Getting into a difficult situation, experiencing a crisis in a relationship or at a loss before a choice, we often seek advice: we ask friends, colleagues or the Internet. We are driven by the principle learned from childhood: why invent something that has already been invented before us. However, in solving personal issues, this principle often does not work, and advice causes irritation instead of relief. Why is this happening and how to find a solution?
When clients seek help, they often ask for advice. For example, how to get out of a relationship or how to fix it. They ask whether it is worth leaving work, is it time to have a baby, what to do to become more confident, stop being shy.
It would seem that most of the questions are as old as the world — have they really not yet come up with some kind of general rule or saving pill that would help in any case? Some people directly ask about this, for example: “Do you think there is a future for relations with this person?” Alas, here I have to upset: neither I nor my colleagues have a universal answer. “Then what are we to do?” — you ask. “Invent the wheel,” I answer.
Mankind has created so many convenient devices that make life easier that reinventing what already exists is a waste of time. But when it comes to issues like building relationships, gaining confidence, coping with grief, or accepting loss, there’s simply no other option but to reinvent the wheel. Yes, one that is perfect for us.
I remember, as a child, we swapped bicycles with a neighbor boy just out of curiosity. He looked like an ordinary bike, but how uncomfortable it was: his feet barely reached the pedals, and the seat seemed too hard. It will be about the same if you hastily follow someone’s advice and start arranging life according to someone else’s pattern: like friends, as advised on TV or insisted by parents.
Living our feelings and opening up to new ones, we gradually — on our own or with the help of a psychotherapist — assemble our own bicycle.
In part, psychotherapy is a process of reinventing the wheel, a careful, careful search for answers to the questions “how should I be” and “what will suit me.” Relationships cannot be learned from books, although they can be helpful if they help you ask yourself the right questions. Let’s say artificial intelligence has chosen the perfect companion for us. But even choosing a partner according to a verified formula, as a result we encounter a living person, and we have no choice but to live these relationships ourselves, experimenting and improvising in them.
What to say to your partner when you quarrel? How to agree on finances, on who will take out the trash? You have to invent answers yourself. Which of them will turn out to be true, you can determine only by listening to yourself. And, it is likely that they will turn out to be completely different from those recommended by friends or the Internet.
To accept the loss, there is no other way out than to live it. To become more confident, it is important to figure out where it comes from, exactly my insecurity. What do I pay attention to that makes me shy?
So, living through feelings and opening up to new ones, we gradually — ourselves or with the help of a psychotherapist — assemble our own bicycle. Someone will have it with pink ribbons and a basket for books, someone with studded tires and powerful wheels. And only after pushing off the ground on a bicycle that we have created for ourselves, we begin to pedal towards our real self.