No one believes that they will only have to finish one run to become fit. I’ve never encountered this sort of thinking when it comes to physical fitness. But I encounter this idea often when it comes to emotional work.
How long should I do this work to be free of it? Many people have asked me this. But it is the wrong question to ask. It would be better to think of emotional work as a daily practice. It would be better to attend to this work consistently to cultivate a healthy internal state.
That said, when we work through deep traumas, we can expect to feel less internal discomfort. This is something to look forward to. This is the main reason I started this journey. But I don’t think that we can ever reach a point where we will never experience difficult emotions. I think that is unrealistic.
Emotional work is analogous to physical exercise. If we exercise daily we can expect better strength and health. We can build a healthy, strong body over many years of training. So too, if we regularly tend to our internal discomforts, we can expect more internal calm. We can cultivate equanimity and emotional maturity through years of emotional work.