A lot of my clients had terrible things happen to them. Sometimes as little children, babies even. Sometimes much more recently. And very often they’ll be transfixed by the past, and a great deal of their energy goes into coping with it.
Perhaps they’re stuck reliving the events over and over, trapped in a state of endless turmoil or sorrow or rage. Or they may be working so hard to repress old memories that their life is drained of joy and spontaneity. Some people get locked into patterns of reactive compensation, and end up following a life path that has no real meaning for them. They wonder why their life feels so dead. Or why they keep falling into the same destructive patterns.
I’ve started thinking of this preoccupation with the past as Walking Backwards Into the Future.
As folks start shedding the old traumas and emotional baggage, as the compulsion to look back starts to fade, often times they’ll be at a loss for a while. What do I do now? If I don’t have this ‘issue’ anymore, then who am I?
This is the most delicious moment in therapy, when the realization really sets in that “Oh my god, I am FREE”. And that’s when (grounded in the present) we can finally turn around and face the future. We can take stock of what we really want to do, and be, and start making new choices.
That’s really why I’m in this business.
