Get Out of Town.

"It was important, I felt, to get out of town immediately." -Hunter S. Thompson

A few years ago, my life began to resemble a country song. 

A relationship in which I placed great hope and meaning ended in disillusionment and heartbreak. My beloved dog, who had been my best friend, work-companion, and family member for eleven years, died two days later. Within a week, I was told that upcoming changes at my workplace meant that my job was in jeopardy, and that I should prepare to be unemployed within a few months. 

My logical brain told me it was time to start socking away money for the impending "rainy day."

Instead, I bought a ticket to New Zealand. 

I was talking to my acupuncturist, whom I was seeing for help with back pain (the "icing on top" from the stress of recent events), and was telling him about my upcoming trip. He looked me deeply in the eyes, furrowed his brow, put on his best attempt at a "therapist-voice", and said, "Jane, it sounds like you're just trying to run away from your problems."

"You're damned right I am," I said. 

As a therapist, I have often warned people against the "Geographical Cure." This is the mistaken belief that just moving away to a new town, making a "fresh start" with all new people and surroundings, will cure one's ills and emotional pain. Our ingrained relational patterns, deep wounds, and poor coping skills tend to go with us wherever we are, unless we actually get help and do the hard work of making changes on a deeper level. It's an attempt to game the system, to avoid doing the deeper work by running away, rather than walking through, our pain. 

Travel, I would argue, is different. Sometimes "running away from your problems" for a short amount of time can be an excellent tool for getting some outside perspective on your own life, restoring your sense that you're a small being in a very large and wondrous world, and returning to your own situation with fresh eyes. Spending time in glorious nature (OMG, New Zealand!) is a restorative balm for a wounded soul. Sometimes taking a break from one's life is a vital type of detox or fast, clearing out some of the buildup of riffraff and emotional clutter. It's no wonder that research shows that vacations make workers more productive and creative when they return. 

Even if money or time is tight and you cannot make any substantial plans, incorporate the spirit of travel into your life when possible. Be a tourist in your own town. Instead of going to your usual places, visit some new spots/restaurants/parks and engage your curiosity. Most of all, practice looking at things with an attitude of wonder (the best gift of travel), no matter where you are. And don't be afraid to "run away from your problems" for just a little while.

Muscle Memory

“Remember, whatever you focus upon, increases...When you focus on the things you need, you'll find those needs increasing. If you concentrate your thoughts on what you don't have, you will soon be concentrating on other things that you had forgotten you don't have-and feel worse! If you set your mind on loss, you are more likely to lose...But a grateful perspective brings happiness and abundance into a person's life.”  
―     Andy Andrews,     The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective.

There I was, lying on the Pilates equipment, springs and loops and other dangling contraptions hanging from the iron bars over my head, not unlike a medieval torture instrument. The goal was simple: to lift my torso and head up just a few inches towards my bent knees, not even 1/4 of a regular sit-up. And every time I tried, there was my instructor's commanding voice: "Jane, stop engaging your back! Focus on your core-- it has to come from your core muscles. You're engaging your back, stop it! Think only about your core muscles, picture them, only focus on the ones you want to use. Stop thinking about your back and whether it's going to hurt. Only the core!" 

I committed to practicing Pilates this year because I had ongoing pain from an old injury to my back, and I finally got tired enough of it to do something.  Little did I know that this physical activity would require that I engage my mind so much. The sweat coming down my forehead in that moment came from the difficulty of mental focus rather than physical strain, and I immediately saw the parallel to other areas of life.

In therapy sessions, I frequently talk to people about redirecting their thoughts. Here's why: often we assume that just because we're thinking something, it must be true. But usually our automatic negative thoughts, those self-contemptuous phrases & ideas that play in the background like a recorded tape, are only there because we've played them so frequently that they happen involuntarily. In the same way that someone with an old injury can automatically engage the wrong muscles to compensate, and build the wrong habit over years, we can engage negative thoughts and ideas about ourselves repeatedly until they become second nature, and feel true.

We all have old injuries, physical or emotional. Sometimes we choose ways of coping and compensating that eventually cause more pain and trouble than they solve. The process of undoing the old coping habits (ex. hateful thoughts about ourselves) and replacing them with healthy ways of functioning (building our proverbial Core), means "unlearning" certain habits, and takes effort to redirect and refocus thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, about others, and sometimes about God. I takes effort and concentration sometimes.  

I wept with frustration, in front of everyone in the Pilates studio. -Not only because I kept doing it wrong despite my efforts, but because I had years of pain & exasperation built up behind this moment.  The more I was focusing on my core, the more I was unraveling my old coping mechanism of overusing my back-- and it was scary to release an old way of doing things, even if the old way brought chronic hurt. My instructor was unphased by my tears. "Trust me. You're going to be ok. I've seen this before, and you can handle this. You have to let go. Focus on your core. TRUST ME! YOU CAN DO THIS!" As I was silently cursing her, gritting my teeth, and trying once more to refocus my thoughts, I felt a slight flutter of a forgotten core muscle I didn't even know I had. It was just a little pulse, just enough to say "I'm here!", but I knew I'd be able to find it again. And that little flutter of a muscle is getting stronger and easier to engage now-- it's almost becoming second nature.

 We are not defined or restrained by our old injuries, no matter how recent or long ago they've happened. Sometimes it just takes getting tired of the pain, refocusing our thoughts (sometimes hundreds of times), grieving the losses, and trusting until that core gets a little stronger and we don't have to lean on our old coping mechanisms. It's never too late to learn a new way of thinking, no matter what your old injury is. "Trust me. You can do this."

(reposted from August 2013)