It must have happened to you: doing the school run, your mind still spinning with unfinished tasks from work, and just as you’re trying to process your own day, your child launches into their stories. They can’t wait to tell you everything — every detail, every laugh, every little drama. “The teacher told Jamie off big time for picking his nose right in the middle of class! Jamie even tried to stick a pencil up his nose — everyone was laughing, but the teacher was not happy with him at all.”
It’s fascinating, isn’t it? The human need to offload, to share every snippet of what we’ve experienced. While we adults tend to restrain ourselves, distilling our day down to a few highlights, children have a natural instinct to process everything out loud. They remind us of a truth we often overlook: talking things through is how we make sense of our lives. It’s how we connect, reflect, and let go. The daily recaps, the chatter about school and work, the things that went wrong and the things we’re dreaming of — that’s all part of being human.
That kind of innocent, unfiltered chatter carries on into adult life, though, doesn’t it? Perhaps you’ve noticed it yourself, with children coming back from school, eagerly sharing the day’s stories. We see it at the park, hear it on the train home, or on the phone when discussing the day. People vent about their boss’s latest demands, muse about quitting, even dream of moving to new cities. This need to share, to recount, seems almost instinctual, like the stories our children bring home after a long day at school or the dreams our partner recounts in the morning.
As social creatures, we need someone to reflect our stories back to us, to affirm that they’ve landed, been heard, and somehow made sense in the process. We are, it seems, a species that needs to chit-chat our way through life’s challenges. Yet today, I believe we’re growing detached from, even a bit dismissive of, this small talk, undervaluing it as if it’s unnecessary noise. Clients often start sessions with, “I’m sorry, I’m rambling,” or say, “the point is…” as if apologising for the act of processing itself. But what if there is no “point” beyond the act of speaking? What if the point is simply processing?
The term “processing” has found its place in our everyday vocabulary, especially in therapy. It’s not uncommon to hear, “I need to process my father’s passing,” or “I need to process the end of my marriage.” But what does it mean to process? I find analogies helpful here — simple, grounded concepts we can latch onto without overthinking.
In Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, the Buddhist monk compares negative emotions to an unripe potato. Raw, unripe potatoes cannot be eaten; they need the heat of a sustained fire to become nourishing. “You need to keep the fire going for at least fifteen or twenty minutes,” he says. “You cannot eat raw potatoes.” Just as cooking makes potatoes digestible, allowing emotions time to simmer makes them more manageable, more adaptable. In therapy, the listener’s role is like a steady flame, helping those emotions simmer until they’re ready to be digested.
Therapists play a role in naming, validating, and nourishing these raw feelings, helping clients uncover meaning and acceptance. It’s like having potatoes in the kitchen. My role as both a father and therapist has been to help my children and clients recognise and work through their “potatoes” — the thoughts and feelings that need to be acknowledged to avoid spoiling. Ignore the potatoes, forget they’re there, and they begin to rot, emanating a sour odour that permeates the kitchen, a metaphor for how unprocessed emotions affect our mental and emotional well-being.
Of course, many clients would rather leave certain thoughts, emotions, and memories untouched. But it’s a bit like being emotionally constipated — holding onto unprocessed feelings that, over time, can weigh heavily on the mind and body. As with a dish full of spice and flavour, it’s these very emotions that bring depth to our lives when fully processed. Unlike potatoes, emotions are not optional. They’re an essential ingredient in the human experience. Imagine a day with no emotions — no joy, no sorrow. Is that even possible?
Thich Nhat Hanh also uses a beautiful analogy in The Energy of Prayer, describing the mind as filled with tangled knots of “delusion, repression, fear, and anxiety.” He explains that our health relies heavily on transforming these knots. Just as poor circulation in the body causes illness, stagnant emotions create physical and mental imbalances.
Processing, then, is not a luxury; it’s fundamental. Where this need sits on Maslow’s pyramid, I’m not quite sure, but I suspect it’s near the foundation.