“The tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, lacking complete mental health.” M. Scott Peck – The Road Less Traveled
I just love this quote. It flies in the face of the culture that we live in. We live in a culture of comfort and avoidance. We are surrounded by convenience and quick fixes. The idea of suffering for anything is just not popular. Yet, I believe that as a society we pay a price for living this way. We can lose our very souls and the essence of who we were created to be.
One of the biggest fears that I often hear when people are considering Grief Recovery or Life Coaching is “will I make it through?” The perception is that if I take this class or begin coaching on emotional, spiritual or mental issues I will fall apart and I will never be able to come back together again. That it will be too overwhelming and I will lose me. And I understand the fear. We’ve been trained to believe that. Many of us were raised this way, by very well meaning parents/caregivers/societal culture who taught us that negative feelings and perhaps any experience that could lead to them were to be avoided at all costs. Avoidance is what lead me to dangerous behavior and drug addiction. I believed the lie.
The ironic part about this belief that taking a class (or any transformational workshop), coaching or other methods of facing what is inside will be detrimental is that the opposite is actually true. We suffer to a much greater degree by not dealing with what we are carrying. Yes, it can be painful to look inside or to walk through a process to resolve things we have experienced or lost. Yet, it is damaging to keep going and not. Things do not get better with time and they do not just go away. Avoidance will only lead to greater neurosis and a heightened problem.
You can see this happen in relationships. People may get in a romantic relationship (or even a friendship though it seems to play out at a deeper level in a romantic relationship) and feel that the other person is the one. That person is making them happy. Then time goes on and things start to get hard and the person decides this is not the one I need to go out and find someone else. Then the cycle continues. No matter how many people this person finds to get in relationship with the same result continues. Why? Because it’s not the other person. The relationship is only bringing out what is inside and what needs to be dealt with. Until the person makes the decision to look inside and go through the process of resolving it, it won’t matter who the relationship is with.
So to the fear that so many have of walking through a process to get healing or healthy, the truth is that yes, it will be challenging. You will most likely feel things that you may not want to feel. You may even face things that were not your fault but deeply affect you. Yet, on the other side there is a freedom that you have never experienced. Your life goes from the inside out. Your outer world reflects your inner world. If you choose to run you will only go in circles because you take you with you. You cannot run from yourself as much as you may try. So I pray that you will decide to stop running, stop avoiding and do the things that will bring you back to the person you were created to be.
