work are often so necessary and fruitful. I’ve benefited immensely from them and will almost certainly continue to throughout my life.
But you don’t need to keep going back to that well over and over. At some point, we’ve received the message. We’ve seen what there is to see. We’ve expressed what there is to express. We’ve grieved what there is to grieve. At least for now.
It can be OK and constructive to simply focus on the truth of who you are at your core and what life is asking of you.
