Why Come to Therapy?
Why seek coaching or counselling? Something is not right in life. Something in your experience of it is troubling you. Perhaps you can’t get near the goals you’ve set for yourself, or your relationships are beset by emotional turmoil. Perhaps your work is deeply unsatisfying, or you can’t shake the grip of anxiety or the weighty, dark pull of depression.
Whatever your experience, the reason you come to therapy or coaching is that you want to change it. You want to find a way out of the trap you’ve set for yourself, and that is about the highest calling you can have. Why stay trapped? Why not seek freedom for your mind?
Changing How We Respond: Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl, the psychologist who survived the concentration camps, argued that if we can’t change our circumstances, we have to change the way we respond to them. We have to change what is going on inside us.
That is why, when we enter a therapeutic or coaching process, we need to start developing the habit of looking within. Many of us go through life without ever stopping to notice what is happening inside.
Why We Need Space to Reflect
We open our senses to constant stimulation, whether it’s social media, TV, music or other people. We are stimulated in ways our forebears never were. We are denying ourselves the right to boredom, and in boredom we discover ourselves. There is no boredom now unless we try very hard to create it.
So when we begin therapy, we have to find the space to reflect on what is happening within.
Journaling: A Foundational Tool for Self-Awareness
The foundational tool I use with all my clients, if I can persuade them, is a journaling habit. It is how we check in with ourselves each day and take stock:
- What’s going on?
- How am I thinking about the world?
- What has happened to me, and what has my experience been?
- How did I respond, and how did I anticipate it?
- What did I feel, and how did my body feel in response?
We need to analyse all of this so we become properly aware of what is going on inside us. Carl Jung is often quoted as saying that unless we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate.
Do You Feel Like a Passenger in Your Own Life?
How many of us feel as though we are floating on the waters of life, taken wherever it wants to go, with no control and no say in our direction? We become passengers, kept content by streaming services and doom scrolling. But that isn’t action, it’s consumption. It isn’t reflection, it’s just attention.
And attention is key. What do we pay attention to in our lives? How are we spending our time? Are we just staring at a screen? That isn’t living, it’s passing time.
If we want to live, if we want to become the captain of our ship, we have to make space to contemplate what is going on within, even if that feels scary at first. Even if you have a deep anxiety about what you might uncover, unless you look, you will never know, and it will keep pursuing you. Once we shine a spotlight into the darkness, we can start to take the measure of what is happening.
Uncovering Hidden Beliefs and the Inner Critic
When we look, we can uncover our hidden beliefs about the world and about our relationships. We can notice how we speak to ourselves, including the inner critic who is so mean and nasty to us. We can see objectively how we interact with the world, what state of mind we are in, and which beliefs we picked up along the way that now burden us.
“Is This Belief Still Serving Me?”
This is how the process starts. Once we bring these beliefs to light, we can challenge them. You may realise, “I’ve had this belief since I was nine years old.” It worked for me at nine and it kept me going at nine, but is it serving me at 40? If not, we have to change it. We consciously challenge those beliefs and alter them so that they serve us, and we create more inner calm. Within that calm, our true personality can begin to emerge.
Therapy Is Like Gardening
The process of therapy is somewhat like gardening. We prepare the ground. We weed the garden, pulling out negative thoughts, attachments, addictions, compulsions and the toxic habits we have fallen into unconsciously. As we weed, we make space for the healthy things we want to plant, the things we want to grow and flourish.
It isn’t an instant process, but you can start to feel changes within you quite quickly if you commit to it.
Start Working Towards the Person You Want to Be
What else do you have to do in this life? You could carry on consuming, or you could start making the changes that lead to who you really should be: having a positive impact on the world, bringing out the best side of yourself, and finding your shadow, integrating it and turning it to positive effect. I think that is the only thing worth doing.
If you agree, get in touch and let’s work together. Book a conversation or dive right in.