Most people don’t know what to expect when they first come to therapy. Am I going to have to lie on a couch? Will the therapist just sit and stare? Will they be confrontational? Will I have to stare at ink blots? I know I didn’t know the answers to those questions when I first started therapy; I had no idea what to expect. When you live with anxiety anyway, going into something unknown like that can be terrifying. This post is all about answering some of those unknowns and painting a clearer picture of what therapy is like. It’s a process, and I’ve noticed that the process generally happens in three parts. Note that therapy is different for EVERYONE and this is just a general pattern, not a formula.
When therapy first begins, the client and therapist start to form a relationship. Therapy is a collaborative process. Generally, two people (the client and the therapist) are trying to understand the inner workings of one person (the client). The two of them have to be able to just sit and think, with curiosity, with each other. Sometimes this starts right off with something pertinent to the therapy goals, but sometimes it takes some time to build trust and rapport.
As we go through getting to know each other, we’re also bringing intensified awareness to your thoughts and feelings, often in new ways. We’re trying to start forming new pathways in your mind. And, we’re triggering old ones by thinking back on old memories and feelings. This is not an easy process! It’s often quite uncomfortable; those memories were tucked away somewhere for a reason. The first stage of the process, then, is “awareness”.
The next stage is self-compassion. These two stages take place (ideally) almost simultaneously. If we increase awareness without increasing compassion, people generally feel a whole lot worse. Those judgmental thoughts bounce around all over and suddenly we’re extremely aware of them. We can end up judging ourselves and being more critical toward ourselves than ever before. That is, of course, going to make us feel worse.
Building up self-compassion is a tough process. However, therapy is not going to work without it. As long as you’re beating yourself up for your thoughts and feelings, you’re going to feel bad. You’re making yourself feel bad. And it’s not your fault—we’re taught to think this way. We’re taught to be hard on ourselves, and the ego convinces us that without that, we’re going to become lazy, self-involved, careless, etc. This is simply not true. You can be kind to yourself AND push yourself to grow. You can be compassionate with yourself AND acknowledge your mistakes. I talk about this a lot, but I’m going to repeat it: self-compassion makes you a better person, not a worse one.
Often we hold ourselves back from trying new things because they are scary. They are scary because we remind ourselves of everything that could go wrong, and we begin to judge ourselves before it even happens. We hold ourselves back because we say things like “I can’t do that; everyone will make fun of me; no one there would want to be my friend; I fail at everything, so why bother”, the list could go on. We hold ourselves back because of the beating we will give ourselves if it doesn’t work out. Self-compassion empowers us to be bold and try new things. It’s okay if it doesn’t work out. We’re human, and sometimes things don’t work out. We don’t have to judge ourselves about it at all.
In therapy, we start to vocalize some of this deeply-rooted inner narrative (much of which comes from trauma). We’ve brought in some awareness, so that you can really notice when those fears and judgments come up. You can start to notice and say “I don’t agree with that thought anymore”. We will also be talking about what you can control and what you can’t control. Anxiety increases as we focus on things that our outside of our control; it decreases as we focus on things that are in our control. It’s important to have self-compassion in this process, too. It does no good to beat yourself up for beating yourself up.
At this stage in therapy, we’re also talking about what the “self” really is. We might be talking about different parts of yourself (e.g., “part of me wants this, but part of me wants this other thing” or “the child part of me wants____”) and trying to understand the “core self”. I think of the “Self” as the part of us that is pure awareness. When we’re born, we’re just this tiny awareness staring out at the world, taking in information. That information eventually turns into our ideas, judgments, fears, etc. Those things are coming in from the outside, and they’re dependent on our surroundings. They’re not really who we are. Part of therapy is exploring your identity and trying to get closer to the authentic you.
If we think about this “core self” as this awareness, with us from birth, that is aware of all of our thoughts, feelings, and life, it can become easier to develop self-compassion. Imagine what sort of environment your Self is living in. How much negativity does it face? How much fear? Think of that baby. Does that baby deserve the way you talk to it? Imagine your mind as an apartment for your Self. What does the apartment look like? It is a welcoming place? Would you want to live there? Creating new pathways in our mind is like redecorating.
There’s a lot more to say about this, and I can’t say it all in one post. But keep thinking about what that pure awareness inside you is living with. Ask yourself if anyone deserves to have to deal with all of that. That awareness is going to be with you your whole life. You deserve to like yourself.
The next part of therapy, the final leg, takes self-compassion a step further: self-love. I don’t just mean loving yourself like loving your body or your attitude; I don’t mean the instagram self-love. I mean loving yourself like a kind, compassionate parent would love you. Not everyone has that parent. But we can learn to be that parent for ourselves.
What does it even mean to be that parent for ourselves? It means taking care of ourselves; being kind to ourselves; knowing, understanding, and accepting ourselves. It means showing love to ourselves with our actions. It means putting our own needs first. It means being authentic to ourselves. It means a lot of things. It’s something that we all deserve.
Everyone comes in with different goals for therapy, and with each client that I see, I’m creating a custom treatment plan. These stages are something I’ve noticed with each client that I see, regardless of their goal. We can be talking about any number of things, and these themes are still important. As long as we dislike our Self, we’re going to be unhappy. As long as we keep fighting for control we don’t have, we’re going to be unhappy.
Awareness, self-compassion, self-love. They are not easy. Trauma is not easy to un-do. Through this work, we’re tearing down some of the walls that trauma built. If you’re ready for that process, please feel free to contact me.
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