Packing: Preparing for The Journey

The Healing Journey

Consider, if you will, your hardship as a journey. The beginning of that journey may be very clear to you though the end seems out of sight. The journey might have started years ago—or just yesterday. You may have had time to prepare for the difficulties of that journey or no time at all. You might have been absolutely overwhelmed when the journey began. Or you may have neatly folded up all your feeling, bundled them away, and carried on.

While we can't take the hardship out of humanity, humanity is equipped with an instinct for healing and wholeness. That instinct just seems broken sometimes. And strange as it may sound, the road to healing goes right through hardship, not around.

As you embark on your journey, please be mindful of this: Compassion is the best fuel. Without the highest possible regard for yourself during this time, your pain will grow. If you get angry, anxious or depressed, and then judge yourself for those reactions, your hardship will be amplified. The truth is, if you tended to be angry, anxious or depressed before the hardship, there's a good chance the stress of your trauma will exaggerate those emotions. Compassion for yourself, right now, as you are, will help the pain. You are allowed to be human.

Beginning the Journey

At the beginning of the journey beyond tragedy, horror, joblessness, a diagnosis, an intense divorce, debt, isolation, betrayal, pain, sleeplessness, abuse, alcohol or rage, you may not even be sure of your destination. Actually, that can be a good thing. Sometimes, when you're not sure where you're going, you increase the chances of arriving somewhere different from where you've always been.

For most, hardship begins with a rush of unbearable feelings. Then, one of four things happens. Some people, in spite of the intense emotions, move on. They just take the next step, and then the next. For others, the highly intense emotions take hold and immobilize them. Still others do something with those powerful, difficult feelings called packing. That is, the feelings are so strong and life so demanding they just stop feeling altogether, packing their feelings away. Lastly, many people go forward with their lives, managing some combination of these reactions. All in all, the beginning of the journey is mighty gritty and troublesome. While it's true that good can be found anywhere, hardship by its nature makes good hard to find.

How did your hardship journey begin? Did you have time to prepare? You may have had a quiet sense of knowing that hardship was nearing. Consequently, there may have been time to get ready. Or maybe your hardship came out of nowhere, and in an instant, the world was a very different place.

Were you one of those with a gut feeling that your life was about to change? Deep inside, you may have been putting together small cues or subtle intuitions. For you, when the crippling news came of your hardship, you were stunned, maybe even broken, but not surprised. Perhaps your tragic news came as soldiers knocking on your door, somberly delivering confirmation of fears about your son or daughter in an overseas war. Or it could be, your hardship began with devastating lab results that validated an instinct about your unborn child.

Perhaps for you, the inner rumblings that kept you up at night were proven right when your spouse walked away from the dinner table saying, "I'm in love with someone else." Or the hardship may have begun for you as all the pieces fell uncomfortably into place with the announcement at a staff meeting of major job cuts.

On the other hand, your hardship may have come with no time for you to prepare. Many life traumas arrive with no warning: a phone call informs you of the accidental death of your spouse; a normal day at work becomes something very different when a machine malfunction takes your sight; a routine colonoscopy quickly becomes anything but routine when you awake to the news of a cancer diagnosis; a walk to your car at the mall turns into a horrific violation in the parking lot; a scream from next-door calls you to the aid of a neighbor whose spouse had committed suicide; a natural disaster leveled your home in a matter of minutes. In these cases, nothing hints at the start of the hardship journey.

Packing for the Journey

Whether your hardship unfolded with warning or with no notice at all, in the beginning of the journey, things change drastically, and it's challenging to keep pace. You can feel sick on emotion. You can't catch up with yourself. On top of your emotional upheaval, there are often many urgent practical matters needing attention. As a result, painful thoughts and feelings can take a back seat. It's OK.

This is packing: tucking away difficult images and emotions that can flood you at the beginning of the journey beyond hardship. Packing affords you the energy and focus needed for daily life.

Just like preparing for a trip, packing in this sense can be a way to get ready for the journey ahead. Packing can steady you emotionally, mentally or relationally for the coming days, months or even years on the hardship road.

This is a strained, strange and unstable stage of the journey. The mind whirls. The body suffers....