To Go Forward in Life, Step Back

“Why are you asking me so much about my childhood? I came here because my girlfriend broke up with me, not to talk about that.”

I was upset with Brenda. She was my counsellor at the university wellness clinic. I was a 23-year old graduate student. I was living on my own for the first time in a new city. I was struggling to balance a university teaching assistantship and a full load of classes of my own. And I was heartbroken and needed help.

I don’t remember Brenda’s reply to me that day. I’m sure she said something wise and compassionate. I, however, was lost in a fog of grief most of that fall. My brain was just not processing all that well. All I remember from that day I was feeling even more hurt. She’d missed the whole reason for me coming there!

A Vancouver therapist myself now, I understand why she asked me that question.

She wanted to help me see that the relationships in my life were characterized by a certain kind of pattern. That pattern had repeated itself - and would keep repeating itself - as long as I remained unaware of the childhood pain that drove it.

This latest breakup was just the latest addition to the pattern. Unless I was willing to examine some things that had happened to me when I was a child, I would, without even knowing it, just seek to replicate that old, familiar pattern. Like in the movie Groundhog Day, I’d experience the same heartbreak and bewilderment over and over again.

She might have made her point to me another way: to go forward with your life, you sometimes need to go back first.*

It’s the same principle you see in action when you watch baseball, golf or any racquet sport.

Players first take a step back, then they swing forward.

The weight transfer to the back foot is the very thing that allows them move the ball forward with speed, precision and force.

As in sport, so in life.

Step back. Gather strength. Then step forward.
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Step back. Gather strength. Contact me about my therapy services in Vancouver.

* (credit for the backswing metaphor goes to former UBC professor Dr. Norm Amundson)