How To Know If You Are Pulling A Geographic
Have you ever thought about changing or improving your life by moving to a new location?
It’s called “pulling a geographic” and I first heard of the term in a twelve-step program. It immediately got my attention. “Pulling a geographic” means changing one’s physical environment in the hopes that one’s problems will magically go away in the new place.
New spaces and places have great energy. It’s fun and exciting to explore a new culture or country, but since we take ourselves with us wherever we go, our problems also come along for the ride. With time, in a new job or relationship or even a wonderful new home, we still find the same old issues catching up to us.
We can’t hide from them, because they are housed inside of us. And even if we do manage to hide from our patterns for a while, they usually always end up resurfacing in our relationships with others.
To be truly content, we must deal with our inner conflicts. No matter how far we travel, these conflicts will come with us. Running is exhausting, so while “pulling a geographic” may hide our problems for a while, it takes up energy that we need in order to live life to the fullest. The sooner we face what we’ve been running from, the easier facing it becomes.
I know this so well not just because I’m a therapist, but because I was an expert runner myself. I ran away from home when I was a teen and I didn’t stop running well into my thirties. I ran from Iran because my life depended on it: I was trapped in an abusive family dynamic and if that wasn’t hard enough, I was set to be married off to my cousin. I know that I wouldn’t have had the strength to keep living if I hadn’t run.
But what I see now is that, although we sometimes need a fresh start in order to find our way, a fresh start is never simply found in a new place. A fresh start involves a new mindset and behavior.
When I look back at that necessary run from Iran, I’m grateful. But that move didn’t solve my mental health. In America, I found myself running from one sort of danger to another. Particularly in romantic relationships, I experienced a sense of drowning and then finding my way to a new shore — only to find myself in a new relationship that made me feel exactly the same way.
In time, this pattern became clear to me and in fact, I wasn’t just trying to survive; I was addicted to the thrill of surviving.
It took leaving one particular relationship to end this pattern. Before Dan, I never felt too bad about breaking up with anyone, because I thought people usually tried to use me in some way. But when I met Dan at the end of college, I saw right away that he had the ability to make me happy. I felt his love. I even saw that he wanted to propose to me. That was my cue to leave. I didn’t have the courage or the tools to face how scared I was of intimacy and didn’t know how to communicate about my past and my feelings.
I left him without saying goodbye, without even leaving a note.
The days that followed hurt so much. Sad and lonely, I felt not only that particular heartbreak but all the previous heartbreaks that happened as a result of me running. And I started to ask myself — do I want to keep doing only what I’m good at, which is running? Or do I want to learn what comes harder to me — staying?
From that point on, my new goal was to learn the art of staying. So I stayed in jobs and relationships and friendships, no matter how good or bad they made me feel. That’s right, I went to the other extreme. I became good at making the most of just about any situation. I had to go to the opposite to see that the two were ultimately the same. Staying no matter what was just the flip-side of running no matter what. I learned that both came from the same fear of being truly seen, being vulnerable. I didn’t know how to share my fears of intimacy and commitment. When you don’t acknowledge your needs and feelings, “here” and “there” are exactly the same.
My healing began in social work school, studying psychology, and receiving therapy. I learned that surviving isn’t growing. Survival is just repeating what we are already good at. Reality will always catch up to us, showing what we haven’t yet mastered. “Pulling a geographic” delays healing and therefore delays us from enjoying our precious life.
I still love to travel, and I never feel more alive than when I’m discovering a new place. But as I travel, I always check in with myself. Am I traveling to learn something new, or to repeat old patterns? I also love long-term relationships and staying in jobs as long as I’m growing. These are the questions I ask myself and you might want to ask yourself too:
Am I “pulling a geographic” now? If so, how and why?
Am I truly growing in my relationships and career? Do I need a change?
Where is the balance between running no matter what and staying no matter what?
What am I most afraid of at this moment?
What and who truly inspires me right now?
I’m an advocate for mental health as a whole and our social, emotional, and spiritual growth. Meaning I too must look after my holistic health, so that I can hold space for life. I continue to ask myself these questions and keep processing my feelings and my actions. After all, trauma recovery is a process and needs daily maintenance.
Wisdom comes from not acting on your impulses and learning about your internal geography.
I heal through the power of storytelling. If you’d like to access more of my published and unpublished writing, or more information on my work as a Licensed clinical social worker, hypnotherapist, and energy healer, visit my website www.atashyaghmaian.com. Whether you are interested in healing or literary work, I’d love to hear from you.
