I had an interesting conversation with a psychotherapist the other day about emotional baggage and whether we actually need to dive into it or not. In her opinion, yes, it is necessary - but I myself am not so sure. It is not that I don't think it can't be useful, more that I think it can lead down an endless rabbit hole of issues that will keep putting barriers up to making changes for the future.
Where does the trauma end?
Conversely, I also don't think it is good to just bury everything without discernment, because some of that baggage may contain something that really needs to be dealt with before moving on. But, just because something needs to be dealt with, it doesn't mean everything needs to be dealt with, because the work it takes might not be worth the difference it makes.
I am a proponent of emotional management, not denial of emotions. For me, they provide an indicator that can point to an issue, but that doesn't mean they need to be acted upon. Nor does it mean that the emotions are justified in the first. An emotional reaction to a misheard word still feels valid, even though it is based on an error in understanding. Acting on emotions as if they validate behaviour, is poor behaviour and will be met with a lot of unnecessary conflict and harm.
But as the therapist said, it is also possible that even if we lock away our emotional baggage, it can find ways to leak out. For instance, prior to the stroke, I hadn't really felt any sense of physical stress based on work volume, because before it ever got to that point, I had strategies to prepare for and cope with for instance, the volume of work. This saved me from feeling that pressure that people describe when getting burned out. But, after the stroke I lost connection to both the early warning signs that would trigger my strategies, and the strategies themselves. But, even though I don't consciously feel stressed in my head, I get the physical reactions in my body.
If I hadn't have developed the strategies earlier, I likely would have burned out from various stressful periods throughout life which often came layered on top of one another. But, since I learned about various aspects when young, I built strategies before I ever got to that point. Unfortunately, this isn't the way most people prepare for stress, because while they aren't stressed, they feel they are able to cope. But once the stress starts, they make an assumption it is because the stress level is too high, not that they never actually built a robust strategy.
I think an easy way to consider this is like going to the gym to train muscle strength prior to actually needing to use the muscles under duress. Being strong before having to lift a heavy weight obviously means that the task is easier to deal with. But, if the muscles aren't developed until after the need arises, it becomes an impossible task.
And through my own observations, a lot of people get stressed by the "impossible" situations they face, despite people next to them facing the same situation, can manage. But they don't ask themselves why that is the case, because they are stressed and focusing on their own suffering.
When stressed is not the time to start building strategies to cope with stress, as it is like turning up to centre court at Wimbledon as a place to start to practice serving. The work has to be done before, the skills developed before, the muscles strengthened, strategies repeated before being needed. And that is what a lot of childhood and young experience does for us, as it gives us opportunities and exposure to lower level stressors that we can learn to deal with. But, if in childhood our approach is to avoid difficult situations, we do not develop the tools we require to face higher level stresses in the future as an adult.
For example, one of my clients today was saying about her divorce several years ago, that she is ironically now in a place where she would be okay in that relationship. That is part of the experience though, isn't it? It seems ironic at times, but it speaks to the progression and growth we make as an individual to deal with our world, and how we learn from our experience to face our future. We can't go back to the past, but we can make better choices going forward.
And this is why I wonder how useful digging into the baggage of the past is all the time, because there might not be that much to learn from it that is useful for us now. Yes, it might bring in some kind of emotional safety or relief, but does it help us improve? And then, is the improvement worth the energy from looking back, or could that same energy have more impact working forward?
Everyone these days seems to be looking for "efficiency hacks" and keep on finding trends and gimmicks to follow. But, is the energy usage to follow these actually making it efficient? For example, a lot of people sit down in front of a screen to "unwind" from the day, but is that actually the best way to unwind? Is an hour in front of a streaming service as impactful as an hour of meditation? If meditation is too difficult and the mind won't settle, why is that the case?
Of course, we each have to find our way through the life and my answers aren't your answers, but I do think that a lot of the personal strategies we believe to be robust and effective, are actually comfort mechanisms that do not have the effect we think they do. They are our defaults, and we tell ourselves a story that they are working, like all the people who say they are good at handling stress, when they aren't stressed. And when they are stressed, it is because what they face is so stressful, everyone would be stressed.
But that is nonsense.
We all have different levels of coping strategies that we employ to manage our lives, and just like managers in the workplace, there can be a very large variation in effectivity. We might believe we are a good manager, but we might actually be the one that is tearing the team (of ourselves) apart. Trying to micro-manage, focusing on the wrong tasks, unable to prioritise, causing friction. But, because we have always been in the management position, we think that time-in makes us capable. Time is not a good measure of skill, experience is. And if in our experience we avoid dealing with difficult situations and stresses as they arise when young, it is likely we are going to be stressed when we are older.
"A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor"
And with so many ways to turn our attention to something else, we can keep creating an impression of a smooth sea, rather than facing the swells and learning to ride the smaller waves, preparing ourselves to surf the fifty-year storm. And it is when we avoid dealing with what we face at a daily level, that the baggage starts to build up and weigh us down. And eventually, when it starts to break the hinges and tumble out of the hold, we still don't have the skills and strategies to deal with the fallout.
Taraz
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