What’s In Your Back Seat?
- Dr. Tom Wagner
- Oct 5
- 4 min read
When anxiety and division crawl into your back seat, how do you keep them from taking over the whole ride? This piece explores one way to set boundaries with what you can’t eliminate.
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What's In Your Back Seat?
Ever since last Sunday, I can’t shake an image out of my head. It got lodged there shortly after dinner that night. During the meal, the conversation began to whirl around the topic of our nation’s widening divisions. Like a black hole, the evening got sucked into the direction of that topic.
Just before the guests arrived, I made my first apple pie of autumn. At the end of our dinner, I served it à la mode with vanilla ice cream. By the time I brought it out, the conversation had progressed. Dire predictions of where all the division and cruelty in our country are heading ended up being the à la mode on top of the à la mode. I noted the growing backpack of anxiety in my shoulders and neck as the evening progressed. It reminded me of what many of my counseling clients have been describing. That’s when the image showed up—a metaphor, really. Give a listen.
Imagine that life is a car trip. Beforehand, you pack all those things that you believe would make the journey more enjoyable. But imagine that once you’d launched yourself, you came to a stoplight. While waiting for the light to turn green, into the back seat crawls this thing that you would never want in the car with you. And try as you will, you can’t get it out of your car! To make matters worse, that thing brought its own junk food. And now it’s eating, and belching, and farting, and getting bigger. Much to your dismay, you notice how it’s taking up the whole of the back seat, and looks like it’s attempting to grow into the front seat as well. Keep in mind, you can’t get it out of your car. So what do you do? The answer? If you can’t get rid of it, can you at least put that thing on a diet, so that it has its place in the car, but not more than its place?
Essentially, this is the dilemma for anyone who is suffering from a chronic or serious illness. I’ll never forget my client, Vickie. The thing in her back seat was lung cancer. Bad news turned to worse news when it metastasized. Listen to how she used the metaphor I’m talking about. If you asked her, “Vickie, how’s your cancer treatment coming?” She’d say, “We’re in the kitchen now. We don’t talk about cancer in my kitchen. The front room is the only place where we do that.” True enough, Vickie had cancer. But up until the moment she died, cancer did not have Vickie. It had its place, but not more than its place. She put boundaries around her cancer.
I’d like to propose that you and I learn from Vickie. There is a virulent cancer loose in our society right now. What would it look like to limit the space this cancer takes up in your life? How would your conversations be different? How would your internal dialogue change if you turned that recurrent political or cultural haunting over—the way a recovering alcoholic turns over a desire for a drink? How would your social media habits change?
Don’t get me wrong. This image of “the thing that crawled into the backseat” cuts in another direction as well. One way to give that “thing” power is to not limit the space it takes up. Another way is to ignore it as if it didn’t exist. In my religious tradition, we call that “Quietism” (not a good thing). Karl Marx called that approach “opium.” You and I have met people who have ignored their physical symptoms until it was too late. I’m not suggesting that we ignore what’s metastasizing in our body politic these days. As a therapist, I am encouraging my clients to channel their anxiety and anger into a course of action. Prayerfully discern what you can do to address the problem as you see it. When the alarming thoughts come belching and farting into consciousness, remind yourself of what you’re doing to address the problem in the real world that exists outside of your mind. And again, like a person in recovery, turn that thought over. In other words, let it go, knowing that you’re doing something about it already.
My client—I'll call him “Brian”—goes door-to-door stumping for his favored political candidates. Larry, my neighbor, is involved in bending local policies in a direction he believes to be more just and kind. Alice feeds the homeless and takes up their causes whenever she can. A growing group of colleagues and I are busy welcoming more people of all ages into The Sunday Morning Café Project. By now, you know what we’re up to: warm, inclusive, vulnerable conversations across the generations about the deep-down things that are universal. I’ve already seen divisions melting between people!
One more suggestion? Once you have discerned your course of action, ask yourself if your activity contains Love, Beauty, and Goodness in it. If not, go back to the drawing board. Nothing short of these can heal what’s broken between us and within us.
Dialogue and Discussion Questions: Longtime SMC readers know that “the Dialogue” section of this article is set aside for a good conversation over a cup of coffee—with a friend, with a group, or just with yourself! As always, feel free to share your reaction or reflection in the “Comments” section below.
What stood out to you in this article? Did you find any dissonance as you read it?
What action have you discerned that’s worthy of your commitment?
Do you have a methodology for “turning over” thoughts that are neither useful to you, or useful to anyone?
Where are you finding hope and positivity these days?
Who are your primary dialogue partners across the political or ideological divide? What helps you to sustain those relationships?
Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.
Hmmm ..leave it where it belongs..and don't push it in spaces that don't want it...very good...thanks Tom...makes perfect sense