For myself and when working with others I have always found the analogy of a "journey" as a helpful way of looking at life's twists and turns.
There are times in our life when we are passengers - when we were young, ill, affected by trauma, old and so on.
Then there are those times when we are the ones in control of our life and often the lives of others, parents, workers ...
There are times when we do get ourselves safely through some difficult situations. Times when we feel "stuck" and can't get things going.
Then those awful times that when a situation in our lives feel like a car crash, when it feels like a 16 wheeler has just driven through our life. All our plans, hopes, normality changed or gone.
How we come back from setbacks and move forward can feel like putting a vehicle back together, be it shanks' pony, a push bike, a flash sports car, horse drawn carriage or boat etc.
And I have found it very helpful to get people to think about what positions they have taken in their lives and how they changes things.
So I will be continuing to use the analogy as life as a "Journey", the "Journey Through" as in FROM illness, trauma etc TO any better, healthier time and place in the person's life.
Someone not so long ago posted about how life can turn on a sixpence. Yes it can. We no longer have sixpences but us here on GN understood what that person meant and we felt for them.
So life as a "journey" works for me. But I do not like some of the ways it's used so I can agree with much of what's already been said.
However, I don't need to take a journey to find myself, if I'm lost I either won't know or I'll trust that I can find my way back to where I left me :-)