Happiness and Therapy

I want to talk about the value of therapy. My own therapy and those of many clients. In a simplified form therapy is the looking at patterns and learning how to break through. How to act differently and feel differently, to feel better within ourselves.

It‘s not an easy thing to do, to open ourselves up, to admit our vulnerabilities, to drill down to explore where patterns started, things were painful back then, why go back? Why would we do that? Well, it strikes me that most of us wouldn‘t. I mean if we are looking for what is comfortable to us it‘s not this. Yet for some the question lingers in our bodies and in the back of our minds. Could I be more at ease and happier than I am? Is my past still dictating how I am in my present? Our whole body is a guidance system, like a GPS, it gives us direct feedback.

There are two types of well, one is physical and one could be said to be mental. If we end up with physical health conditions we go to a physical doctor, a GP. The doctor will often point to unhealthy patterns of behaviour that have led to that illness. The therapist will do something very similar with our thought patterns and emotions. And both of them will look to the body as the yardstick of change. Once you have been through the medicine there is a good chance you will feel better.

I know someone who doesn‘t care about their teeth, they are in a terrible condition, they don‘t want to change, it gives them pain and they live with that. And that‘s okay by me, It‘s their life. But you don‘t need to just ―put up with it‖.

Yet it requires a braveness. A braveness to get up and go to the GP if it‘s physical, or go to a therapist if it is mental. And of course we know that many of the physical illnesses stem directly from mental processes and the patterns of behaviour that follow. Many of those patterns are hidden to us because they have over time simply become our life.

In the short term at least it is easier, more comfortable, to not really look at them. Yet sometimes, just sometimes we can feel that nagging discomfort and let our honesty in. I‘m not actually happy in my relationship, or my work is crushing me, or I drink to hide something but I keep doing it. It takes a certain type of person at a certain time of their lives to look themselves squarely in the mirror and get support. Not everything in a mirror is easily seen, the back of our head for example.

A therapist will pick out the bits you didn‘t see. They will hear your story and notice the threads and place them in the light. They will notice the parts you didn‘t mention as well as the parts you did. They will notice the change in your tone of voice when talking about a certain subject. Or how your body moves when you speak. Your therapist helps you see what you have been ignoring or were not able to see. And you can not change what you can not see. And then to change your ways is up to you!