Let's journey that! (or perhaps not?)

​I hate these words, let’s journey that… It always came out of my psychologist mouth and it was something that I knew I was going to delve deep into my dreaded past again.

I am so damn visual so every time this was said - I was straight into my imagination, getting out my map, my compass, my pace counter (yes, I am so damn Army) but I got out the tools and I visualised it. I looked over the grid squares of the map that I was about to commence this damn journey on. I was there again, ready to stomp all over that ground.

So, we talked, the counsellor and I, we talked all through it all. We discussed all the horrible shit, the pain, the past, how I felt about it, how I can I sit with it and how I can forgive it all. I think I have discussed it in every damn possible way to ensure that no stone was left unturned!

Did I journey it then, yes for me I felt I had stepped over every piece of damn dirt on the grid squares of my map. Over that damn feature, alongside each creek line, checked every crossing, identified all the roads... yep I covered it all. I noted it down, I paid attention, I looked at my surroundings. I analysed them and honestly felt I could tell you about every detail of this area. I would even say I am a bloody expert in this territory!

In my mind I had journeyed the hell out this… So, I am fixed right? Because that is what we do? We discuss it in every way possible and we forgive it, we love it and magically we can move on from this… I mean seriously we can only keep going back over it so much. I feel comfortable with it, I have made peace with it, I am aware of it, I gave it love, I forgave. Phew ok all bases covered, another chink in my armour a little smoothed out.

Then when an argument with a loved one, or my inner critic is creating a massive fear which is related back to that damn grid square on my map, why don’t I recall how much I have worked on that and my work is done in this area... Come on! I have journeyed the hell out of this… I do not need to be pulled back.

Seriously in my head, I have walked up and down and navigated the fuck out of it so why am I back here again?

It’s such a funny thing, only funny afterwards but when I sit back, and I look at this… and only when I have stopped seeking someone else to try and fix it! When I have the realisation that I am enough, and I become accountable for LOOKING AFTER ME, BELIEVING IN ME! Only then have I grown. Challenging that inner critic every damn time to create a stronger path of not going back to those grid squares do I truly grow. I am all that I need for this journey.