Therapy is the process of spilling your guts to a stranger and figuring out how to fix those mangled parts of yourself. It's when this stranger asks you tons of questions about your past, your family, your trauma, and those deep scary corners inside your mind you like to keep hidden. It's when you bear down and take responsibility to fix your life. That. Is. Scary. Therapy is scary. Confronting the dark spots of your life and psyche is not a fun time. Having your negative coping patterns called out is frustrating. Delving into your trauma can be horrifying. Discovering all the little ways that you've been ruining your own life and being held accountable for them is daunting, to say the least.
I get it, that sounds miserable. Therapy is hard and its intimidating; no one's going to sugar coat it. So why go? Why put yourself through such pain and discomfort?
First and foremost, because like our champion Brené Brown said, "Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light."
We cannot avoid our darkness. All that junk we spend so much time running from, burying and avoiding. It weighs us down. It haunts us. It holds us back. Sometimes in big obvious ways- addiction, self-destructive behaviors, flashbacks, anxiety that prevents you from leaving your home, suicidal depression. But more commonly it's in smaller, more pervasive and more sinister ways. Ways that we can avoid on a day to day basis because "they're not that bad" but that, over time, leave us feeling empty, lonely and unfulfilled. Maybe its struggles with co-dependancy or one failed relationship after another. Maybe it's a persistent little voice of self doubt in the back of your mind making you never feel quite good enough, no matter how hard you try. Or resentments towards your parents, or your friends or your partner - that you just can't seem to shake. Or maybe its those nagging feelings of unhappiness and unfulfillment even though, "everything is fine." One way or another, our garbage and our darkness finds us and it hurts us. It stops us from being our best and truest selves.
And we can't fix those those flaws until we step into our darkness and recognize it for what it is. We can't improve our lives if we can't pinpoint the issue. That painful and uncomfortable part is the most important part because we can't fix what we can't see. So we turn to therapy. We bring that darkness into the open and we sort that mess out.
Secondly, therapy provides a safe space and a trained professional to trudge through that darkness. That dark path is scary, but you don't have to (and shouldn't) go it alone! A licensed therapist has the training and demeanor to help you through that darkness in a safe and effective way. Therapists become therapists because of our innately caring and compassionate nature. Some people like to say we're "paid to care about you", but I assure you the caring comes first. It's a skill and a personality trait we have, that drew us to a career where we could use that skill. Having a therapist means that you have someone whose in your corner, genuinely and unconditionally supporting you. But without enabling you! Oftentimes when we reach out to our friends and family we get blind support. Oftentimes our friends and family are too close to our situation to see the nuances where we may be going wrong (Your friends blindly telling you that every person you dated was trash for breaking up with you). Frequently, they may even have a stake in the issue, giving them a biased opinion (your mom wanting you to smooth over that conflict with your brother so family dinner is less awkward). Since your relationship with a therapist is different from that with your friends or family, therapy gives you an unbiased sounding board. Someone who will wholeheartedly cheer you on in all your endeavors, but tactfully and gently call you out when you need called out. Sometimes those close to us just want to fix our problems and meet us with endless advice about what we should do. And, unfortunately, we see in many cases that this advice is often toxic and ultimately harmful ("you shouldn't feel that way" "that's your mom, just forgive her" "look at how bad other people have it"). Therapists aren't there to give you advice or tell you what to do. Which on face value, seems wrong to most people- isn't a therapist there to tell you how to fix your problems? No. We do offer evidenced based interventions for how to change your thinking or cope with symptoms but a therapist's job isn't to fix your problems for you. How would you learn anything that way? A therapist is there to support you and guide you so that you can learn to see the negative patterns in your life for yourself, so that you can independently and effectively resolve life's issues on your own, so that you can navigate stress and conflict in a healthy manner on your own.
And finally, the most important reason that you should seek therapy- because you deserve it. You deserve to be the best you that you're capable of being. Even if you're not suicidal or on the brink of psychosis. Even if you're not facing divorce because of your relationship struggles or feeling crippled by your mental health symptoms. Even if you feel like your life isn't "bad enough" to go to therapy, you still deserve the opportunity to improve your life that therapy offers you. Even if you think you don't need therapy you can, and you should go because no one is walking around leading the perfect life and you deserve the best quality of life that you can achieve.
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