Journey Therapy
Opportunity Wealth Group
We love travelling for various reasons: we escape our daily routine, meet new people, and admire wonderful landscapes. We resume this as fun, but we could also live those things in our own place. So why do people prefer travelling? What makes a travel different?
What today scientists and numerous studies back up is that historically travelling implies psychological education; moving away from home is an experience that brings us closer to who we are. When we live in one space we will eventually understand the pattern surrounding it, and therefore we will try to live more efficiently building new behavioral patterns around it: this is called routine, and it’s good for us.
But this routine implies habits, and they are created on the basis of what our surrounding: education, school, and parents showed us. And while it’s well intended, when will eventually build bad habits, habits that may not exist from other point of view. For example not finishing a plate in China, it’s a sign that the host has provided enough to eat, it’s a good thing. But in America the same act is a subtle insult, an indication that the food wasn’t good enough to finish.
Our thoughts are influenced by the familiar. The brain is a neural web of near infinite possibility, which means that it spends a lot of time and energy choosing what not to notice. As a result, creativity is traded away for efficiency. A bit of distance, however, helps loosen the chains of cognition, making it easier to see something new in the old. Bad habits will disable us from understand things of ourselves, like activities in which we didn’t know we were good at, or kind of people we would find interesting, or finding activities we would enjoy.
Dr Michael H (1989) studied 2 group of students, one which spent time abroad and other at home, in comparison he writes, the overseas group noted benefits such as personal growth, increased tolerance, improved self-understanding, greater openness, greater independence, and increased sophistication. He concluded, "Experience in a foreign country exposes an individual to a variety of influences that may challenge his existing attitudes and values”
In another environment our mind is suddenly awaken from previous mistaken ideas that suppressed us. When travelling, little problems like –Do I say goodbye or not before going? Where is this bus taking me? This questions impact our immediate life, forcing us to be more creative. We are challenged again.
When we go back home, it may look the same. But it’s us who have changed, and that changes everything.
