I Wish I Had a Ticket to Ride

A Beatle’s song and a dream of freedom

Like many gen-Xers, the Beatles were my introduction to music. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was my first meaningful musical experience and changed my life. The album (yes, my early moments were with my parent’s vinyl) remains one of my top five desert island picks.

Besides the introduction to rhythm, sonic dynamics, and musicality were the lyrics. Second only to Charles Schultz and the Peanuts comic strips, I credit the Beatles with a drastic expansion of my vocabulary.

So many euphemisms came from these listening and reading experiences, but a “Ticket to Ride” stands out. Released seven years before my birth, I eventually landed on the “Help!” album, and this song was embedded in my psyche. From the Eastern-inspired chords and timing to the relatable break-up sadness, this song has much to offer. But this article is focused on the title.

A Ticket to Ride

As a kid, I mostly understood this was a breakup song. The titular male was saddened and confused that his companion was leaving him. At a very early age, perhaps because I was witness to my parents’ arguments and my father’s threats of leaving, I understood that relationships could end. Before my time, I could relate. 

Though the lyrics retained the bubble-gum pop of the early Beatles, there were hints at heavier, perhaps LSD or Buddhist-inspired themes. I was catching on without really knowing what I was catching on to. The ticket to ride became about total freedom. Something I lacked.

Beliefs keep us stranded

Even as a kid, I understood I was trapped. Though I wouldn’t understand what happened until I was in my 40s, my childhood was shaped by misunderstandings and maladaptive behaviors. I observed my surroundings and, in the absence of communication formed conclusions.

Like most humans, we form beliefs about how the world works in our youth, before the age of consent. We draw critical conclusions about things before we understand any of them. We see, react, and protect. We do whatever it takes to feel safe. As adults, we learn what we did and how to unpack it. This is my journey, at least.

Thinking about the song “A Ticket to Ride” reveals my obsession with freedom and feeling trapped. Before I knew what was going on, I felt the loss. I wasn’t the girl in the song, free to do as she pleased and come in and out of love as needed. I was the man who was envious of the girl. She wasn’t trapped by dependence. She was the ultimate authority with complete autonomy. She had no fear, only freedom. A ticket to ride. 

That I longed to be her and identified with him says a lot about what I was experiencing and the beliefs I was forming at a young age. Already, I was trapped. Trapped by the belief that I had to earn love. Encased in my inability to be enough. 

Permission and approval

“A Ticket to Ride” also implies a transactional relationship between freedom and ability. In childhood, I learned I needed permission and approval to be myself. My family and teachers were the gatekeepers of my capacity to live my life. I could not make my own choices. My beliefs kept me trapped and only others could break them. Can you relate?

I still struggle with this. It might be the greatest obstacle to my healing. I am so afraid of being abandoned and unloved that I seek permission and approval to be myself. I defer to my loved ones to decide my next moves. I consult the needs of others before I will address my own. Of course, this means I rarely address my own needs. I have largely forgotten I have them.

Research indicates that fear of abandonment, anxious attachment, and rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD) are symptoms of both trauma and Autism combined with ADHD (AuDHD). That’s a lot of fancy terminology to say that my need for permission is not my fault. If you have similar tendencies, it probably isn’t your fault either.

And I get it. Traditional techniques and advice suggest I ‘get over it’ or ‘change my mind’ to understand that I won’t be abandoned if I am myself. But that doesn’t work. I tried traditional therapies for over a decade before I accepted that I was not going to change this belief analytically or intellectually. Reprogramming at this level requires something more. 

Cause and effect

Many believe that change requires intellectual understanding. Some need to know the underlying cause of their need for approval. Others, like myself, simply want to heal. While I’m curious about how I came to be who I am, I have shifted from that pursuit to trying to exist more peacefully in the world. My experience in therapy has helped me understand myself extremely well, but that alone hasn’t helped me change.

Recently, I shifted to a ‘radical acceptance’ approach to healing. If I can’t think my way to my ticket, perhaps I can learn how to feel differently. It turns out, there are techniques for this, too.

Earning my ticket

As a recovering scientist, I appreciate analytical learning and intellect. Our minds are powerful and the reductionist approach to disassembling systems to understand their parts is useful. However, I have finally realized that having a complex set of tools instead of just one or two is a better approach to understanding and servicing systems.

Just as you wouldn’t build a house with only a hammer and screwdriver, you can’t change your beliefs with only the intellect. To earn my ticket I had to learn about somatic healing, indigenous knowledge, and wu wei.

Intellectual understanding wasn’t enough for me to understand that my worth isn’t linked to others’ approval. I couldn’t think my way into truly believing that I could show up as myself without having to screen my family for their reactions. I am still learning how to be me in the world, but at least now I feel a chance at healing.

Learning to feel

Earning my ticket would also require an entirely new approach. Somatic therapies were my first breakthrough. I probably needed to understand myself intellectually first, but others may not. Learning a little about meditation, my experience with psychedelic plants, and Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) helped me dig into my somatic (of or relating to the body) body. Turns out, I needed to integrate my mind with my body. I needed to feel what I had learned. 

Integrating mind ith wbody isn’t new, and touching upon this blend led me to become a certified meditation teacher. I learned that most ancestral cultures were much more in touch with their bodies — and didn’t even have science. Learning to meditate honed my ability to hear and feel what I had before only understood with my intellect. 

A foundation of scientific thinking combined with a disciplined meditation practice integrates to expedite change. Learning to feel the knowledge in my body has helped me change my mind. When the pile of evidence that supports limiting beliefs is decades in the making, changing habits and behaviors can be incredibly challenging. We need all the tools we can get. 

A dream of freedom

Believing you need approval and permission, combined with RSD is crippling. For those who experience these things, please know you are not alone and your change is incredibly challenging. Change is also quite possible. 

Healing requires a fourfold approach. This includes understanding the problem, feeling the problem in the body, discipline, and letting go (wu wei). The intensity of the four prongs may differ for each of us, but the integration is critical. 

As I hone discipline through meditation and daily mindfulness I build the muscle to produce real change. As I integrate bodily sensations with triggers I learn to identify causal mechanisms. My understanding of why I react the way I do helps me find self-compassion instead of self-abuse. Last, I learned to let go of each prong when my attachment became too severe. Eventually, there is nothing to do. We must simply be. 

Meditation and mindfulness helped me find a pause between triggers and reactions. Somatic experience helps me feel when I am triggered, afraid, or when I am going to implement an old belief. I can now see when I need permission and seek it from others.

The final step is to combine what I have learned, i.e., that others’ approval and permission are not required with the intellectual understanding of why I react the way I do. I wouldn’t be able to do either without a meditation practice. This step requires I believe in myself. I know enough. There is nothing more to do but let life unfold. 

This last step is the hardest because it requires another resource: time. I need to acquire evidence that my old beliefs will not come true. If I show up as myself without asking for permission or approval, will people abandon me? This integration has to be tested against my old beliefs, and for a while, the old beliefs will win.

Freedom comes from changing old beliefs, but it doesn’t come easy

Change requires work. And time. Most of us give up way too early. I have given up many times, and I’m still not healed. After fifteen years of work, I am beginning to feel a change coming. I know there is a ticket for me, but only I can find it. 

One day, I’ll have a ticket to ride, and I’ll probably care. Hopefully, enough to help other people find theirs.