As I am writing this, I am sitting in a giant, heavy and incomprehensibly complicated machine called plane. Here I am flying above the ground, being carried to a destination I’ve never been to before. Fully trusting the process, calm and relaxed. I always found flying in planes a fascinating experience. If I take a step back and observe the setting, it is rather unbelievable what is going on. Not even flying itself but also the engagement with traveling infrastructure is like an encounter with true wilderness - complex and ungraspable. I am on my way to Georgia - a week long holiday with my family is ahead of me. I anticipate the upcoming drifts will be dreamy, contemplative reflections, shaped by the experience of being in a new place. I also anticipate some leakages of thoughts about my relationship with my parents. It has been interesting in the past couple of years. I am looking forward to put some things on paper while experiencing being together with them.
On top of it traveling always brings me into a special mood, calming me down, opening up and revitalising. In a way, physical traveling is a form of lazy casual learning. You are taken over by a place, voluntarily surrendering to the environment with a lot of trust and humility involved. You just need to create a structure, a plan, get your tickets, book hotels, organise the framework and the rest will be filled by the place. The pattern manifested through planning and nebulosity is formed by the place you go to. The place you can’t control, predict or escape from. Therefore, traveling is a wonderful way to experience the unity of pattern and nebulosity working together to connect our selfness with the world. Traveling literally connects us with the world, expanding our experience and allowing to immerse ourselves into a foreign environment. That’s the lazy part, I encourage to look further and engage with traveling as a psychotechnology that allows us to expand our boundaries being geographically displaced. Perhaps, planning in a few moments during the journey to go meta can bring positive long term benefits. I will try to practice it this time around. Starting with an intention, sit still in the middle of the trip and round up with reflection time on the way back home.
To formulate my intention I would need to provide some context first. It has been a while since I spent such a long time with my parents and I am looking forward to it. I notice as we become older, aging together, our relationship is asking for a change. But due to the circumstances, past habits, fears and lack of skill to revisit old structures, there is a danger that we keep on following through the same routs as when I was a child. It might sound as a generalisation, I am not intending to do so here. Everything I write in this regard comes from my personal experience, the disclaimer is necessary here as I feel relationships with parens is a sensitive topic for many. But perhaps some of the things will resonate so bear with me. There is something truly magical in the relationship between parents and children, a space that allows for deep-level confrontation with oneself. A space where we can tap into the realness and truth about our otherwise concealed manifestations, regulated to fit into the role of an adult. While being with my parents a lot of this adult role diminishes causing conflict and frustration. There is a saying, if you want to confront your darkest shadow - go visit your parents. Lots of things will come up even in the most caring and loving families. In psychotherapy there is a belief that if one cant’t see how parents negatively affected your adulthood, it complicates the therapeutic process because first we need to find out what is not wanting to be seen. There is no way someone escapes some sort of trauma gained during upbringing. The magnitude and the affect are different as well as acquired tools to cope with it. Tools, by the way, are also something that parents provide, so in that sense the system has the quality to correct itself, if done right. As that rarely happens we have to work out childhood traumas in our adulthood with external tools, either self-reflection or the help of a professional.
Since I started my journey I had quite a few important insights with regards to my upbringing. I am not ready to talk about them at the moment, but I hope my traveling to Georgia will clarify some of them. My intention for the trip is to revitalise the connection with my parents, check in with them, find out how things are, share how I am. It never was easy, though, despite the fact that I fall into the category my parents are great we have a wonderful relationship. Yet, I feel it is time to move out of the category and try to be together in a new way. Sounds big, I know. But intentions are mostly like slightly idealistic, grand aiming at the better future.