Why Therapy Might Be The Best Thing You Ever Do…

Embark on a journey of self-discovery

Therapy offers a non-judgmental, healthy, and secure environment where you can delve into your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and feelings. It's a space where you can feel supported while exploring them. By doing so, you can identify any potential obstacles that might be hindering you from living the life you want.

Alternatively, you can cultivate your existing strengths and abilities to elevate your life to new levels.

When you can sit with someone who’ve you established trust with and speak candidly about all of the people or topics in your life that matter to you and be able to express those emotions without any fear of potential judgement or bias, you are able to break down the emotions you may be feeling, the behaviours you may be partaking in or the thoughts that run through your mind at any given stage of the day or night.

In therapy you are given a space in which you can work through this with someone who has your best interests at the forefront of their mind and how they work. You can be offered new perspectives on all that may be confusing you or bothering you. You can share your biggest dreams or goals that may be terrifying to share with anyone close to you for fear of judgement or even worse, laughter or eye rolls. You can have these goals as the focus of your sessions or you can understand why they seem so scary or why you are avoiding them.

Through introspective, guided discussions and thought provoking questions, all held in a safe and private space, you can start building the courage to gain an insight into your motivations and start to understand the root cause of any challenges or issues you may have. Whether they are new to you or continual. This awareness can cultivate the possibilities to make positive changes wherever you feel are needed.

Quieten the noise of anxiety and stress

In therapy you can learn and develop new tools to deal with life’s stresses or any anxiety you may have currently. You can learn practices that will bring your life calm and we can identify triggers that may cause us to feel anxious or stressed. With the help of a trained professional therapist who has knowledge in various types of anxiety and stress relief and management techniques, you can create coping strategies that can be personalised to you.

When you are able to find and learn new coping skills and prevention or management techniques it can help you navigate through life with more ease than before. This in turn can help you achieve the things you want to achieve in a more productive and effective way. We do not think about brushing our teeth in the morning, we just do it. We know that if we don’t do this, the long term effects will not be beneficial to our physical health or even financial health. So we practice this habit day and night even though the short term effects aren’t as beneficial as the long term. As humans we are able to learn habits, practice them daily, until they become second nature, like teeth brushing. Mental health is no different. Sometimes we put off the habits that ‘‘take too much time’’ or ones we are ‘‘too busy for’’ because we do not see the effect of them straight away. Tools like breath work, or stressor limits can be done daily with the help of a therapist to guide you through how they can be done and what they may look like. For example a quick google search might tell you to practice meditation to relive stress and anxiety, but it might just be that that’s not for you. Working with a therapist can help you find what suits you, what helps, what you might even enjoy doing and what will bring the most help to your daily life and long term future self.

Of course, there are some things that life throws at us that we cannot control but what we can control is our reaction to them and how we keep ourselves balanced with good habits and practices and a level of self awareness. Therapy can help with this.

Create healthy relationships

Therapy can be so beneficial in enhancing communication skills, establishing healthy boundaries, and improving existing relationships. During therapy sessions, you can gain insight into current relationships, identify areas of struggle, and appreciate positive aspects of healthy relationships to foster their growth. Gaining an understanding of past relationships and their impact on your present life is another potential benefit of therapy.

In therapy you can have a space in which you feel safe to explore present, past, and current relationships without fear of judgement from others, or maybe a feeling of hurting another person. Here’s an example. A therapy client may have a great relationship with their mother today, but really suffered feeling acknowledged, supported or loved by her when they were growing up. Maybe their mother didn’t show them as much love as a sibling or maybe their mother was emotionally distant. As the client has a great relationship with their mother today as an adult, they may feel speaking about that relationship in a negative way or how they felt unsupported in their upbringing may hurt people’s feelings or possibly damage the relationship they have built today with their mother. “It’s in the past, let sleeping dogs lie”. However, your childhood is a huge part of who you are today and looking at it with and open heart and open mind will help create an awareness of who you are today, your possible strengths and weaknesses. So, in therapy that same client can openly go through the ins and outs of what that relationship means to them or how it may have affected them and they can gain insight into their own communication styles, their own relationship dynamics or maybe even resentments that they hold that are possible blocks to who they want to become. All without the worry of hurting someone’s feelings.

Not only can you have somewhere you can speak openly about your past or present relationships. Therapy is also a place where you can gain a deeper insight into how you communicate in relationships. How you show up. What triggers you to react in certain ways. What makes you feel secure and safe in relationships. What you are looking for in a person, whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship and why you want or need that.

You can use therapy to work through trust issues you may have due to past traumas or incidents. Trust is one of the main foundation blocks for any healthy relationships and without it, a relationship can quickly turn sore or become unable to function as it once did. In therapy you have an opportunity to focus on how you feel and how you may have been hurt in the past. You have an opportunity to address any current insecurities or lack of trust for others and work through them so as to have better relationships in the future.

With a trained therapist you can work through a number of relationship topics or issues such as exploring red flags, intimacy, new life changes for you or your significant other, trust building, emotional intimacy, conflict resolution and in turn create not only a healthy romantic relationship or friendship but be able to look deeper into your own relationship with yourself.

Learn to love yourself

Therapy is one of the best paths to take if you want to find self acceptance and in turn self love.

If you're struggling to accept yourself, therapy can be a valuable step towards exploring the root causes of your self-doubt. There may be underlying issues, such as upbringing, past traumas, or negative habits, that are holding you back. Therapy can help break down these barriers and encourage self-compassion, allowing you to silence the noise of self-criticism and negative self-talk.

In therapy there is an opportunity to identify negative self perceptions or self-limiting beliefs. Together with your therapist you can create a safe zone in which you can discuss and look at any past trauma or pain that has possibly shaped parts of you. It is a space in which you can address and heal old wounds and create a new space for forgiveness, a removal of self blame and start the process of self love. A good therapist will help you look at yourself with kind and understanding eyes, giving way for a new perspective. Allowing yourself to be human, both flawed and good enough. Both hurt and healed.

When you feel safe to explore all of these things, you can progressively work on accepting who you are and looking forward to who you want to become.

CONCLUSION…

We may put a lot of time, money and effort into our physical wellbeing or our careers. We invest in the things that give us that immediate sense of satisfaction. That great pump or sweat session in the gym. Hitting a deadline for a incoming pay rise. We make the time and effort when we need to but sometimes we put our mental health to the side in order to just ‘get on’ with the rest. What sometimes we cease to realise is that when we shift more focus on our mental health it improves ALL areas of our lives. Our relationships can improve when we understand them more. Our workouts or sports can improve when we learn our why’s and cultivate discipline and motivation. Our careers can flourish when we set goals and realise theirs more to us than our job title or that we can be happy in our jobs. Going to therapy is a gift that you give yourself. Allow yourself to invest in you for you and let it trickle down into every facet of your life.

There’s a lot to gain from going to therapy. The question is… What do you have to lose?

In the meantime. Stay safe, stay focused and keep going. You’ve got this!

Marian M.

If you would like to give therapy a try… Click the link above to arrange a consultation call today and see if therapy could be something for you. Or equally send an email to marian@innerstrengththerapies.com.