It’s possible exposure therapy has worked for me. My worst recurring nightmare always involves packing. And yet recently I’ve come to find packing to be a neutral to even positive activity.
The dream has many forms. Sometimes it’s a permanent move, often it’s about rushing for some type of upcoming unexpected travel like a flight change or worse an “evacuation emergency” like a fire or natural disaster.
My subconscious likes to chew on packing up crucial items and leaving. I moved a lot as a child. My father also valued traveling while my mother and siblings did not.
I assume some of these nightmares are a related to those experiences. Instability is a classic reaction formation process for a child seeking safety. And I’m now as an adult finding that safety to be in reach.
I still have these dreams but I take a lot more pleasure in picking items for travel and packing them up now than I could have imagined. Even over the lifespan of this writing experiment I’ve seen changes in my emotional relationship to packing.
I have whole systems for managing the types of unexpected problems that crop up in modern travel like my three bag cascade. I’ve taken this activity that has had a negative valence for me and turned it into positive experiences.
I travel a lot for work and I can manage that even with health conditions. I have done work on disaster preparedness for myself and for my friends. Always be prepared is a terrific motto for the Boys Scouts and for myself.