Some years ago now I realized I had to go to therapy.
How did I know?
Actually it was because I realized I had a big ol’ judgmental attitude toward it. As soon as I realized that I found someone in Durham that looked good because somehow I knew I needed to investigate that stigma.
In the office, in that soft space with a stranger, I cried immediately. I cried big. The stuff that was just waiting for permission to be shared let loose.
I went just one more time, honestly, but I no longer had the stigma around going, which had been
overcome by the experience of trying it.
It wasn’t until a few years afterward that I did multiple sessions with five different IFS (Internal Family Systems) practitioners including therapists, coaches, and just people that learned the system. The uncertified one was the best at it.
The tools I learned through that were enhanced massively by delving into shamanism and a hundred other directions, people, and resources that fascinated me.
If you’re not sure what you would go to therapy for, here’s my opinion on who would benefit from a session with another human being with some idea of how to help you resolve things, and what things you might resolve.
You would likely benefit if you never have below-the-surface conversations with your friends. Being in a space that is shaped by the intention to go deeper automatically begins to open up wounds for healing that never really got it before. A practitioner that’s a match will eventually help you feel safer with yourself.
If you’re part of a couple, having a third-party involved for mediation is about the healthiest thing that you can do, even if you “don’t have any problems.” It can help open up things that each of you has been keeping down while someone helps you focus on being there for each other and develop skills. A grounded person can hold the space for both of you to be honest…and honesty brings around better sex and libido. Hard conversations lead to hard _____.
If you enter a space, really any space that is focused on you, and you just talk, it will eventually lead to something you haven’t fully resolved yet. Something that’s bothering you that you’ve pushed away or brushed off. Or something that you really don’t think is a big deal but you just kind of can’t stop thinking about, even if the thinking isn’t necessarily flavored as negative.
I can’t tell you how ecstatic it makes me when someone I’m talking to, who is open to going into inquiry, says, “I don’t know why this just came up…”
It came up because there’s something there.
It came up because some part of you wanted it to have attention.
& it came up so that you could be with it and resolve something, closing a loop that’s been open for a while.
So, when you’re interested in growth and self-development, it pays to watch and listen to yourself.
Notice anything that comes up repeatedly and any patterns that seem to be unconscious.
Preemptively going to coaching, therapy, or simply meditating on your own on a regular basis will grease the slide of life, so to speak. You get to sit down and ask yourself the question,
“What’s coming up for me right now?”
There’s always an answer. To stay on the cutting edge of your life it pays to do this regularly, figure out what it’s like for you to do it with other people, and learn several ways for you to do it for yourself. Things get louder when they are ignored and relationships are more peaceful with regular check-ins that assure you that they care.
I don’t want to go looking for things to be wrong. Just give things space to come up naturally and without resistance.
Listening isn’t always enough anyway. You need to learn or be guided through how to process and change the experience of the memory.
That’s why talk therapy can help acknowledge what’s going on on the surface but can often continue patterns once they’re noticed. And why things like IFS, CBT, somatic experiencing, and all the things that go a little deeper to resolve things are gaining constantly in popularity.
If you want a map and direct experience with doing some types of processing on your own, you’ll get it with The Supportive Mind, a short course I made that is back up for sale on August 10 for 2 weeks only.
Another interesting places to start could be No Bad Parts, by Richard Schwartz
Can confirm on #2.
I have a really healthy relationship with my wife & we navigate trouble times in life pretty well!
It is also WAY EASIER for her to hear me talk about things she's done that have hurt or are hurting me, when I'm talkin about them in front of her but not TO or AT her.
Having that mostly neutral 3rd party takes a lot of the pressure/ sense of conflict OUT of the conversation, even when the topic is completely the same.