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> changing your geographic frame of reference really helps. Thanks for saying this. I was stuck and faced my problems head-on for years in therapy (and every d

> changing your geographic frame of reference really helps. Thanks for saying this. I was stuck and faced my problems head-on for years in therapy (and every day life). More than one therapist I saw for an extended period of time really drove home the point that the "geographical cure" doesn't work because you just bring your problems with you. But that's an incredibly myopic view. After finally breaking up with those therapists/asshats, I went through a period of being nomadic and then settled elsewhere. Some of my problems went away immediately, some came with me, others appeared. But I was more able to separate myself from my context, process difficult emotions with distance from the triggers, receive the gifts of a new place and its culture, see how different people live/struggle elsewhere. I don't think there's any other way I could have turned my trajectory around.

vanusa 5y ago
It's true that you'll always have your problems with you. It's also true that "wherever you go, there you are." But for every set of problems S₁ ... there's a secondary set S₂ that consists basically of "thinking too damn much about S₁" along with a heaping portion of "why me, why me, why me?". The growth of which starts to take on a life of its own, and to greatly leverage the suffering that S₁ would otherwise cause on its own. So part of the basic healing mechanism of the change-of-coordinates approach is that, while it doesn't reduce the size of S₁ directly ... it does help reduce the run-away swelling of S₂ very substantially. Which allows slow-acting but powerful natural healing factors (the passage of time, as a sibling commenter point out) to focus much better on S₁. Until one day, you're going about your business ... and you realize you haven't thought about S₁ in a while. Not just for a couple of hours, but for a like a full day or more. That's when you start to realize that it's at least possible to move on.

vanusa 5y ago

It's true that you'll always have your problems with you. It's also true that "wherever you go, there you are." But for every set of problems S₁ ... there's a secondary set S₂ that consists basically of "thinking too damn much about S₁" along with a heaping portion of "why me, why me, why me?". The growth of which starts to take on a life of its own, and to greatly leverage the suffering that S₁ would otherwise cause on its own. So part of the basic healing mechanism of the change-of-coordinates approach is that, while it doesn't reduce the size of S₁ directly ... it does help reduce the run-away swelling of S₂ very substantially. Which allows slow-acting but powerful natural healing factors (the passage of time, as a sibling commenter point out) to focus much better on S₁. Until one day, you're going about your business ... and you realize you haven't thought about S₁ in a while. Not just for a couple of hours, but for a like a full day or more. That's when you start to realize that it's at least possible to move on.