Shortly after my grandmother died, I sat on the faded cream couch of my own therapist with a sense of equanimity that felt fresh and enlivening.
In the years leading up to her passing, I’d expected that the actual experience would leave a deep hole. But my grandmother had gone into her final hours and subsequent death with a spirit of acceptance and joy. Being part of that seemed to undo a lifetime of fear I’d carried about these kind of endings. It was her final gift to me, and I felt the most profound sense of gratitude.
By the time I was processing what happened with my therapist, I had been living with a newfound sense of calm for a few weeks. “Something so fundamental has shifted in me,” I told her. “This existential weight I’ve been carrying feels lifted.” Tears moved down my face.
My therapist’s eyes offered the genuine joy that I knew she felt for me. “I am so happy for you. What a gift,” she smiled.
“A part of me is afraid though,” I continued. “I don’t want to go back to carrying that weight again. This just feels so good.”
She brushed her hair back from her face and looked at me thoughtfully. “What comes up must come down,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not here now.”
I can imagine that in a different context, a different relationship, her warning that what comes up will come down would land as raining on my hard-won parade. Hardly a therapist thing to do, it might seem, to anticipate the worst. But after over a decade of work together, I tucked the comment in my pocket, trusting its truth even in my distaste for the idea.
Several weeks later, I could feel the slow return of the existential anxiety. It wasn’t all at once, but it was undeniable. I was edgier, had less perspective, and found my mind circling familiar ruminative threads. Sitting back on her cream couch, I breathed, “It’s come down.”
She looked at me with care, but not surprise, nor concern. She’d told me this was coming, of course, and here I was. I was feeling deep grief, not so much for the loss of my grandmother, but for what felt like the loss of this incredible progress I had made. Had it even been real? Had I done something to reverse it? Was it worse that I got a taste of what I’d wanted, to now feel back here again?
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Being back again at a place we’ve departed can meet us with a particular kind of disorientation. When it feels significant or prolonged – when our behavior starts to resemble what it once was – we give it names like regression or even relapse.
We want nothing less than to feel like we’re going backwards. It hardly feels fair. It’s frustrating, it’s confusing, it’s demoralizing.
As many times as we can be told that our journeys aren’t a straight line, somewhere deep we hold on to the fantasy that they are indeed a straight line. Or maybe a meandering or curving line, but at least not one that circles all the way back to a place we’ve already left.
But circles seem to be more the way of it, at least in my experience. Or more specifically – spirals.
When we’re in the process of healing or becoming, we can imagine our path as an upward spiral, a staircase of sorts. We start out on our journey doing the therapy, practicing the skills, breaking the habits – and we are moving forward. We feel excited. We feel proud! Meanwhile, our path’s bend and slope are so gradual that we barely notice that we are starting to curve around. But we are in fact curving, and eventually we circle back around the same familiar places – the people, feelings, patterns.
Encountering our old stuff is tricky and sometimes scary. It can convince us that we’re not as far along as thought that we were, and that belief can settle into the cracks of a still-forming new identity. But if we can resist that belief – or maybe just hold it lightly – encountering our old stuff could instead help us witness what’s now different.
Because each time we circle back to those old places, we’re at a higher elevation on the spiral. We’re seeing them, but we’re seeing them at a different altitude – with a different set of experiences and insights under our belts. It might not seem like much, but it’s actually everything.
When I sat with the return of my existential angst, my mind wanted to reach for despair. It felt deeply unfair that the pit that had taken up residence for so much of life, and had mercifully departed for a time, was taking shape again. I wanted no part of that. But it was there again, and I was willing to look at it.
Once I did, I noticed that the pit actually wasn’t exactly the same. It was heavy, sure – but maybe not quite as heavy? It took up space, but maybe not quite as much space? There was more room around the edges, I could tell. And most importantly, there was me looking at it like this – willing and able to see its contours.
There was also a warmth – made possible, I believe, by my therapist – that I could offer the pit. There was still a part of me that didn’t want it, but even while feeling my sadness that it was back, I could let it be there without the desperation to exile it.
That’s one thing about finding ourselves back in familiar territory. As much as we might not want to stay, we know we’ve survived it before.
None of this is to suggest that finding ourselves back in these places calls for complacency. These times often call for hard work. Hard work, to be clear, isn’t panic. But it might be staying extra conscious. Doubling down on the practices that have helped us move in a different direction. Being open and honest with the people that can help us walk the path.
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I’m not trying to convince you that regressions feel good. But I hope I can offer that they aren’t without meaning.
Regressions have this way of showing us what the work really is. The work is not about putting our previous selves so far behind us that we forget or fear them. It’s about cultivating a steadiness that can meet those selves with compassion and warmth.
When I’m on the other side of the couch, serving as therapist myself, one of my favorite experiences is walking the spiral with people. It’s one of the reasons that longer-term therapy is so meaningful. I get to look at someone and earnestly reflect that while the landscape looks familiar, they are showing up to it so differently — that finding themselves here is not a failure of the work, but evidence of it.
Just as my own therapist has done for me— a witness to the coming up and the coming down, and the return again.
Never the same.
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Questions for Reflection
- Where are you finding yourself here again?
- What is the same and what is different this time?
- What story are you telling yourself about what this return means?
- What might change if this is not a step backward, but part of the path forward?
