044 🛢️ When the barrel overflows

Visualizing in therapy

Welcome to my email newsletter 'Never not [thinking about] running' - a weekly newsletter about running and mental health. If you haven't subscribed yet and you're not sure whether you really want to receive an e-mail from me on every Thursday, have a look at the archive. Today's newsletter is about the long ride in therapy, detours and, rarely, shortcuts on the way to the happy side of life. To put it very boldly.

The opener

Anyone who has ever attended therapy or perhaps any seminar knows the question: “How are you here today? How are you?” - That's a difficult question. How do you answer it? Are you honest and answer in detail about what's on your mind at the moment, how it's affecting your mood and which idiot almost drove into your bike this morning? Or do you choose the option that you're doing quite well and we can get on with it now?

In therapy, you naturally tend to go for option number one. After all, you're in therapy to talk about everyday problems. The problem is that you might not reach your goal this way. You get lost in the little things, stop at every milk can in life with your therapy bus and yet you want to go to the sunny south to enjoy your life.

And yes, my therapy bus has made a lot of stops recently and every now and then, when we stop briefly at the top of a hill, I can see the sea glistening in the distance and imagine what it would be like to be there already. But we're not. Well... on we go.

I told my therapist the same thing the other day and she shared the same feeling. That sometimes the common thread is missing. So we sat together this week to take stock. To see where I stand.

Where is the way leading?

To do this, she drew up a barrel. When clients come to her, this barrel is usually full or already overflowing. What spills over are the symptoms that are bothering them. In the barrel itself are all the things that are bothering you. In my case, a lot of things came together and my therapist asked me how I felt about it.

To be honest, I had to swallow hard, because it's sometimes not so easy to name things, to realize how you feel. Seeing that so many symptoms keep cropping up and the barrel keeps spilling over also makes you doubt. Is this here actually doing any good?

Visualizing the good things

We carried on and then came the really exciting part. It would be good to have valves so that the barrel doesn't keep overflowing. That would help all the shit to run out in the right place. And in the past, my barrel was fitted with exactly one valve. Guess which one.

Yes - you are right. Running it is. And that's ok too, but it's just one valve and at that moment, the scales fell from my eyes. Hey - a lot has changed here. There is no longer just one valve. There are many more of them. How many times in the last few years have I despaired when I was ill and couldn't run? Countless times. But in the last few weeks, that wasn't an issue at all.

I picked up a book to read. I sat down at the computer and designed something on the 3D printer. I played a board game with my wife. This and that. No thought about how bad it is not to be able to go for a run to release pressure. Recently, I even considered not going for a run on a free evening. Just like that. Crazy.

There is still work to do

It should also be noted that the valves work differently and that there should be one or two more that have special functions, but the feeling I had at the end of the therapy session was better. I have made progress here. All the stops in between were good and important. And as long as I can see the sea and don't turn back, it's good.

But for us as a therapy team (therapist plus client) it was also good to visualize it all again. To see where we have already arrived and where the red thread leads. Where the road leads. That was good and a real eye-opener.

Mental health update

I'm just realizing what an impact reading has on me. In recent years, I've mainly watched series before going to sleep. In a life before Netflix and co, however, I used to read books and I have now reintroduced this. It's often very inspiring and feels a lot better than just being bombarded by a stream.

Running Update

Following a training-plan again. Form is bad. Nevertheless it’s working out at the moment and it is getting better.

The end:

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