There are certain things in life that seem to find their way back to us.
A feeling we thought we had moved through. A pattern we thought we had broken. A familiar kind of situation, or perhaps an old reaction that catches us by surprise.
It can be frustrating when this happens. We can wonder why we are here again, especially when we have spent so much time trying to understand ourselves, heal, grow and move forward.
But maybe coming back to something doesn’t always mean we haven’t moved forward.
Sometimes we come back to things because we are finally in a different place from which to see them.
There are things we simply aren’t ready to look at at certain points in our lives. Not because we are avoiding them or doing something wrong, but because we don’t yet have the space, understanding or capacity for them. Sometimes we are just trying to get through what is in front of us.
And then life changes. We change.
We have different experiences. We understand ourselves a little better. We become more aware of what our body is telling us. We might have more support around us, or simply more room to feel what we couldn’t feel before.
And something that once felt too difficult to look at can begin to reveal itself differently.
The situation may be similar, but we aren’t.
Perhaps we notice the tension in our body sooner, or we recognise that familiar feeling before it takes over. Maybe an old emotion comes up and, this time, we don’t need to run from it or immediately find a way to make it go away.
We can sit with it.
This is something I think is easy to miss when we talk about healing. We can imagine that healing means reaching a point where the same things never affect us again, but life doesn’t really work that way. Things come back.
Stress comes back. Grief comes back. Old fears can surface. Our bodies can return to familiar patterns when we are under pressure. That doesn’t necessarily mean we are back at the beginning. Sometimes it is simply another opportunity to meet something with the understanding we have now.
Perhaps that is why certain things seem to appear again when we are ready for them. Not because there is some perfect timing to everything, but because we can finally see what was always there.
And sometimes the thing that needs to change isn’t the situation itself, but the way we are able to be with it.
So if something familiar has been showing up again lately, instead of asking yourself, Why am I back here?
It might be worth considering:
What can I see now that I couldn’t see before?
Warmly,
Joel Delaney and the Paddington Clinic team.
