People come to therapy for lots of reasons. Often, it’s because they’ve hit a point in life where they realise that despite their best efforts, things just haven’t panned out the way they expected or wanted and they’re wondering whether there is more to life. Sometimes it’s because a partner has left them or betrayed them, and sometimes it’s a case of ‘I have all this yet I’m still not happy’, ‘I’ve given everything to my career and I don’t feel fulfilled’, or ‘I have given so much in my relationship and got very little in return and along the way I’ve lost myself’, or something else along those lines…
What I’m saying is that usually there’s some crux point or realisation that can’t be unseen and it’s usually around midlife… some used to refer to it as the ‘midlife crisis’. There is sound evidence for it being a real point in life where it’s now or never and change feels inevitable. It’s also usually when children have grown up and/or left home and there is more space to think and reflect and wonder what’s next. But it can be any time when the sense of unease, dissatisfaction or comparison creeps in.
What we are really talking about here are the unconscious ways of being and behaving in the world that determine the career paths we take, the partners we choose and how we feel about ourselves. Amongst other things. These core beliefs drive the decisions we make in every aspect of our lives. And until those unconscious motivations are brought into consciousness, they will run a person’s life and what that means is we will keep doing what we have always done. Regardless of whether it still works for us.
This is where therapy comes in. It’s fair to say that the events of your life are your ‘normal’ and it’s possible you think nothing really much of your experiences growing up. Maybe your parents divorced when you were young and you’ve told yourself “other people have it worse, we still had food to eat and we saw dad every other weekend.” Just because others have it worse and just because divorce is especially common, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an impact on the young developing child. That’s just an example but maybe you see what I mean. When I’m working with clients I’m interested in how they adapted to their early life challenges, in other words how they coped with life at that age when things changed and felt difficult. Who supported them and how were they supported. And what did they believe about themselves because of those happenings.
That doesn’t mean we have to be defined by our early lives and that’s the whole story but it can give us some idea of the level of upset that may have needed to be offset and from there we can start to piece together the unconscious drivers and decisions and maybe even the script we have lived our lives by up until this moment of conscious awareness and we can then make links between those decisions and the choices we have made.
This is all pretty hypothetical of course but hopefully you’re still with me and maybe it’s giving you something to reflect on for your own personal growth.
Therapy can help you gain awareness of the unconscious beliefs you have unknowingly been holding on to and once you have gained awareness you can begin to decide on which of those beliefs are in need of an update. Because if we never do that, we will keep on making the same decisions based off of old beliefs about ourselves concluded from the things that happened in our lives as children. When you have the awareness you can make a decision about how you want to be in the present as the adult you are now. You don’t ever need to change anything if you don’t want to, but at least if you know you can choose.
The other thing to consider is that until you’ve done the work on yourself to uncover your core beliefs it is likely you will continue to repeat old patterns of relating. You see, i believe we see as we are which means if we don’t know our triggers we will continue to remain triggered and react rather than respond and this can make relationships very complicated and difficult. We all have a unique way of experiencing and seeing the world and those around us based off of our early life experiences of ourselves, our carers and our life experiences. So If we have unresolved trauma, triggers and sensitivities will rise up and determine how we relate and react. And we will attract people who show us those aspects of ourselves. So the little girl who is used to a cold and distant father will find familiarity and comfort in a partner who is similar as opposed to loving and supportive. Having to suppress the true self to stay in relationships and work hard for love is a pattern many people barely realise they are doing until they have therapy.
Food for thought maybe…
So there are usually really deep reasons why we do the things we do, whatever that may be. Behaviour is just the presenting symptom of deeper unmet needs.
Every evening at around 6pm UK time we post a journaling prompt to our Instagram. Here is the link if you want to join us: @dialogueslife_
Journaling is a great way to reconnecting with yourself after a busy day of jobs, duty and competing priorities, re-claiming yourself and what’s important to you means prioritising a little of what you need to feel more yourself. Coming back to yourself gives you the opportunity to discover who you were always meant to be before all the decisions that helped you cope with the life that happened. It’s about making positive changes to create more of the kind of minute-by-minute joy you can feel grateful for in the here and now.
Join me every evening at around 6pm UK for our time to pause, reflect and re-connect with ourselves.
Dialogues 