Trouble Deh a Bush, Anansi Call It Come a Yaad

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There’s a Jamaican proverb I grew up hearing:

“Trouble deh a bush, Anansi call it come a yaad.”

Trouble was already outside somewhere, but Anansi invited it home.

Like many Jamaican proverbs, this saying carries generations of history inside a few simple words. The character “Anansi” comes from the Akan people of present-day Ghana and other parts of West Africa. Anansi is traditionally depicted as a spider: clever, mischievous, strategic, and deeply human in the way he navigates survival, power, fear, greed, and consequence.

Through the transatlantic slave trade, Akan storytelling traditions traveled across the Atlantic to places like Jamaica, where Anansi stories became woven into Jamaican oral tradition. These stories were told in homes, yards, villages, and communities by enslaved Africans and their descendants who carried memory, wisdom, language, and culture through storytelling.

Undoing the Habit of Inviting What Hurts Us

After tracing Anansi’s journey from Akan storytelling in Ghana to his place in Jamaican oral tradition in Jamaica, I keep coming back to the language itself: “call it come” versus “carry it come.” And in true Jamaican fashion, depending on where you are from on the island, and what you grew up hearing you might say “no, Monique, it’s ‘call,’ or no, it’s ‘carry!’”

For my blog today, I am using both. We all win, smile. In some versions of the proverb, Anansi is not just in proximity to trouble, he is actively calling it closer, inviting it in. In others, he is carrying it into his own space, almost like something that was already heavy, already present, but still brought across a threshold that didn’t need to be crossed. Both versions sit with me because both speak to something I see in the work of undoing toxic patterns: how easily we can participate in our own entanglements, not always in dramatic ways, but through small, familiar decisions that slowly shift our relationships and what we keep tolerating.

From an “Undoing Toxic” lens, this is not about blame. It is about pattern recognition. It is about noticing how often we override ourselves and our needs in the name of connection; how we stay in dynamics where we are constantly negotiating our own needs, shrinking our truths, or making emotional accommodations that slowly erode us. Sometimes it looks like calling it in because the connection feels “special,” intense, or historically meaningful. Other times it looks like carrying it forward because letting go feels like loss, guilt, or uncertainty about what comes next. Either way, the result is the same: we remain inside dynamics that ask us to keep abandoning ourselves in order to keep them alive.

And maybe that is the deeper question this proverb opens up for me, both as a therapist and as someone who works closely with relational healing: when do we stop confusing familiarity with safety, or depth with health? Unlearning is not about shutting people out or throwing away connection altogether. It is about becoming honest about what we are calling in and what we are carrying into our lives and whether those patterns are actually aligned with who we are trying to become, not just who we have learned to survive as.

Anansi stories were more than mere entertainment; they were tools for survival. Within them were hidden lessons about power, manipulation, cleverness, resistance, consequence, and human nature. They gave people a way to laugh, teach, mourn, and preserve their identities in systems built to erase them. Perhaps that’s why Anansi still speaks to people across generations: he embodies human complexity. Sometimes he outwits danger. Sometimes he is the source of it. This proverb feels especially relevant to relationships and healing, because many of us know what it’s like to welcome something into our lives that later proves harmful.

What strikes me about Anansi being a spider is that spiders spin webs; and webs can both protect and ensnare, or trap. We often see the web, but not the spider, but it’s a sign that it is nearby. Unhealthy relationship patterns work the same way. They don’t appear all at once but are woven slowly, strand by strand: one rationalization, one excuse, one slighted betrayal, one crossed boundary, one more chance, one more attempt to understand, one more hope that things will change. Gradually, people can find themselves caught in emotional dynamics they no longer recognize, not because they’re weak or foolish, but because attachment is complex.

Recently, I listened to a podcast episode with Esther Perel where she asked a question that stayed with me:

“What makes you amenable to live in this situation?”

That question felt deeply connected to this proverb. I realize, sometimes people are not only trying to understand why a relationship hurts. They are also trying to understand why they continue adapting themselves to survive inside of it and why they won’t let go.

Often the answer sounds like:

“The specialness of our connection.”

And I understand that. We sometimes stay because of chemistry and the legacy/history of the relationship. Time invested and not wanting it to “just go down the drain”- all of that for nothing. Shared experiences. Loyalty. Potential. Children. Fear of starting over. The hope that love will eventually outweigh pain.

But eventually many people arrive at another truth:

“I can’t take it anymore.”

As a therapist, I want to say something clearly: my work is not about convincing people to break up, cut people off, or lose relationships. Relationships matter deeply. Human connection matters deeply. Repair matters. Accountability matters. Grace matters. But there is also another question I think many people quietly wrestle with: At what point do we stop losing ourselves in order to keep other people?

At what point does maintaining the connection become more damaging than releasing the dynamic?

Because some people are not just fighting to save relationships.
They are fighting to save themselves inside of them.

There are many people who can admit they slowly abandoned themselves trying to preserve peace, love, family, or connection. They learned to silence their own needs so the relationship could keep going. They tolerated repeated harms—small betrayals, dismissals, or emotional neglect—that over time became normalized. They normalized emotional instability, excusing erratic behavior as “just how they are” instead of naming the pattern and protecting themselves and walking away. They overfunctioned: taking on more responsibility, smoothing conflicts, fixing others’ problems, and carrying burdens that weren’t theirs to carry. They stayed loyal to dynamics that actively eroded their well‑being because loyalty felt safer than loss, because ending things felt like failure, or because the imagined future made the present tolerable.

I have said this before, holding on often looks like hope. Hope that things can get better. Hope that the person they love will change. Hope that if they give more: time, patience, forgiveness, that the relationship will finally settle into something healthy. That hope can feel like a compass, guiding decisions in the face of evidence otherwise. It’s also a plea: trust me, give me another chance, give us another chance. We repeat this plea to partners, friends, family, and sometimes to ourselves.

Wanting to see the best in people isn’t a moral failing or character flaw. It’s part of being compassionate, relational, and invested. But when that desire consistently costs your mental and emotional health, it’s important to pause and reassess. Compassion without boundaries can become self‑erasure. Hope without honest appraisal can trap you in cycles of harm. You don’t have to choose between giving up and staying stuck. It’s possible to hold hope while also protecting yourself: to hope for better while preparing for different outcomes. That balance preserves your dignity and keeps you available for relationships that truly nourish you.

That is why undoing toxic patterns is not always about “breaking up with people.” Sometimes it is about breaking up with dynamics.

Breaking up with:

• overexplaining,

• abandoning boundaries,

• rescuing people who refuse accountability,

• confusing inconsistency with passion,

• normalizing emotional exhaustion,

• shrinking yourself to maintain connection,

• mistaking survival for intimacy.

Because eventually the web becomes difficult to escape.

Many people grow up around instability, emotional unpredictability, criticism, inconsistency, or conditional love. As a result, chaos can begin to feel familiar. Some people become so accustomed to managing dysfunction that peace itself feels uncomfortable.So even when healthier choices become available, the familiar pull of old dynamics can remain strong. Not because people want pain, but because familiarity feels like home.

That is why this proverb continues to matter: “Trouble deh a bush, Anansi call it come a yaad.”

Healing sometimes begins with awareness. And awareness can feel painful because it asks us to confront not only what hurt us, but what we continued to entertain after recognizing the harm.

Still, there is empowerment in that realization too. If we learned patterns, we can unlearn them.

We can learn:

• not every message deserves a response,

• not every relationship deserves unlimited access,

• not every crisis belongs to us,

• not every connection deserves proximity,

• and not every web deserves our continued entanglement.

Boundaries are not cruelty.
Discernment is not bitterness.
Leaving harmful dynamics is not failure.

Sometimes healing looks like no longer calling trouble into your life. And sometimes growth looks like finally choosing yourself before the web closes completely.

Here are some suggested practical steps to begin reclaiming yourself:

• Name what you’ve endured. Writing or speaking the facts helps separate hope from reality.

• Reconnect with your needs. Identify what you need to feel safe, respected, and nourished.

• Set and practice boundaries in small, concrete ways. Boundaries are actions, not threats.

• Seek outside perspective (friends, a therapist, or a support group) to counter isolation and clarify patterns.

• Test change with time and evidence. Promises matter less than consistent, sustained behavior.

• Allow grief for what you lost—your expectations, the version of the relationship you hoped for—while deciding what you will accept going forward.

Reflection Questions

• What am I repeatedly inviting into my life?

• What patterns keep entering my life because I keep leaving the gate open?

• What am I tolerating that is costing me emotionally?

• What am I calling “love” that consistently leaves me depleted?

Thank you for reading.

Let’s connect. Email me: moniqueevanstherapy@gmail.com

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